we finally have the google pixel 4a and
we're going to be taking a look right after this.
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hit subscribe followed by the bell, you can also keep up on facebook, instagram
and twitter by clicking the links in the description. so finally after all of the
delays we finally have the google pixel 4a to review we've covered it in so
many leaks and many of you out there may have been disappointed with the release
continually being pushed back but it could be well worth the wait before
we get into it though please like the video if you've been looking forward to
the pixel 4a let me know in the comments what phone you're watching this video on
the pixel 4a is of course the budget friendly version of the pixel 4 and the
pixel 4 xl but google have done things a little bit differently this time round
they've made sensible compromises to cut costs and they've also thrown in a
couple of improvements over its premium counterpart but we're going to cover it
all shortly we had leaks early on that the pixel 4a was going to see
a reduction in the price to better compete in the mid-range and google
really haven't let us down it's being released for just 350 pounds in the uk
or 350 dollars in the usa making it cheaper than both the iphone se
and the oneplus nord now it seems that google have managed the low
price tag on this phone by doing a few things firstly there is only
one pixel 4a well we normally get the choice of a standard or the xl this
time there's only one choice it's this one the standard pixel 4a with a 5.8
inch display they've also decided not to offer different ram and storage variants
there's just one choice which is 6 gigs of ddr4 ram with 128 gig storage and
finally there's only one color pixel to choose from and they've named this
just black having only one phone to mass produce that makes things much
easier for them and they can deliver a cheaper device to you so we're going to
start with the unboxing and then take an in-depth look at the google pixel 4a
i have the reviewers package here and it starts with a cardboard phone stand to
hold the pixel 4a we then get a quick start guide some jellies some small
pieces of flatbread and some juice it also came with a guide in italian and
this was to highlight the translation feature within the google lens
now next we've got the official retail packaging for the google pixel 4a
now straight away picking this up even the packaging feels much lighter than
i expected but it is no surprising as the pixel 4a weighs in at just 143 grams
if we open up the box we first get the pixel 4a and you can see it's exactly
the same as all of the leaks have been saying next we've got the manual and the
sim tool followed by the charger brick and a usbc cable so first things first
the specs and the design on the pixel 4a we've got a 5.81 inch full screen
display with this punch hole selfie camera in the top left it's a full
hd plus oled display with a resolution of 2340 by 1080 it's got a 24-bit color
depth hdr support and a 19 and a half by 9 aspect ratio giving us 443 pixels per
inch we've got a nice thin symmetrical bezel all the way around the phone which
i really like and i much prefer it over its premium counterpart but it
is worth noting that the chin is ever so slightly larger than the forehead but it
is barely noticeable the selfie camera in the top left is an 8 megapixel sensor
with an aperture of f 2.0 it's a 1.12 micrometer sensor with fixed focus
and an 84 degree field of view it takes 1080p photos and allows for 1080p
at 30 frames a second if you're taking a video there's no in-display fingerprint
scanner on the device and that's because on the back we have the return of the
physical fingerprint scanner and for me it's a very welcome return the pixel 4a
xl has been one of my favorite devices so far but i wasn't a fan of the solid
radar or its face unlock only you can see they've stuck with the square camera
module on the back which is an odd choice considering we only have one
camera but it is still a small module and it doesn't protrude much from the
case the camera appears to be the same camera as the pixel 4's primary camera
and that's a 12.2 megapixel camera with an aperture of f 1.7 and a 77 degree
field of view it's got a 1.4 micrometer sensor and it's got a dual pixel phase
detect autofocus as well as optical and electronic stabilization it's capable of
4k at 30 frames a second 1080p at 3060 or 120 and 720p at 30 60 or 240 frames
as well as this we also have the led flash now on top is something that's
going to please a lot of you out there and that's the return of the three and
a half mil headphone jack as well as a secondary mic on the right hand
side of the device we've got the accent power button as well as a volume rocker
on the bottom it's just a usb c port the primary mic and of course the speaker
grilles on the left side it's only got the sim card holder and there's no dual
sim support here so unfortunately it's just a single nano sim card although it
does also support esim now when it comes to the hardware running the google pixel
4a we've got the snapdragon 730g which isn't a flagship chipset but it's still
very capable nonetheless even when it comes to the more demanding gaming it
does fairly well we're going to cover it in more depth shortly we get six gigs of
ddr4 ram and that's coupled with 128 gig storage but of course being a pixel it
offers unlimited google photos at high picture quality for those that may be
worried about space it's all powered by a 3 140 milliamp hour battery with 18
watt fast charge and i found it to easily last a day and it of course
comes with android 10. so overall the pixel 4a is a decent choice for
