Pixel 4a 5G Long Term Review - 6 Months Later! By Gaylon's Gadgets

Okay, what's up YouTube, my name is Galen and this is Galen's gadgets. I want to thank you so much for joining my channel today and if you have not already, please don't forget to like and subscribe. It will definitely mean a lot to me and my channel, so today I will actually be going over my full review of a phone that I've been daily driving for around six months. Now. I never really did a full review on it. Um you guys.

Let me unbox it. You guys saw what cases I decided to pick up for it, so I finally decided to do my full review, because this is definitely one of the most reliable phones that I've personally ever had, and I want to share my experience with it. So I'm not going to hold you any longer, let's hop into this video okay. So the first thing that I want to talk about on this device is the price, so this phone could be found for around 500, usually on sale, it's around 450, but when you buy it used, you can get it for around 300 to 400, which is what I did, and it was an absolute steal in my opinion, so this phone is actually the middle brother of the last series of pixel devices. There is the Pixel 4a, the pixel 5 and then the pixel 4 a5g, which is what I decided to go with.

The main reason I decided to go with this. One is because it's a lot bigger than the 4a, which was way too small. For me, I actually had that for a little, but it was just way too small, and then this has the exact same basically specs and camera as the pixel 5. The main difference between this and the pixel 5 is just the more premium materials in the pixel 5 such as like a better screen, and then the back feels a lot better because it's made of an almost like carbon type material. So yeah, that's.

Why I decided to pick up the 4a 5g okay, so next I'm going to talk about the build quality of this phone, so this phone is completely made of plastic. There's no getting around that at all. It does not feel like very premium the whole. They tried to go with like a matte type feel, but it just does not feel the best, and honestly it does not look the best either because it's a huge fingerprint magnet, and it gets grease stains on it very easily. I highly suggest getting a case for this phone.

That's definitely one of the first accessories. You'll have to pick up for this because it just does not look perfect unless you always have a microfiber cleaning cloth on you. That's just my suggestion on this phone. So in terms of the display, I really like the display on here. It's a crisp OLED screen 1080p the 60hz refresh rate, but I will talk about later on how the software makes the refresh rate feel like a lot faster than 60 hertz like it definitely feels like its closer to 80 or 90 hertz, but I'll talk about that later.

But in terms of the display, I really feel like this phone is the perfect size. A 6.2-inch screen is just the perfect size for me anyway. It's the perfect size to enjoy content. It's not too small to enjoy content on. That was my major gripe with the pixel 4 a just didn't feel like.

I was enjoying watching content on that 5.8-inch screen, but 6.2 is definitely the perfect size for me in terms of watching content, and then it's a perfect size to actually uh use your device with one hand. So I really like how manageable this device is with the 6.2-inch screen and just the overall size and weight distribution is perfect on this device. Okay, so now I'm going to talk about the software on this pixel 4 a5g. So, of course, this is running the pixel launcher, which is very close to stock android, which is what google really wants, uh android to look like, so I just really like the fluidity of it. As I said earlier, this is only a 60hz refresh rate screen, but just the animations and the overall smoothest of the UI just makes it feel like a lot smoother than 60 hertz.

They did a perfect job in the aesthetic and the animations in android 11. I'm currently actually running the android 12 beta, I'm on the third level of the beta, and it's perfect, I'm still super stable. It definitely got better like with each jump. There were like a few minor hiccups in beta 1, but on beta 3, I'm barely experiencing any hiccups at all. Just the software on this device is super solid.

Okay. So now I'm going to talk about some of my favorite Google Pixel features first off just the overall voice, dictation and Google Assistant paired with it is actually perfect. I really like how accurate the voice dictation actually is and pairing that with Google Assistant is just a game. Changer to me, Google Assistant can pair with just so many apps like your default music player and then all the Google suite of apps, such as, like Google Maps, google, keep keeping your notes. Google calendar to schedule events.

You can do all of that without even going into the app just by using your voice, just telling google, okay, google or just swiping up from the bottom of your screen to activate the assistant. I think that's an absolute game changer and that's something I use every single day. So another really cool feature that I think is just super clutch. Something I use almost every day because I get a lot of spam calls is the call screening. So what this does? It basically has a conversation.

