Pixel 3a XL Unboxing & First Impressions - Worth the Money? By MrMario2011

And then they come here Oh. Even she knows, there's a there's something here: let's unbox this hey what is going on everyone? It's me Mr. Mario and I'm a little excited about this right here, because this is the Pixel 3a XL. My first return to a Google phone since the Nexus 6. So this is my first time getting into the pixel lineup here, let's go ahead and just do a quick unboxing here, because I know this. What you all are one to see, so there's the side.

Let's check out this other side here, the nice Google branding the top already seen that as well too and on the bottom. It just has you know the phone specific specifications, and this is the 64 gig XL model, and it is the clearly white color. So let's go ahead. Oh, very last thing here: I should show you all team pixel, so yeah, let's go ahead open this up and see. We have inside been a while, since I've opened the phone, but oh there we go there.

We go alright. So let's take this out Wow and there we go nice clean screen. That is that see it was real nice all right. Everything looks fine on this as well too I'm actually coming from a 1 plus 3t. So let me even just kind of feel this compared to what I'm using right now so there's the pixel.

Let me grab my phone that I have and yeah I mean quick little comparison between the two I know completely different phones, but that's pretty much what I'm used to pixel here yeah. This should be an easy enough, upgrade very nice. So far, all right, so we have the phone right here, I kind of want to still show that to you all, keep it on the side. Let's see what else comes inside this as well, so nothing inside there inside here we have the SIM card unlock I, believe it uses NATO SIM for anybody, who's interested a user guide. So that's gonna, throw it go into the trash, a Google and a team pixel little decal, so most cool and basic safety instructions.

So again, I guess we'll just kind of throw those away all right. What about for the cables here looks like we have a USB, it type C it up is that it is that what it is. Yes, it's a USB, type-c, male-to-male, adapter, here, cable interesting, go ahead open this up at least, doesn't look to be all too long, but that's totally fine, there's an adapter here as well to which what exactly is this for this seems to be male USB, type-c to standard a USB port, so that would kind of go just right here, for example, just like these here would do pout the same thing: connect it up just fine, and it works on either side all right. So those are the adapters and cables we get now. What else is in here looks like there's a little charging port here charge box.

Here we go all right. Oh, that is hmm, okay, not sure. If I like that, to be honest with you all I'll take that off. So this is an AC wall adapter to USB type-c, so the idea would be you can plug this into your wall, and then you plug USB type-c there, and then you plug this. In here come on all right, uh-huh, okay, so then what for this is well -.

I'm not liking the cable setup so far, so for this I guess, if you want to hook it up to your PC, the idea is you plug in USB type-c, and then you need a male USB 2 female USB cable, which I'll be honest like who really uses almost like I know if you're new, the channel, I'm I'd, say I'm, pretty tech, savvy, and I have kind of a bunch of these cables, so I have at least a few of these, but you know you certainly expect to have one of these on hand. This really all could have been better if it just came with a male type. C 2, male, USB, cable but I know Google just wants to be Google with that I don't know, I, don't know that that one threw me for a loop. The phone is cool so far, even though I haven't turned it on, but the cable is like what are you doing? Google? Maybe someone can explain it to me, but someone please explain the logic of this. To me in the comment section because I'd really like to know so: okay, you know what the cable mess out the way.

Let's go ahead and turn on this phone. Shall we, let's see what we're looking at here so turn it on I, also like the orange there whew Google alright, that screen is looking lovely so far? I can tell you that alright, so, while I'm going through the boot up here, I just want to also showcase real, quick Google. This is what many other phone manufacturers do? Alright look at this is this might OnePlus charger right. This is a big giant, bulky, USB thing: okay, because! It's a fast charger and everything. It's just female, regular USB, this type, C male USB type, regular male plugs in right.

