Pixel 4a Long Term Review By Mitesh Shah

What's going on everyone I'm attached here, and today I have for you guys my full long-term review of the Pixel 4a. I've had this phone for about three months now and honestly, I could have made this video a lot sooner, because my initial impressions of this phone have not really changed, because this thing is a killer. Budget phone for 2020 and 2020 is a year that needs a budget phone. So without further ado, let's talk about it. So since I've already kind of spoiled my review for this, I really do think it's an awesome phone. I kind of want to spend the first part of this video talking about the reasons I may not recommend this for everyone and the emphasis there is on everyone, because I do still think this is the right phone for the majority of people that are looking for a budget smartphone in 2020.

So, let's start off with reason, number one that I think this phone is not right for everyone, and that is performance now, don't get me wrong. Performance here is still pretty good. This thing has a snapdragon 720 g and six gigabytes of ram 120 gigabytes of storage, all pretty good specs for 2020 for an android flagship for an android budget phone. But what makes me hesitate in recommending this for someone who's looking for pure performance is the fact that you're leaving a lot of performance on the table and the fact that you can get a similarly priced flagship from last year as this phone, and you'll get way better performance on that phone. For example, the 70 the 70 is my go-to example, because that phone right now sells brand new for 350 same as this phone and that one will have way better performance.

So, if you're looking for a purely on performance standpoint, there are other phones you can get, but you're of course, going to make some trade-offs there. Well 7t is one version per hand on android. It's already got. Android 10 still does not have android 11 update uh. You are definitely not going to get updates as long as this phone will, so this phone will get android 13, most phones released in it.2020 will not get android 13, which is a very sad thing, but this phone will get it so that those are there are a lot of trade-offs. But if performance is the most important thing to you, you might want to go with the OnePlus 7t or some other flagship from last year, like the Samsung Galaxy s10, yes, s10 right sorry, I got confused since I moved released as20 this year, but yeah that's time so yeah.

If you guys want the most performance, there are other phones out there that are going to be right for you and then the reason number two I hesitate to recommend this phone is the fact that google did something kind of strange this year they killed off the Excel version of their phone. So if you want a big phone, Google is just not making anything. That's right for you, because this is a 5.8-inch screen, and it actually feels perfect in the hand I personally, like smaller screens. So this thing is right up my alley, but I know a lot of people are out. There are going to want a bigger screen and there are a ton of budget phones that will give you huge screens for not very much money.

So, if all that you care about is a big screen to watch videos on, you really don't need to spend money on this. There are a lot of other phones you can get instead. So those are the two reasons that I actually would hesitate to recommend this to everyone, but yeah. Those are my only hang-ups in recommending this phone to everyone. So let's talk about some good things about this phone, I'm going to start off by talking.

Actually, let's start off with the back of this phone, and let's talk about this fingerprint reader so nice to see on a phone in 2020. , I love having the fingerprint reader on the back, it's what I'm used to, and I think it's a great spot for it. My fan just fits there perfectly, and it's great in 2020, when I have to wear a mask everywhere on my pixel 4. It sucks with his face ID, but this thing with the fingerprint reader, it's just fantastic, so that is a huge upgrade and I know most phones will have on display fingerprint readers, those suck to me this thing. This thing is a real deal.

This thing unlocks it way faster than any in-display fingerprint reader will, so that's a huge win. The other thing that I think is a huge win is the display on here. So even in 2020, it's still rare to find a sub 400 phones, that's offering you an OLED screen, also a LED screen of this caliber. This thing is a perfect screen. It has very accurate, colors, they're, still really vibrant, but they're very accurate, also just like most pixel screens can be so that is a really huge, plus they're, not like they don't have like these weird over saturated colors, or they have some blue hint fringing or anything like that.

This is a really nice display. Additionally, it also gets decently bright. It's not the brightest, but I mean I live in Seattle, so we don't get a ton of sun today. So I have not really experienced any issues with reading the screen outdoors, but if you're in a place like Arizona where you guys get a lot of sunny days, this phone is going to be a little harder to use than bright sunlight, but otherwise this phone is great. The display here is really top-notch and speaking of notches hole punch notch in this display.

I am personally not a huge hole, punch notch guy. If much prefer actually the forehead, the giant forehead of the pixel 4. Furthermore, I know I'm a minority on that. Furthermore, I just kind of like my displays being under uninterrupted, but if you're going to do a notch either do a hole, punch or like one of those u-shaped cutouts. This is fine.

I can work with it, not a big deal. I really do kind of wish it was centered just to make the phone a little more symmetric, but it's fine if it's less adjusted a little, not a huge deal so yeah. The display on here awesome, you will be super happy with this now, along with the display. Another huge feature for budget phones is the fact that this phone has dual speakers, so you got one in the earpiece and one bottom firing. I will say not the best dual speaker combination.