It's like an automated voice that has a conversation with whoever is calling in from an unknown number or a likely spam number before you like to pick up the phone just so you can see like whose calling uh. What is this number coming from so yeah? I think that's super useful um. It saves a lot of time for me and that's just something I hope to see implemented in every phone, eventually natively, okay. So now I'm going to talk about the performance of this device, so the performance of this device is actually really solid. Um, it's powered by a 765g chipset.

This is a chip made by snapdragon and honestly is like slightly above average, in my opinion, um it's not as fast and as powerful and as efficient as your 800 series processors, but it's still perfect. The only slowdown that I noticed was like when doing heavy tasks such as processing 4k videos. I do a lot of video editing on my mobile devices. That's the major slowdown that I noticed specifically um in terms of like opening apps scrolling through social media. That's going to be pretty much the exact same as like your flagship phone, such as your Samsung s21s, or your note 20s or phones like that in terms of like just basically just scrolling.

It's pretty much the same. You won't notice a slowdown at all. In that regard, this phone does have 128 gigs of storage as well. This does not have any micro SD card support, so just be careful um. In going over that storage amount um.

It also does have six gigs of ram, so you can definitely do some multitasking with this fold. Okay, so one thing that I did notice about this phone is that the thermals are just not that good um, so it's definitely below average. In my opinion, um just going outside um, I haven't had a phone like get this hot just from being in the sun. For like a few minutes um, I don't know what that issue is um. I also did notice it like shooting 4k videos from this phone um.

The limit is like 10 minutes, which is like really low for me. Um, I haven't had like a phone go out that quickly before um, so yeah, I really feel like the thermals are a weak spot in my device. Anyway, I don't know if that's a universal issue, but in my device the thermals are just not that good. So the battery life on this phone I say, is the definition of average. I get around like a four and a half hours to six and a half hours a screen on time a day which may last me the full day, or it may last me to like around six o'clock.

There is usually like not much of it, in-between in regard to that um, so yeah, the battery life is definitely average. In my opinion, um in terms of my usage um, I work a desk job, so I like to check social media like a few times a day, um not really on my phone all day, because I do work um, so yeah, that's just my experience with the battery life. So now to my favorite part about this phone, and that is the cameras. This is also probably going to be my favorite part of the review, because I get to share some of the amazing shots that I've taken on this phone in terms of just like point and shoot photos. This is absolutely like.

Almost unbeatable, like I really love the photo science that google implemented in these cameras. So on paper, these camera sensors do not look special at all. They are only 12. Megapixel cameras uh most other phones nowadays are like up to like 108, megapixels or 64 or 48. Google has been using the same 12 megapixel camera for years, and they've just been tweaking their software with every upgrade, and they've just been doing a great job with it.

I can't imagine uh when they actually use like rumored 50 megapixel cameras later on, because those shots will be like ridiculous. If they're doing this well with 12 megapixel cameras in terms of video capability um, I really didn't like to notice anything special, except for the stabilization. The stabilization on this is actually perfect. I really like the stabilization um within the video app on this phone, but yeah, I'm just going to show you guys some of my examples now, and I hope you like them. Okay, guys so overall, the pixel, 4, a5g and 2021 is definitely going to be one of the most reliable devices that you can get your hands on um, especially for the prices that they will go at now.

Um. You could definitely get one used for around 300 to 400, which is a steal in my opinion, especially because it has like so much of what the pixel 5 has and those started off at like 700, so getting something like just as good for half is, could be very beneficial overall. My adjective that I keep coming back to with this phone is reliability, reliability, reliability. This is just a super reliable phone um. I haven't really had like any like super, super um hiccups that like made this phone unusable, um but, and then like the camera, is just like the best point-and-shoot camera I've ever had liked you literally just take a shot and go.

I just really like that ability to do that, and I definitely plan on upgrading to the pixel 6 pro in October, when that comes out so be looking out for my content on that, I'm definitely team pixel all the way. Now, just because of uh this experience, this was my first pixel um. I had the original Pixel 4a for a little, and then I decided to upgrade to the 4 5g, so yeah. If you have any questions about these products feel free to leave them in the comments, and thanks for watching my video peace.

Source : Gaylon's Gadgets