There awesome no fuss on that guess what, if I want to hook up my phone to my computer I? Have the cable right here: I, don't need to me! Don't need to have this cable and I. Don't need to have this thing and well that's just a charger or I. Don't need to keep this on hand. I, just I, don't know, I really, don't understand the logic there I mean I'll use, maybe I'll use the cable I, don't know, but that's not it, but it looks like thankfully at least one plus and many other manufacturers seem to do this right and logically, at least to me, plus, this is red which looks cool. So one thing I noticed that was interesting with the way they were.

You know kind of trying to sell you, the cable and the adapter that came with this is, if you're transferring from one phone to another, so I guess you're able to do that. That's nice and beneficial, thankfully I'm just going from USB type-c to USB type-c. So in this case it does work. I've never tried this before, but we're going to give it a shot. Alright, so check it out.

Everyone we're done with the transfer here is the old phone, the 1+3 team and here's the new phone, the Pixel 3a XL I, mean so far the screens looking nice. This all feels great going through all that setup was a breeze on here. So it took you know less than 10 minutes to get to this point really all right. So that's the unboxing, that's the first boot and everything I'm just gonna. Let this thing update I got a sinuate.

I got to get it set up. You know how it is. When you get a new phone you got transfer everything over and all that other fun stuff. Even though I did most transfers, I just gotta make sure everything I like is on there and as is so cool what I'm going to do now is I'm going to be using this phone, for hopefully at least a few weeks and I will let you know of my thoughts all right, so it's been just under three months a little over two months. Let's say it's been less than three months that I have been using at the pixel three AXL and I want to give you all my thoughts on it now for anybody that does not know, and if there's a lot of people that don't know it's understandable, I, don't do phone reviews that often it's really I do a phone review, and I'm using that extremely lightly.

I do a phone overview and kind of impressions and such whenever I get a new phone which is generally every like two years or so I'm, really not a big phone guru or anything, so I'm not running tons of benchmarks or anything on these. But what is important to me is that I want to see how it just operates in regular, everyday life. I rarely if ever play games on here so and that's just phones in general I'm, just really not a mobile gamer, unless you count the Nintendo Switch, but because that's technically mobile hardware, but getting into that hear my thoughts overall and impressions on the pixel three AXL I have to say for a phone which is under $500. This exact model I can't speak on the Pixel 3a, but the three AXL, the 64 gigabyte variant for this being $480 before any type of tax or shipping or any other extra fees. That is insane to me.

I, absolutely love that I can come back to the Google lineup of phones, I, guess you can say, because I want to talk about my history a little with phones here. The first Google type phone I had been the nexus 4 which I enjoyed, but I outgrew that pretty fast, and I skipped the Nexus 5, but I went to the Nexus 6, which was the first expensive Google phone I would say and for a good reason, because they really did not hold back at the time. Aside from maybe excluding a fingerprint sensor on there, so I loved the Nexus 6 I really enjoyed the phone on there and I loved having stock, Google and I. Just didn't want to go to the pixel. I would have liked a pixel.

The problem is they increased the price so high to the point where they kind of omitted me and several other people like me out there look if there's people who want to spend $1000 or close to $1,000 on a phone. That is your money. You can do that. I really don't want to do that. I am NOT, a super crazy power user like that I'm.

Not out here flexing you know like the latest 1500 or phone or something I just need something. That's going to work and work well and what I'm happy with and my comfort zone, I will say: I put a number on it. My comfort zone is if I can get a phone unlocked, brand-new and complete for under five hundred dollars. That's great because I don't do payment plans on my phones, I like to get them from you know, whatever manufacturer I can, if possible, and I've brought purchase used before for friends, family members, what-have-you and I've even recommended that, but just for myself, if I, can get something straight from the people who create the phone and pay under $500 for it and gate unlocked option. That would be optimal for me, so just kind of one-and-done thing, so I was on the 1 + 3 T for a good amount of time.

