Google Pixel 4a unboxing and first impressions By Neowin

Hey guys, I'm Richard Newman today we're unboxing the Google Pixel 4a. Finally, right so this thing um seems originally supposed to be announced back in May and then a pandemic happens and things just kind of got delayed from there. Just like last year, the Google Pixel 3a was announced at their. I o uh 2019 developer conference. That was the first a series. What happened this year was, I o got cancelled first, it moved to a digital event, and then it got canceled completely and then the Pixel 4a launch got kind of lost for a little.

So I have some other pixels here right. This was the first pixel ever reviewed. It was the three XL and I've fallen in love with this line of phones, but the thing is they're all very similar because they all kind of use the same camera. Still you know um. This is the 3a XL.

This was announced last year. It's the first a series. So the idea behind this- and the reason that I have it out is that this is meant to provide a more inexpensive experience without sacrificing features. So it's really about providing that flagship experience, but in a more inexpensive package and that's where the a series comes in there's no XL model this year, it's just the 4a, and it's still like you get all the camera features that you get from a pixel. You know the um, the new Castro photography is in there um you get all the um instant updates and instant updates.

Isn't the right word you get day. One updates is what I'm saying so like if there's a new android update, you're one of the first to get it with a Pixel 4a or any pixel okay, um now playing is a cool feature, was probably one of my favorites. That's where, on the always on display it like, if there's a song playing it just kind of, tells you what's playing, so you don't have to open up like a Shazam app or anything like that. It's pretty cool um. So this phone has a snapdragon, 730 g processor.

Now not a 5g chipset. If they want a 5g they could have, and they would have used something like a 765. But there is a Pixel 4a 5g coming later on this year and that probably will have a snapdragon 765 and then the pixel 5, of course, will apparently also have the 765. Another thing that's new is that the display is OLED, so we should have prettier, colors, blacker, blacks, you know good stuff, um and that's by the way they've use doled before on the flagships. This is the pixel 4.

Um they've use doled before, but I'm not on the series the Pixel 3a had an LCD, and honestly it was all right. Some things are still missing. Wireless charging is still missing. Sadly, it's still made of plastic. If you want glass, you have to get the regular pixel series um and again also if you want wireless charging.

Obviously, but the camera like I said, the camera is pretty much. The same. Google hasn't changed much about the sensor at all. Over the years we have uh dual cameras on the pixel 4, but that's not on here. We do have that same square camera module, though, which is kind of weird and a little annoying, considering that there's that, like square camera modules, are designed to fit multiple camera lenses.

So if you only have one camera lens, you know there's no actual reason to do that. Another thing that doesn't exist with the Pixel 4a is choice. It comes in black, just black and that's actually the name of the color too, just black, because this comes in just black. You know, and this is the first pixel it's the first pixel it has a XL model. This is the first pixel that that hasn't come in more than one color and a lot of people have said that it feels like Google's heart, just isn't in it anymore when it comes to phones.

I don't know that I would agree. I do feel, like google, maybe might be taking a step back from their smartphone efforts and kind of like regrouping a little and saying like hey. Maybe we need to rethink a few things because there have been some serious missteps over the years and- and you know I can show you on these devices right here- that there's a lot. That's that's just wrong like, for instance, there's a massive notch on the pixel 3 XL like it's huge and they kind of hide it, but by using something of the black background here. But if I swipe up, then I pull up a browser.

You can see that that huge notch- and that was another thing with the pixel 4 it's its- that they had this big bezel and they showed off uh radar like the sole radar, and you look at this kind of stuff, and you're like why and then the battery life wasn't great. It is like battery was an issue with the pixel 4 series for a lot of people. I didn't really have a problem with that. I kind of loved it. The thing is, though, I always love pixel phones.

This is something that's never too far. Away from me is some kind of pixel phone, because you know when I take pictures of products for reviews. I use a pixel because that's like the best color accuracy in cameras and the best um lighting and white balance, accuracy that I've ever seen comes from a pixel. It's its phenomenal, and so there is a 5.8 inch display on this thing. It looks quite nice and now another thing that you're going to look at though comparing it to the pixel 4 like see notice, it's an all screen design, and they didn't do that with the pixel 4 series.

The pixel 4 series very much had a big top bezel and so did the XL because they didn't want to do that massive notch again. But now this is a lot more modern. Looking than even the flagship pixels that we have out there, I think they did a great job. It's got the hole punch cut out on the OLED display. It is plastic, but it feels nice.

Furthermore, it feels premium and when you look at Google's previous designs right like this, it's its it's an it's more googly is what I'm saying all right. Let's take a look at what we got in the box while this thing just finishes setting up um. This is a very small box by the way it's kind of weird, but we've got a sim tool which comes with most phones. These days, I've got an USB to USB cable, which is kind of interesting here and an 18 watt. USB adapter- and I say it's interesting because I just you know: android phones have this weird fragmentation when setting them up like there are different ways to restore from another device like I I I I haven't seen any rhyme or reason yet for what's used with what phone, because certain devices will have you back up from a cloud backup or restore from a cloud backup.