those who want a cheap all-round phone but one that also takes decent photos
in the mainstream mid-range lineup this year it has been very competitive
with the nord in the se recently being released but the pixel automatically has
the advantage of being the cheapest of the three there are a few compromises
to get things cheaper but to be honest they are sensible and they shouldn't be
a problem for a start on the display we've got gorilla glass 3 instead
of the gorilla glass 6 that we're seeing in a lot of today's flagships
well it's not the latest it still offers good protection the oled display is also
bright and clear and it is a pleasure to use but unlike its premium counterpart
it's only a 60 hertz display another way it's also been made cheaper is the
lack of an ip rating now manufacturers generally add sales to prevent water
damage but official ip ratings do cost much more money in manufacturing which
means it's going to be a more expensive device for consumers so in this instance
google left it out now general use of this phone has been great with a capable
chipset it easily powers the stock android 10 we get with the pixel 4a and
another good point to mention is that we're guaranteed at least three years
of software updates the fingerprint lock works very well and quickly but another
thing to mention here is that face unlock has been removed we don't even
get a choice of a 2d face unlock with the pixel 4a the full hd plus resolution
is more than enough to keep things looking crystal clear whether you're
texting watching media or just browsing through your socials and thanks to the
six gigs of ram it's incredibly smooth and able to keep things running in the
background something else i'm pleased with but maybe an unpopular opinion
is the removal of the active edge for those unaware the pixel 4 and
the 4xl has an active edge so when you squeeze it it activates google assistant
but personally i never used the feature and i just found myself
accidentally pressing it when i was putting it into my car mount now the
most important thing to most people is of course going to be the camera and the
camera is incredible it's essentially giving you the same quality and results
as the pixel 4 or the pixel 4 xl at a much cheaper cost well the 4 and the 4xl
did actually have two cameras the second one was a 16 megapixel telephoto with
two times optical zoom and at least in my opinion it was very unnecessary also
while many other budget phones out there are giving you three or four different
cameras i think the pixel 4a has the right idea give us one camera but make
it good now i've only had this phone for a week but straight away you can see the
great quality of the photos we get great dynamic range more natural color tones
and incredible sharpness and detail i've taken many photos out and about in
daylight and you can see the high level of details and colors more true to form
when using the camera it does offer five times digital zoom but personally
i would stay away from that if you want to zoom in then just do it in post if
you have to as with all digital zooms it pretty much loses all of the detail
and begins to look more like a painting on the rear camera i've taken a variety
of different shots and they've all come out brilliantly on the pixel 4a we still
get the live hdr plus with exposure controls so this means that we can
see on our viewfinder what the image is going to look like before we're
taking the photo and we can make any adjustments we need i even tried some
up close shots for those who may miss a macro lens and you can see it's done
a great job here although we do start to lose some focus away from the center
when it comes to the portrait or bokeh shots it's also doing an incredible
job here if you look at this photo it's really found at the edge of the subject
well we've got all of her in focus and still a nice clean cut onto the blurred
background the great thing about the pixels is that they also offer us the
standard image as well as the blurred i also tried this on a glass which is
of course a much more difficult task and the software again has done a great job
the glass is fully in focus with a nice blurred background although if we zoom
in a bit we can see the only error here is it struggled slightly around the rim
next we move on to the nighttime photography now google has a nighttime
mode which really brightens up the image and gives us much better quality photos
at night the downside is that it does take a little longer to shoot the photo
but it can be worth the wait the first photo is here and as you can see it's
very dark and gloomy but it was true to what i was seeing i then took another
shot with the night mode and it looks almost as if i've turned on the flash
but i can assure you i haven't for some it may be too bright but of course
you could reduce it in post and in areas with a bit of lighting it doesn't make
too much difference although we can see from these images that it
definitely whitens things up overall i think it's a great feature and while
it does brighten things up a little too much sometimes it does get rid of a lot
of the noise in the darker areas now when it comes to video it's also got
great performance from the rear camera now as i said earlier it unfortunately
is limited to 30 frames a second when shooting 4k video but it does offer us
detailed natural looking videos with great stabilization everything stays
nice and focused and there's no camera shake even when i'm walking again we
do get the five times digital zoom in the video but i advise against using it
even at just five times digital zoom we get a lot more camera shake a lot more
