Google Pixel 3a (XL) Review! By Tim Schofield

Amber one tip Schofield here and very recently, Google has decided to enter the mid-range smartphone market with the Pixel 3a and Pixel 3a XL. Now these start at $400, so a very competitive price point in comparison to a lot of other flagships out there and of course you get a couple of things that are on par with other flagships right now and yes, some sacrifices are made, so we will go ahead and talk about the highs and lows of both of these phones. Now this will kind of serve as a review from both of the devices, because really the only differences is the size. Of course the phone size itself display size and then, of course, the battery size. So battery life differs a little. So I will talk about that throughout this video.

But with that being said, let's go ahead, a get started on the full of you all right. So, let's begin with design of the two phones. Now I did just factory reset the 3a for a good reason, and you might want to follow me on Instagram. I will link to it down below looking at the back of the phone believe it or not. These are two different colors white on the right and then purplish on the left.

Depending on how the light hits it, it does look a little purple at times you will see a couple different colored power buttons, the standard, looking pixel phones with a reflection up towards the top of the phone and then just a polycarbonate plastic ii feel which actually gives it a bit of a lighter, feel to it also a little more durable of a feel I'm, not necessarily afraid it's going to completely chip when I drop it because of course it is not a glass back and again like I mentioned, the display sizes are a little different in terms of holding the phone. I probably prefer the smaller one for day-to-day use for multimedia consumption. Obviously, I want the bigger display and then, of course, every time I would choose the XL variant because of that bigger battery life, and that's about it in terms of design wise everything else is very, very similar on the two phones. One thing absolutely worth mentioning is that there are stereo speakers, so one speaker right here and then the earpiece acts as that second stereo speaker- and these are very, very good speakers. Considering that price point I would assume they would have skimped out on stereo speakers, but they did not.

So thank you, google for actually including solid stereo speakers in a $$480400 advice at the top of the device you will see. There is a headphone jack which they were very pleased to announce when they announced this phone and then, of course, a single camera on the back, which does have a little of a bump, nothing crazy and then a fingerprint scanner, which is extremely quick and accurate, and also when it comes to that fingerprint scanner. You can, of course, I'm locked the phone, but you can also swipe down with it and bring down your notification tray and swipe it back up. So a really nice addition to that with that fingerprint scanner. Of course, at this price point they needed to sacrifice some features, one of them being.

It does not have Gorilla Glass. It actually has a glass called dragon tray, a dragon tail dragon trail glass on it, so I would honestly recommend putting a screen protector on this phone if you do decide to buy it, just in case now a few more things that they did not include that other you might see in other flagships. First, no wireless charging is included in this phone, no expandable storage. It only comes in 64 gigs. However, of course you have Google photos to back up all your photos for free, so that kind of mitigates the need for that hardware.

Storage in another area that they saved money on is by not including water resistance. So there's no ip68 rating and no there's just nothing to do with it. Having a headphone jack, because Samsung phones have a headphone jack, and they have that waterproof reduce that has nothing to do with it. For those of you that we're posting about that, but it just does not have it because, of course they needed to save money to charge. You less and, of course, the bezels on this phone are very large when comparing it to other flagships.

Right now, there is no notch. As you can see. However, there is a big forehead, a big chin as well, and even the side bezels are fairly large. So just kind of keep that in mind. If you're, someone that really wants a good-looking phone in terms of less bezel you're going to have to probably go to for a more flagship design.

Now this is a 1080p OLED display, which is great to see in a mid-range device, six inches on the XL and then 5.6 inches on the 3a. Now, when it comes down to it, it's a solid display, and you pretty much get what you expect, if not a little more, because it is OLED instead of LCD, the colors look good. It does not compare to other 1440p AMOLED displays out there in one area that I wish was a little better was brightness I find that I have to actually manually bump up the brightness a lot in certain situations and when you're outside it just doesn't get quite as bright as I would have liked. Of course, a big perk of it being an OLED display is that you get true blacks, you'll, see and always on display, which was the time some weather the date and even your battery percentage. So Google does a good job with always-on displays.

