Google Pixel 3a review: The affordable Pixel champion

With the Pixel 4 series hitting store shelves – with high price tags to match – let's take a look back at what's arguably the best overall Pixel Google has ever made. Seeming to draw inspiration from the earlier Nexus philosophy, the Pixel 3a offers a top-notch Android experience at a bargain price. And with prices creeping up on traditionally affordable models from brands like OnePlus, this Pixel variant is a shining example of what can be achieved in the under $500 segment. I'll save my opinions of the $799 Pixel 4 starting price for the upcoming review, but if less than $400 can buy something as capable as the Pixel 3a, why would anyone spend twice as much? Yes, that's a bit of a rhetorical question, but you get my point. You're getting a solid OLED display, one of the best cameras at any price, a pure Android experience with the fastest update schedule and a slick design that's anything but cheap (although it is plastic). As far as I'm concerned, this is what the Pixel series is supposed to be about, but I digress. Let's take a closer look at how the Pixel 3a fares as a daily driver.

Design

At first glance, the Pixel 3a looks very much like the Pixel 3 and unless you're familiar with the latter, you'd be hard pressed to tell them apart. There are differences, however, starting with the absence of a front facing speaker on the bottom of the Pixel 3a (see the Pixel 3 below).

The phone doesn't abandon a stereo speaker setup as a bottom firing speaker works in tandem with the top front speaker/earpiece. The Pixel 3a is also just a bit taller than the Pixel 3, sporting a 5.6-inch display compared to 5.5 inches. A single front-facing camera replaces the dual-camera setup on the Pixel 3 as well, but otherwise the fronts are the same. The bezels are almost symmetrical on the Pixel 3a with a slightly larger bottom chin. For all intents and purposes, however, the Pixel 3 and Pixel 3a are twin brothers with slightly different haircuts.

The back of the Pixel 3a is nearly identical to the Pixel 3, save for a small sensor between the rear camera and flash that's missing on the 3a. While the Pixel 3 used a sheet of two-tone glass, the Pixel 3a opts for plastic as a cost saving measure. It looks exactly the same, but does feel less premium. A single camera sits on the top left with a dual-LED flash at right. Just under the glossy top section is a fingerprint scanner and a classy, subtle G is printed near the bottom. And that's all there is to it. Color options include Just Black, Clearly White and Purple-ish.

The bottom features a single speaker and microphone (in identical slots) and USB-C port that supports fast charging with an included 18W charger. The top has an unexpected and appreciated 3.5mm headphone jack, which was removed from the Pixel line since the Pixel 2, and a microphone port.

The power button sits above the volume rocker on the right side, both nice and clicky, and the SIM tray is on an otherwise blank left side.

Although the Pixel 3a is made of plastic (other than the glass display), it almost weighs the same as the aluminum and glass Pixel 3 (147g vs 148g). This can be attributed to the larger size (151.3 x 70.1 x 8.2 mm vs 145.6 x 68.2 x 7.9 mm) and larger battery (3,000mAh vs 2,915mAh). That satisfying cold feel of metal and glass is missing when you pick up the Pixel 3a, although it's a moot point if you're using a case, but it still looks and feels like a quality, dare I say expensive phone. One thing to note is that the Corning Gorilla Glass 5 on the Pixel 3 screen has been “downgraded” to Asahi Dragontrail Glass on the Pixel 3a. Both have excellent oleophobic coatings to resist and easily remove fingerprints, but you're losing a bit of durability with the latter. In my experience with the two glass types, however, both are comparably resistant to scratches. The IP68 rating for water and dust resistance on the Pixel 3 is also missing from the Pixel 3a, but there's a reason why this phone is half the price. You're getting the same general smartphone experience without external bells and whistles, and that's definitely something I can live with for under $400.

Hardware

Performance

Not all of the specs are at a flagship level, but that's also not the point of this phone. The Snapdragon 670 powers stock Android Pie (upgraded to Android 10) with ease, keeping everyday tasks as fluid as the more powerful Pixel 3 with a Snapdragon 845 (both phones have 4GB of RAM). I'm admittedly not a hardcore gamer, but everything I played on the Pixel 3a ran without a stutter, including resource intensive games like The Walking Zombie 2 and N.O.V.A. Legacy. The stereo speaker setup is worthy of a flagship device with excellent volume and base, but the combination of a front facing and bottom firing speaker is less ideal than the front facing counterparts on the Pixel 3. This is largely due to the fact that your hand can cover the bottom speaker while holding the phone in landscape.