Certain devices will have you um. You know wirelessly connect to another device through the Google app and what the Google um what google does with the pixel, or at least with this one you actually have to connect to another phone um with a wired connection. So I use the USB c to USB c cable to connect to the previous android phone. I was using, but you could do with an iPhone too, and I'm guessing that's why this is in here, because if you, if you're using an USB to that's a to c adapter, if you're using an USB to type an adapter cable, you will need an adapter so, so like maybe, if you're, using with an iPhone uh, you could just uh plug that into the end of your lightning cable. Maybe I don't really know because I mean the thing is it says to use the yeah? If it's USB type c to type c, then you could just simply use the cable.

That's in the box there, but anyway here's the phone you can see. I really think that google did a great job with this um. I don't know if that's a stock background or if that's um, something that came from like Microsoft launcher on the phone. That's that this that this copied from did I'm guessing. They put a Google phi sim in there, which um, and then I could activate it, and then it would just switch to my account, which I'll probably end up doing, or I'll put my T-Mobile sim in there whatever.

But a couple of things about this right, like I said, hole, punch display. This thing feels really nice to use. It does have the different color power button, something I always appreciate a little on pixel devices, because really I mean I got to tell you. I use Sony phones, and sometimes I just I reach, and I hit the wrong button or something it's its cool. It's a little color coordinated.

So I mean it's a little, it's one of those little things that doesn't really matter to most people, but now we're going to stick with uh pixel launcher on this. Also, if we put this next to the Pixel 3a, you can just see that the colors are a little more vibrant here on the Pixel 4a. It looks a lot nicer this feels very nice to use the bezels are narrower. That's another big thing, and we'll see that again from the pixel 5 later this year, because remember the pixel 4 doesn't have those narrow bezels, and they really. They made some good decisions here, and they cut back because this thing remembers this thing's only 350.

So there's a lot of things that win here. It's not everything, though, remember like I said they cut back on choice. Not only is there only one color there's only one storage configuration too, if you don't like 128 gigs, get something else, there are six gigs of ram, there are no configurations with that either. Although that's not really a surprise. They've never really had ram configurations on Google pixels.

It feels light like it like a non-xl pixel would and that's fine. Some people may wish for the XL model. Hopefully the 5g comes in a bigger size. Just because you know a bigger phone means a bigger battery google's promising adaptive battery, which means that it's going to learn how you use your phone and adjust power consumption accordingly, but yeah that's about it. You can see.

We have our fingerprint sensor on the back. That is well. They had it on the 3a. They had it on the three: they did not have it. On the four, there was no fingerprint sensor on the pixel 4 and the same went for Apple's iPhones, and that was problematic because, like I mentioned earlier, there was a pandemic, and now you go out with a mask on and facial recognition doesn't work anymore.

So we all missed our fingerprint sensors. So I'm glad to see that this phone still has it and it really it feels premium in almost every way. I'm gonna miss wireless charging, but you know I've been reviewing a lot of snapdragon 765 phones and man they're nice, and I never found myself wishing like hey. I really wish I had a snapdragon 865 right now, so hopefully the 730 can be as good. You know just without 5g that that's kind of what I'm hoping for here, because, honestly you wouldn't be missing anything.

You know that dual camera I mean the second camera on the pixel 4 is actually a 2x zoom camera. It's not an ultra-wide like we see on other phones, so I don't think you're missing out on much there either like I said, Google hasn't changed much about their camera sensors over the years. What they've been changing a lot more in terms of software and what those sensors can actually do? That's where things like macrophotography come in, so you still get some pretty solid loss of zoom, even without that zoom lens. So you know it should be. It should be pretty good.

It should be kind of almost pixel three like the same thing, because the new features that are coming in via software are going to those older pixel devices as well, it's just this should theoretically last longer. Well that's about the story for the Pixel 4a. You know, like I said, there's a 4a 5g coming later this year and some people said as why it doesn't have 5g now and if I had to guess that's really about not giving it features that the pixel 4 doesn't have, because there's no pixel 4 5g. So I think they want to save that for when the pixel 5, when the flagship pixel can come in with 5g- and I guess that makes sense, you know, and what this a series is really all about is bringing those flagship features to a lower price point, and so in many ways there's not that much to talk about, which is why I struggle at some points to talk about stuff in many ways, there's not much to talk about because most of it we talked about when we went over this back in October. So now um the display is new.

That's probably the biggest deal and like looking at how the pixel has evolved is just that they have that that full body display that has very narrow, bezels the whole punch cut out. That's the thing, that's actually very new for this model. The rest of it is really just about bringing that those flagship features to that lower price point, and Google is very good at that. They showed us with the Pixel 3a last year that they can bring those flagship features, the lower price point using a lower end chipset, but not sacrificing much. They did sacrifice wireless charging, though they sacrifice choice, they sacrifice the glass back, and so it does feel like it's like last year.

It really only felt like they sacrificed the chipset. So now I guess it does feel like a little more, but then you also gain a little more with that um full body display. So that's it guys. I'm going to be using this for a few weeks and stay tuned, I'm rich from Neo and have a great night.

Source : Neowin