I would say, and I was had kind of run into some issues here and there is any type of ROM issues I ran into I did end up going to lineage OS, which worked pretty well, I would say, but I was thinking it was kind of in the back of my head. I said you know it would be nice to get a pixel phone. Do I want to get the pixel ?, because it has the headphone jack I'm, not sure, and then there was a lot of rumors of the pixel 3 egg at an Excel, and it came out, and I ended up grabbing one? So now, let's now with that covered, let's go ahead and get into my thoughts on it. Overall, it is a fantastic phone. Now the pixel camera is no joke and from what I understand one of the bigger differences between aside from price now well the pixel 3 is really going down in price, and you can get one for cheaper than 3a, but the big Hardware difference on the pixel 3 versus of 3/8 is the 3, actually has hardware to process your images and such which give it that nice, you know, kind of standard, I, would say pixel or Google type of photo.

The photos that I take on here or that I show people. The pixel has now been out for long enough like the original pixel, and it's just it's had this reputation, and it's been known for long enough at this point. Where people see my photos and they ask. Oh- is that a Google phone or is that a Google camera, or what is that or is that a pixel of some kind? They already know just by looking at the photo? What type it is they don't know what type of phone exactly, but they know kind of where the camera comes from. So the difference on that is from what I understand the pixel 3 does have hardware specifically to really give those images that extra processing and extra shine the pixel 3 a does not physically contain the hardware for it, but it does it all on the software side.

So that means you sit here. You take a photo, and you have to wait three to five seconds for it to be viewable with all the nice filters and such and processing on it, and that's totally acceptable for me out of the box. If you buy this brand new right now it does it come with Android, Pi or Android 9 and people who have been following the channel for a while. It might be shocked to hear about this, but this is the first phone I've had, and so so long that I have not modified in any way. So my thoughts, I'm telling you all this is still a locked bootloader.

It is still at the stock ROM, and it does not have root on it. I have not modified this phone in any way, because I want to see how the true performance of the phone, without any modifications, would be and dare I say it is absolutely fantastic. There is. There is only one thing: I can talk about with the performance on it, and it is called the digital well-being feature, and this was actually mentioned several times in many other reviews where they said. Oh well, you know with the Pixel 3a.

One of the things you will notice is because it has the slower processor. If you open up an app of some kind, it is going to open up a little slower than the pixel 3, but once you're actually using the app it's all good, and I can verify that. That is true, but I can also verify that there is a way that you can resolve it, and it is within the digital well-being feature now. Digital well-being is just a feature where it's kind of is not so much putting a limit on things, and you could have it give you warnings as I understand, but essentially can tell you hey. You spent this much time on Twitter.

You spent this much time on Instagram. Furthermore, you spent this much time on YouTube this. How many times you unlocked your phone this day this? How many times you've done it over the week like what would you like to do on this? So it tracks all of your activity on your phone and kind of just gives you a health check on it, so to speak, just like hey you're, using your phone a lot just so you know you look. You spend like five hours on Twitter. What's wrong with you.

I love Twitter, though obviously, and I enjoy it. I enjoy my use of it, but either way, I did notice that if you turn off digital well-being, it seems to resolve that issue completely. Furthermore, I really didn't have any issues with stuttering or what-have-you, but it seemed like the older pixel phones, like specifically the pixel one, was having stuttering issues with digital well-being and even some battery issues as well too, but once a lot of pixel owners turned off digital well-being. That seemed to resolve the issues and for me, firsthand I can say that turning off digital well-being seemed to completely alleviate the issue of. Oh, you tap.

It happens. It opens a little slower than it should and is it a dealbreaker? Not really. Is it super obvious I would say if you're told about it, and you look out for it. Yes, it's obvious, and even my friend and I, like he checked out my phone. He compared to his.

We did side by side sure enough. We opened up the same app at the same time, a war he did and when we had digital while being on this device, it did take longer to initialize and boot up the app while as if we turn digital while being off it opened up noticeably faster. So that is one piece of advice. I can give you all if you have a phone like this or just aim type of pixel, and you're, really not using that digital well-being feature, and you don't care for the data that it's providing to you. But you are running into some issues like I was talking about with stuttering, maybe battery life, maybe apps just are opening a tad bit slow, and this is after fresh reboot as well.