The 5.6-inch OLED display is 1080p with an 18.5:9 aspect ratio. At 441ppi, it's basically identical to the 443ppi Pixel 3 display. The panel is excellent as colors pop with solid viewing angles, an upgrade from the more muted Pixel 2 and on par with the Pixel 3. And although it's “only” 1080p, anything over 400ppi on a screen under six inches is about as sharp as it gets. Brightness maxes out at around 400 nits, which is below average, but it was still (mostly) usable in direct sunlight when cranked to 100%. This was the only disappointment.

Both the Pixel 3a and larger Pixel 3a XL come with 64GB of storage, and neither offers a higher configuration or expandable storage. Unlimited uploads to Google Photos has been downgraded to a compressed “high quality,” not original quality as seen on the Pixel 3. These are definite downsides, but still competitive in its class. You can pay for original quality uploads or use other cloud services like Dropbox if additional storage is needed.

Battery

Battery life has been a pleasant surprise and better than on the Pixel 3. I averaged well over five hours of screen-on time and this was with a Samsung Galaxy Watch continuously tethered. I always made it through a full day and rarely had to top off for the night, but the 18W fast charger needed only 10 minutes or so to provide the boost I needed. More often than not, I ended the night with around 25% left. Adaptive Battery limits power to apps you rarely use and Google's battery saver options can extend things significantly more, but performance will naturally take a hit.

Wireless charging from the Pixel 3 is absent on the Pixel 3a, but again that's not surprising for a phone at half the cost. The upside is that battery endurance is again excellent and the USB-C charger is fast, giving you an average of seven hours of use with a 15-minute charge.

Software

The Pixel 3a shipped with Android Pie, but has since been upgraded to Android 10 and that'll be the focus here. As with all Pixel phones, it's first in line for software updates. Not much has changed visually with the exception of a dark mode, called Dark theme. Although not quite as system-wide as on Samsung's One UI, it's close. You can see it in action in the screenshots above and below. It not only looks cool, but genuinely saves battery life on OLED panels as only the active pixels are used.

System apps like Gmail, Chrome and the Play Store are compatible, along with popular 3rd party apps like Twitter and Instagram that have their own native dark modes. So, between Android 10's Dark theme and dark modes on other apps, you can black out a lot of your core software. A quick note – Twitter's current dark mode is dark, but not black. A new “lights out” mode is currently rolling out to Android users that will truly make it dark. And more apps will become compatible with Google's system-wide dark mode in the near future.

Android 10 focuses a lot on making privacy more convenient. For example, in prior versions you could either allow apps to use your location or not at all. In Android 10, you can choose to allow apps to use your location only when they're actively being used. Another cool addition involves sharing WiFi. Instead of having to provide a password, you can create a QR code to be scanned. A new privacy section in settings provides a clear list of permissions that apps have access to – location, microphone, camera, etc. It's now easier to see what apps are up to and manage them according to your privacy needs.

I won't make an exhaustive list of changes and you can read more about what's new in Android 10 here. Privacy upgrades and Dark theme are the big ones for me, but there are also a lot of small improvements that make this a worthy upgrade. A final one to talk about is Live Caption, which will only be available on Pixel 4 devices at launch, but will trickle down to older Pixels by the end of the year. This will offer a live-caption on any video being played on your phone without the need for a data connection. If you're in an indoor public setting or are hearing impaired, this is a very cool feature.

Active Edge remains on the Pixel 3a, allowing you to squeeze the phone to pull up Google Assistant or silence an incoming call, but as before, you can't change these default settings. Phones from HTC with the feature allow users to reprogram Active Edge to open whatever they'd like. I guess the limitation here is just a Google thing (Samsung's guilty of this kind of “monopoly” as well with their Bixby button).

Camera

One of the best things about the Pixel 3a is the rear camera, which is the same as that on the flagship Pixel 3. Well, almost… The Pixel 3a doesn't have the enhanced power of Google's Pixel Visual Core, a custom Image Processing Unit (IPU) first seen on the Pixel 2. At times, especially in low light, it shows. But for 90% of everything you shoot, it'll match its flagship brother. HDR and dual-pixel phase detection autofocus are onboard, along with optical image stabilization (OIS). The main camera is 12.2MP at f1.8 with a wide 28mm field. As with the Pixel 3, outdoor shots are outstanding with exposure, sharpness and color saturation all on point. A combination of dark and light subjects with a scattering of shadows never tripped it up, and everything in the images remained well balanced.