noise and we pretty much lose all of the detail now overall it is great for video
and the sound from the mic is also good quality but just keep in mind if video
is your main focus then the lack of 60 frames a second at 4k could be an issue
that being said if you drop the video down to 1080p then you can choose 60
frames recording from the selfie camera was also pretty good there's no optical
stabilization but it does seem to be doing some electronic stabilization
on this camera we've got 1080p and 30 frames a second is the max setting but
overall it's good video quality we have to remember through all of this that
it's just a 350 phone for selfie photos it also does a great job but we've got
nice detail and natural looking photos now when it comes to a cheaper chipset
like the snapdragon 730 many seem to think that that means you won't be
able to game but they are completely wrong phones have become so powerful
these days more you won't see the same high scores in the synthetic benchmarks
as you do on the flagships in real world use it's great even for gaming i first
tested this with pubg mobile i went straight into the settings and put it on
the highest settings the application supports there was no need to make
any changes from the highest settings as when opening it up the game plays
perfectly as you can see it's running perfectly smooth and it looks great
a great thing about this for gamers is also the three and a half mil headphone
jack although the pixel 4a speakers are good and perfectly capable for gaming
next i installed call of duty mobile and again i just put it on the max detail
setting straight away there was no need to change these as the game looks great
and it's buttery smooth i like the punch hole camera being in the top left as
it's not even noticeable due to my thumb covering it up when i'm playing now
finally we head over to asphalt 9 where again it works looks perfectly and i've
got the whole thing set on full detail now i have to say on this occasion i
did notice a slight difference on full on full settings it ran fine and it was
still very enjoyable but i did notice when dropping to the default settings
it definitely provided a smoother more stable frame rate but overall this is
still an adequate contender for the mobile gamers just the only trade-off
we've got here is of course the 60hz display if gaming is your main priority
and you need high refresh rates then it might be worth looking elsewhere
now for those of you out there who do care about the synthetic benchmarks i've
ran it through geekbench 5. on geekbench we got a single core score of 2520
and a multi-core score of 6362. battery life for this phone is also pretty
decent some worry about the smaller batteries but it easily lasted me the
day with general use with an 18 watt quick charge it doesn't take long to
charge it back up when i go out walking i do actually use two separate apps
that both use gps so they're a heavy drain on battery and in this instance i
had 90 when i started and dropped down to 30 in three hours which isn't bad
as all my phones pretty much do the same now i'm a huge fan of stock android as
you get the nice android interface without all of the bloat everything
works as you want and you get a guaranteed three years of software
updates i know a lot of you have been very excited for this phone and although
i wish it came sooner i think it has lived up to the expectations
if you want a cheaper phone it ticks the boxes and it's a good choice if you want
an all-rounder phone it's still a good choice and if you want a cheap phone
that takes incredible photos then it's a great choice google are definitely
making the right decisions and stepping back from overpowering their phones
and focusing on what the people actually want and of course when it comes to a
pixel that's good photos as i said i've only had this for seven days to
use as my daily phone but i think i've pretty much seen everything i need to
personally i won't be sticking with this myself and it's nothing to do with the
performance for me it is just too small i've always preferred bigger displays
and i think the minimum for me now is going to be about a 6.2 inch display
but i have enjoyed using this phone and it's been great but just especially when
typing on a much smaller keyboard i have been struggling the overall build
quality is also great the volume rocker and the power buttons are very clicky
and the matte black finish on the back provides plenty of grip
and it also seems to stop fingerprints it doesn't seem to chip easily as i've
got no marks on this phone since the day it arrived and although the back is made
of plastic instead of glass it doesn't really feel cheap it's also very light
due to it being plastic as well as its size but i think overall it definitely
gets the thumbs up from me i'll go into more depth when i've had a bit more time
to use it but for now i'm gonna say if you're after a mid-range android phone
that won't break the bank then the pixel 4a definitely needs to be considered
it's available to purchase right now on google's website and as i said it's 350
pounds if you're in the uk 350 dollars if you're in the usa and the links to
buy are down in the description below also apologies for anyone waiting on
the final leaks as always when they send me the product i can't discuss
it any longer so for the past seven days my lips have been fully sealed
as always though if you've got any questions or want to know more
then just ask in the comments and i'll get back to you as soon as i can
but thanks for watching the video if you liked it smash the thumbs up
if you didn't hit the thumbs down twice and i'll see you guys in the next one
you