I'm one of those people just for the record I do reboot my phone on a daily basis, generally I wake up in the morning, I reboot it do. The fact that I have just noticed I have noticed that if I just keep my phone on all the time it starts bogging down, it starts to have issues and I just restart it. So a habit that I have neither way if that still doesn't resolve your app slowly. Opening issue I'd recommend turning off digital well-being. Now Google has also come out and said that this does not affect battery life or any type of performance like that.

I beg to differ. I've had that do I've seen the comparisons I've done. Comparisons I have felt the difference again. It's not a big dealbreaker, but that's something that I could recommend changing, and I even waited the reason why I waited so long to do this type of impressions is because when I get a phone and do a review such as this I like to use it for a few months, if I can and the last time, I did a video like this with my 1 plus 3t people- also really liked that, because there could be issues that I complain about before the phone is even out. Let's say like let's say: I got one of these as a review unit.

I complain about something, and it's resolved in a month or two, and even vice versa. My phone could be fine for a month or two and there's an issue that crops up any type of issues like that I had I would say the only. There were two issues to software-based issues, one of them when I first got the phone for whatever reason on the YouTube app I could not, and this kind of effect. The limited amount of people mind you, but I could not post to my story through the app on here, for whatever reason, I couldn't grab any photos and the camera just show up is black. That was it one time.

I got it to work when I started that I couldn't do it. I noticed after a YouTube update, it seemed to work just fine. Another odd one I ran into is I use. Android, auto and I actually have Android auto in my car, like I, have the actual dash and everything for it and at one point, I ran into an issue. There was not a recent update or anything for pocket casts or Android auto, but for about two days or so, regardless of what I did I tried, uninstalls reinstall I tried so many things and regardless of what I did I could open up.

Android, auto and everything was fine and as soon as out select podcasts, Android, auto, would crash and then on my car, it would say, connected disconnected connected, disconnected connected disconnected, and it just kept doing that until I unplugged it and plugged my phone back in, and then I went to the audio section. I could be in maps. Fine I could be in phone. Fine I go to the audio section. If the last app that was pulled up was podcasts, it would do the same thing now.

What I did was I did end up emailing. It annoyed me enough that I had no I emailed the Android, auto development team and the podcast development team. Podcasts did get back to me, and they said hey next time. This happens. Can you please go here and essentially generate a crash and send it to us, we'd love to take a look at it and, coincidentally enough- and there was no update that happened before like to introduce this feature or to get rid of it? But after I got that email, the issue seemed to go away, and I waited a few days, and it went away, and I emailed them back, and I said hey.

Thank you for your email. I really appreciate you following up with me, but the issues gone I, don't know what changed, so something like that can happen. There were no app updates. There were no software updates. I'm not sure if I have had several OTA updates on here.

The OTA updates I do seem to get them just fine within 24 hours of them. Releasing I can just you know, go to update my system, and it pulls it down. It does the update procedure, and it has those monthly security, OTA updates, which is great. Navigating you know. Navigating here has been just fine as well I, really like the app drawer setup here and all that stuff, I really like being able to go through and select everything.

I can kind of show you but I'll. Just like select everything like that. It is a bit of a way of I guess you can say relearning how to navigate Android, but once you reel in if it is much more efficient than anything else. I've already talked about the camera, where the camera I've been extremely happy with night mode has been absolutely fantastic on this, and the thing that people keep stressing about this is $400, like people will take pictures with the camera of either the pixel three a or three XL. There's like guys remember.