As the sun went down, images remained well balanced and sharp. The church and sky below look brighter than they did to my naked eye. This was without Night Sight enabled, which I'll talk about later in this section. You can also see a little distortion from the wide angle lens (tower leans a bit left, for example).

Indoor shots were equally impressive and the Pixel 3a handled low light situations with ease. My cat below was in a dimly lit room.

Night shots were solid overall, but this is where the Pixel 3 has an edge. Apparently without the Pixel Visual Core, image processing can struggle in the dark. Everything was sharp and well exposed, but both noise and lens flare from bright lights made themselves known. For a $399 shooter, however, the shots are outstanding.

Night Sight is almost as impressive on the Pixel 3a as the older Pixel 3. It was a little inconsistent, but still among the best night modes on a smartphone camera. The shots below were taken in the dead of night and the left ones are about what I saw with my naked eye.

Portrait mode is generally the same as on the Pixel 3 and still very impressive for a single lens. Borders around a subject are well defined and the bokeh effect appears natural. I'm curious to test this on the Pixel 4 with a second rear camera. It even worked fairly well on a moving cat.

Similar to previous Pixels, the camera is robust but relatively simple, offering cool options without a comprehensive set of manual controls. And as before, this will be fine for the vast majority of users as performance is top notch. A new addition is Time Lapse, which is similar to the iOS feature and allows you to convert anywhere from 50 seconds to 20 minutes of video into short, super fast clips measured in seconds. Other favorites like Slow Motion, Photo Sphere and Lens are included as well.

Playground is another fun one that lets you insert animations into both stills and video. You can download additional packages for characters from Marvel movies, Detective Pikachu and more. It's not new to the Pixel 3a, but always a fun time killer.

On the video front, the main camera can shoot 4K video at 30fps and 1080p at 30/60/120fps. A combination of Optical Image Stabilization (OIS) and Electronic Image Stabilization (EIS) keeps video very stable when on the move. The front facing camera is an 8MP shooter at f/2.0 at a wider 24mm. It also has HDR and can shoot 1080p video at 30fps. Portrait mode and Night Sight are available on the selfie camera as well.

Although there are some missing features, most notably the second ultrawide front facing camera from the Pixel 3 and powerful Pixel Visual Core, both cameras hit well above their weight class and you won't find a better set on anything in this price range. They're actually better than the majority of smartphone cameras at any price, which makes an already compelling smartphone a no-brainer for those on a budget.

Closing

Two of my favorite phones of all time are the Nexus 5 and Nexus 6p, affordable Google powerhouses that stepped aside for the more expensive Pixel series. The Pixel 3a harkens back to the height of the Nexus days when just a few hundred dollars got you the best experience Google could offer. The cameras on the new phone are better than the price would suggest and I have full confidence every time I'm ready to shoot. There isn't another $399 phone I can say that about.

Of course, as with the older Nexus series, you're first in line for software updates with a Pixel. This one shipped with Android Pie, but upgraded to Android 10 as soon as it launched (and will continue for the next three years, guaranteed). Although this is considered a “budget” device, largely because the price says so, there are few compromises. The plastic build could be a turnoff for some, but it's still a solid, well designed phone. The stereo speakers are excellent, you're getting the elusive headphone jack and the OLED screen is at the same level as the Pixel 3. The processor has been downgraded, although the software runs without a hitch regardless, and the lack of expandable storage is a bummer (especially with the downgraded uploads to Google Photos). But the Pixel 3a is a complete smartphone that'll satisfy the needs of just about anyone who buys one, no matter their budget. Just don't get it wet…

If you made it this far in the review, congrats. It'll all be in the final exam. The Pixel 4 devices are now hitting store shelves with intriguing new hardware and advanced facial recognition that replaces the traditional fingerprint scanner. It kind of follows Apple's Face ID footsteps, but things must evolve. The starting price is $799, while a new Pixel 3a with the same general experience sells for only $399. You're also getting a 3.5mm headphone jack and rear fingerprint scanner, both of which are absent on Google's latest. The larger Pixel 3a XL is less than a hundred dollars more at $479. There are amazing phones out there like the Samsung Galaxy Note 10 and OnePlus 7 Pro, but pound for pound (as they say in boxing), the Pixel 3a is the Android phone of the year.