Moving on. Let's talk about battery life, 3,700 million powers in the Excel 3000 in the a and, of course you do get about 30 minutes extra screen on time, with the Excel variant and I get about six hours screen on time with the Excel, so perfect battery life well above average for me easily gets me through a day and a half. It does have fast charging as well. If you're worried about that, so one huge plus of this phone is, of course, the battery life. Now, let's move on to one of the best, if not the best feature on this mid-range device, and that is the camera.

This is a flagship camera on this phone. So a huge selling point at this price point is, of course, this camera. Now it does a perfect job at image. Processing, it's extremely quick and snappy. The only time I've noticed a difference between the three and the 3a is when taking portrait shots, because, of course it needs to process it.

So when you go into the shot, you'll see, processing right down, there I find that that takes longer than it did on the three. So that is one thing: it's just photo. Processing takes a bit longer, so you're, just going to have to be a little patient when you take, maybe one of those portrait shots or a night sight shot, and then, of course, when you go to the front facing camera, it still is one of the best selfie cameras out there. But of course you lose that wide-angle lens on the front, so just kind of keep that in mind that the three actually had. So those are the main differences and again I.

Don't want to go too crazy in depth into this, because, of course, I did that with the three and as I mentioned processing with the photos. That is because there's actually a different processor in this phone than there is on the three. This has the Snapdragon 670 processor, which is more of a mid-range processor. So if maybe you do a lot of high-end gaming or a lot of multitasking, you might want to try and actually go for a better chipset overall, but by no means is a 678 bad chip whatsoever. So let's go ahead and go home and maybe do some multitasking go into the Play Store here swipe up go home there.

You will notice here and there. If you have a lot of chrome, tabs open or a lot of apps open. You may be a little of slow loading times here in there. It does have four gigs of RAM as well. So if we go ahead and go through, maybe jump back into settings go into digital well-being go home, maybe snap a quick picture, real, quick there in there and there go back home now, let's go back to a recent apps tab and then hop back into that game.

After doing all of that, and you will see it is reloading. That is because the four gigs of ram does get choked a little. It shouldn't be as aggressive as that, though. This should not have had to reload there, but, like I said it will occasionally just not be enough if you are a heavy user of your phone, like I, said a lot of multitasking or heavy gaming. Now, since this phone is from Google, you will get Android updates right away.

This is on the latest Android 9pi right now. This will get Android Q right when it comes out. This I believe October. So you can expect that to come with some new gestures and new features coming, so it is always nice to be able to get the latest and greatest on your phone with updates like the three you can still squeeze the phone and activate that Google Assistant I'm, a fan I have to push up the pressure all the way up, so I, don't accidentally trigger it, so I really kind of have to squeeze to activate it, which I'm a fan of I, don't want to have to accidentally activate the assistant all the time and finally, to recap: these are probably the best phones you can get for the money right now. Definitely the best camera you can get for that price point.

You still get great battery life, so those are the two main things: great camera, great battery life, two of the big things and even the display is solid as well. So you've got three solids on this phone. Of course, like I mentioned, you do have to make sacrifices. If you are someone that uses your phone heavily all the time with gaming or multitasking that processor might slow things down a little. Of course, four gigs of ram might not bode well for the long-term future.

If you plan to have this phone for maybe over a year and a half now with all of that being said, this is absolutely a recommendation for me. I actually I've already recommended this to multiple family members as a phone that they should pick up because it has been so solid and just that battery life and camera crazy, that you can get that in a $400 phone. So I hope you enjoyed the video be sure to click that thumbs up be sure to subscribe as well a lot more videos coming in the near future be sure to follow on various social media, all links in the description, video below and as always guys. Thank you very much for watching.

Source : Tim Schofield