This is a $400 camera right here. They can just lump the three AXL into this, because really the main differences between the 3a and the 3a SLR. You get a bigger battery on three XL and, of course, you get a bigger screen on here and bigger form, factor, and I've been totally fine with this I do absolutely love that the headphone jack is on here. It could be, you could say it's a mid-range phone, but I'm going to be a mid-range user on that and the thing that they really gun after is you're getting awesome. A like awesome, flagship quality photos, you're, getting a great flagship experience for a mid-range phone and mid-range price, and that's exactly what I wanted now when it comes down to any of the any of the other downside, I could think of I do have now I'll bring that blast.

I do have some downsides. I can talk about. First, when it comes to the fast charging. I wasn't too worried about this, and this is kind of a personal thing, because I already had fast charging through the 1 plus 3t. In fact, I end up getting one more of these here.

This is the 1 plus 3t charger and cable that came with my phone and I got a second one, and these things are kind of expensive they're like 20, 25 bucks or so something like that compared to your know, regular chargers, and these worked great on the 1 plus 3t. They don't do. You know the fast charging or whatever it's called I, don't know the exact name, but it's not compatible with this. You can charge your phone just fine, but it's not the same, so I'm back down to only having one fast charger, which is fine. It is what it is, but I just thought it was a little annoying on that and then, aside from that, I can't really think of anything else.

Almost honestly, I really haven't run into any other big issues. I haven't run into anything that I can really complain about on there. Aside from maybe the only other thing which again is kind of personal, the headphone jack is up here, I think it's a little odd, where you will have your headphone jack there, as opposed to kind of on the bottom I prefer to have it on the bottom and when it comes down to it as well. The speaker placement is a little weird. Just look at me: I'm saying that I don't have much complain about, and I'm talking about more stuff, but this is kind of my personal things, so headphone jack I really wish it was at the bottom speakers here we go.

This is a speaker, and this is a speaker. I really wish they were front-facing I wish they were a little louder and also the screen while, as it is, awesome and looks great, it doesn't seem to be bright enough all the time if you are out in public and there's just a lot of Suns on it, so it also kind of about the only downsides I have on there. Maybe that may be the last one which I'm going to ask you all I'm going to demonstrate this real quick, so check this out. What I'm going to do is I'm going to sit here and restart my phone. It is restarting, let's wait a little there we go, and it's rebuilding.

So I can wait a few seconds, and it's going to reboot. That is just fine, but I'm going to show you possibly an issue. I'm I have, and I want to know if anybody else who has a 3a or 3 XL or anyone who knows someone who has them has run into an issue such as this, so I did a reboot now going to power off the phone completely. So it's completely off and look at this if I hold it down, hold the power button down like nothing's happening. If I tap it, nothing is happening, so I'm gonna, start holding it down, and I will show you okay, so now there we go.

Is it that normal, for? Is that normal for it to hurt? Take that long to even show anything off a cold boot I don't know. I have had some issues related to that on my previous phone, which I kind of attributed to the custom ROM- and this is just the stock ROM on here- so I'm, not to sure on that. But if anybody could let me know that would be absolutely fantastic now. The final thing I do want to talk about which this is a big thing for me is battery life battery consumption. How is that I have off of a single charge going from a hundred to about zero percent and even using the hell out of this thing like using Bluetooth, the GPS, and you know just using the phone like especially the first week.

You know, you know how it is your first week you have a phone, your usage really spikes up, because a nice new toy you have to get everything set up, and it's just you know real pleasure to use as such um I got over two days over 48 hours worth of battery off of one charge and, on average, I seem to average about anywhere from 36 to 48 hours off of one charge. So, let's just round up, let's just say, I get about two days worth of battery off of one charge. I can go just fine charging this thing every other day and the nice thing is, if you have you know the Google, the know the charger that comes with the phone itself. If you ever have to charge quickly, you can just grab it charge for 10, 15 minutes, and you're good for another 8 or 12 hours, something like that even with heavy usage and I have waited, and I have been using. You know other Otis and just seen if the performance has gone up or down, and it seemed to be just fine.

