Google Pixel 3a review By Chris Fox

This week had got to try out the pixel three a and three AXL Google's new, cheaper phones. These are my first impressions for this video I'm gonna focus on the pixel three a and how it compares to the pixel three. So taking a look at the hardware. First 3a is a bit larger than the three. The original had a 5.5-inch screen, and this has got a 5.6 inch display, apart from that, they do look really similar, there's not much between it, although they did change the color of the power button from green to orange. Just to make sure everybody knows, you got the cheaper phone, so obviously a few things have been removed from the phone to bring the costs down.

One of those is wireless charging which I'm not sure is that big a deal we can probably live without that also those dual front-facing speakers they've gone from the phone instead, there's now a speaker in the bottom of the phone they've also removed one of the two selfie cameras from the pixel three, to be honest, I shouldn't even realize there were two selfie cameras in the front of the pixel 3, but there were one was a wide-angle, so you can take pictures around the dinner table. That's gone in the 3a, there's only one selfie camera here, but it still does a good job. Something else that's gone is the 3a and 3a XL or not water-resistant and I. Think that's a slightly bigger deal because, even though it's not an essential feature, it's really nice to have and when you've had a phone that is water-resistant. It gives you a lot of peace of mind that you can take it near water, and it's not going to get damaged.

So it's disappointing that they couldn't make this water resistant -. Another way they've saved money in this is by putting in a slightly older processor, a bit more on that later and while they've been busy taking features away, they have actually added something back in the Pixel 3a and three AXL. Both have a headphone jack now about the processor they've put in here. I do hear a lot of people say how can phone companies charge so much money when they're using old, chipsets well Google says because it works on the software and the hardware together, it's been able to use all its software expertise and AI to counteract the fact that it's got a slightly older chip in there. So it's been able to optimize all its software in reality, I don't know how well that will work out in the long run, but certainly for using apps like Instagram or watching to videos, I didn't notice the phone being slow or sluggish, and when you take one of those portrait shots, and it uses its AI to cut out the person and blur out the background, it didn't take any longer to process those pictures than it did on the pixel.3 I also tried a few more processor intensive things, so I played a bit of fortnight that seemed absolutely fine. I also tried out the new AR mode in Google Maps, which is coming to the pixel phones first, and that ran pretty smoothly to that overlays you're walking directions over the camera view, so it shows you exactly where to go, and you can see more of me using that in the report I made for BBC News.

One thing Google told me it wanted to keep just as good is the camera. Pixel phones usually have a good reputation for taking nice pictures, and this phone is no different in the test. Shots I took I, didn't really notice a difference in quality compared to the pixel 3, maybe slightly different color reproduction. The biggest difference I noticed was in portrait mode where, by default it seems to zoom in a little further than the pixel 3, and also it made a bit of a pig's ear of cutting out my pictures. There was a very noticeable difference in how accurately both the main camera and the selfie camera cut out.

My pictures on the pixel 3 a so all in all they've done away with some features of the pixel 3 to make the phone cheaper, and that seems fairly sensible to me. Google originally wanted the pixel phones to be premium, but I don't know if a Google branded phone is ever really going to feel premium because of the Google brand and because of the services they're going to put on there. We all know that Google's main business is ads and your personal data and on this phone there's Google on the home screen, there's Google over here, there's Google. If you squeeze the phone there's Google in the camera and when the phone is new, there are so many prompts and pushes to add a Google account and opt into Google services and switch on Google tracking features. It feels a lot like if you've ever bought an Amazon Kindle e-reader, you can either buy the regular one or you can have it a bit cheaper if you switch on special offers and special offers basically puts ads on the home screen at the Kindle and that's a bit what the pixel feels like I feel like it would be a perfect phone.

If you could do Google it and I know, there's an argument that why would you buy a Google phone if you didn't want to opt into all the Google services I get that but having Google branding everywhere. You turn on the phone somehow makes it feel a lot less premium so being able to reduce it to 399 pounds at least makes that an easier pill to swallow.

Source : Chris Fox