That is a huge benefit on this thing. Huge, absolutely love it. It's been great now the fast charging it is a little slower than I expected. It might take you two hours to do a full charge on there, which I was expecting it to be a little faster, and I felt like it was on my previous phone, but one thing I also noticed is my previous phone. Furthermore, it would get quite hot when I did the fast charging on there this.

Furthermore, it really doesn't. Actually this it really doesn't get hotter than lukewarm. The most part and I feel like that, does have to do with the CPU that they chose where it's not going to get super hot by any means, it seems to run everything quite well. Thanks to the optimization of just using you know clean stock Android, getting this straight from Google on here and on top of all that it just everything just works. Everything just works, real well, so I've been happy for the most part, with this phone aside from even like the complaints, I have a really just nitpicks at that, but if you're, looking, if you're in the market, for something which is Android based, which is going to get, you know some good long-term support or even Homebrew support, if you decide to load a custom, ROM or custom kernel or what-have-you on there, and you want something- that's going to last you a good amount of time, but you don't want some that really breaks the bank.

I can't recommend this thing enough. Now the Pixel 3a I can kind of I guess lump in there and say sure if you wanted to spend a little less money, and you want a smaller phone that should be ok. I can just say, though, that these have been my experiences with the Pixel 3a XL or the pixel three-axle, as some have lovingly called it, apparently. But this has been great. This is what I want Google to do going forward.

They can do they're, really expensive, pixels, and I'm, all for that I'm not gonna, buy them, but I'm all for that. But if I can get a mid-range entry, it doesn't even have to be nearly as powerful as. Let me keep the pixel camera and let me keep something like power, wise and power consumption. Let me just have in performance wise. Let me have something: that's pretty good, all right like I wasn't.

This has been excellence to me, but I was expecting to get some that was like pretty good too great and I will gladly pay for a cheaper, build and a less powerful phone. If it's going to be, you know, within that price range again, I really don't want to pay 800 $9001000 for a phone I want to pay $400500 and if I can get an official offering like that from Google. That is great, and I am all for that, and especially the one thing that completely won me over was that headphone jack, so I'm one of those people just a quick aside here, I, don't support the headphone jack going away and in my ion I just always want the option. There, I'm, not against Bluetooth I use Bluetooth almost every day, but I want the option to use the headphone, jack and I do use it almost every day. So the way I do it is I vote with my wallet and for as long as I can, I am going to buy new phones which have headphone jacks whenever it is time for me to upgrade so in two or three years, let's say when I decide to get another phone, I am going to be on the lookout for something that would be awesome with a headphone, jack and hopefully, Google has a mid-range offering.

That is a fair price to get a fair amount of power. It works well enough, and it has a headphone jack and if they don't, so that will be disappointing. But you can kind of even see it's kind of half in half out, because again it's up at the top and also the phone itself does not come with any headphones, so that kind of almost speaks for itself, but either way I think I've rambled on a lot enough about this phone I, absolutely love it. I cannot recommend it enough. If you are interested in grabbing, one I will have links down below in the description, and this is one thing because people will generally ask me in regard to like the case and such should I use here, I'm just using a clear case, this one's okay.

It gets the job done. It's just the circle here for the fingerprint reader is a little off-center, because I believe this was crafted up and made before the phone even came out. So it wasn't perfect. So now, if you get one, if I would hope it's better. But this is just kind of one of these clear cases, and then I end up getting here.

Just a tempered glass screen protector. They really weren't all that much, and I'll put the links down below in the description for the exact ones. I got if you all are interested, but again my final thoughts. If you are interested in getting a new Android phone, and you want something with excellent performance- that's not really going to break the bank, definitely consider the Pixel 3a XL. It is its quite a beast for what it is, and I love.

This thing anyways this Mr. Mario is signing off anyways. This Mr. Mario is signing off. Thank you all for watching everyone.

If you enjoyed this video, a like would absolutely be appreciated. If you didn't like it I just like is fine as well too. You.

Source : MrMario2011