I do find the bottom one fires a lot more than the top one does so the bottom one gets a lot louder and there's a little of a distortion when you're watching videos, but really not that big of a deal, it's just great, to have dual speakers on a mid-range phone all right. Next up. Let's talk about a sort of controversial thing about pixel, a line of phones, and that is the fact that this phone is made of plastic. Now I have this inside of a case, but if you get the phone for reals uh, it's a plastic phone plastic. I think it's a awful name.

This phone is still really well-built, despite it being plastic and if you're like me, you're someone who's gonna, keep it in a plastic case anyways. It's not really that big of a deal, but if you're someone who likes to go bare naked, let me tell you this phone feels actually really nice in the hand. It's also very lightweight, since it is made of plastic versus glass and, of course the back isn't going to shatter like glass wool. So that's a huge plus for me now, sadly, they only included one real color, the black one. This is the limited edition.

Barely blue. You can still get this on Google's website, but it's very limited on where you can get it. It's available from the Google store unlocked on Google's website in the United States and I believe, Japan. I have not seen this being available anywhere else, so, if you're in one of those two countries- and you want the barely blue limited edition- one go there and go buy one now because, like I said it's limited edition, don't know how long it's going to be. Therefore, but anyways plastic back zero problems with it whatsoever.

This phone feels very solidly built aside from the fact that it just kind of lacks in a little of heft other than that, and that's mainly coming down to the fact that it is plastic and not glass, back and plastic size and not glass or metal size. So in terms of construction, I still think it's a really solidly built phone. I still recommend putting a case on here. This, like I said, is the um subcase uh, so style series one. I will have a link in the description if you guys are interested such a pretty nice case, and if you have the blue one like I do it's a nice way to show it off without worrying about you know having it be completely naked, but yeah.

The Pixel 4a is definitely a really well-built phone, despite it being plastic and then finally, the last things I want to talk about are the battery life and the software, and, if you're wondering why I'm not talking about the camera on here, it's because I've done a ton of camera comparisons that I will have linked up here and the description below. So you guys can check those out, but yeah, suffice to say it's a pixel camera, and it does what pixel cameras do it takes great photos decent, video, and you'll be happy with this, despite it being only a single camera. I still think this single camera outperforms a lot of budget phones with more than one camera like the ones that have like three or four cameras and two of those are just worthless. This is the way to go. Single good.

Camera is the way to go, and this phone kills it with it all right so, like I was saying, let's talk about the battery and the software so battery on here is a 3100 something William hour battery and battery life on here is perfect, so I don't even charge this thing fully. I normally leave it around 80 or so tops, because I normally just don't use my phone like that, especially since I'm home all day anyways, but this phone gets me from 6am all the way to midnight, then with still like 20 battery left. So I have zero problems with the battery life on this phone. I'm just not someone who has longer days and that's already an 18-hour day. I don't need to be my days to be longer than that, but yeah this phone battery life.

This is one of the few pixel phones. I've had where I've had zero complaints about battery life, and I'm talking about next up about software, so software on pixel phones has to me been always one of their major advantages, especially when they do things like update new features and give you cool things like with the December update. We got one of the coolest features available now for pixel phones exclusively and that's called hold for me. So what this feature does is it actually waits on hold for you? So you know when you call up those people, the customer service places you wanna, like I don't know, do a return or make a payment on something, and they make you wait on hold forever. Well guess what Google Assistant can actually wait on hold for you and when it feels like someone's actually on the line they want to talk to you, they'll.

First tell them that hey this person's got a whole program or something then they'll send you a visual, sound alert to let you know someone's available so that you can put your phone down and go. Do go, live your life. Go! Keep your sanity by not having to listen to awful hold music for hours on end, because you're stuck waiting for people so yeah. That is an awesome feature. It's so nice that Google does these jobs for even phones that are not the most expensive like this was announced with the pixel 5, but the Pixel 4a got it.

The pixel 4 got it. The pixel 3 got it so yeah. It's just a really nice thing that google brings those features down along its line, and I've always really liked google's approach for that, and the fact that you get three years of software updates is something that most android budget phones will never give you. So that is a huge one. If you're into software, if you're someone who likes to have knowing that your phone is secured for at least three years, that is a really nice feature.

So yeah the pixel. I think the software has always been a highlight of the pixel phones experience but yeah with that. That's pretty much it for this review. I really think that the Pixel 4a is the right phone for 2020. At 350 dollars, you're, really not going to get too much of a better brand-new phone than this one right here, but yeah.

That's pretty much it for this video like if you liked it subscribe. Yeah, I loved it and I will catch you guys in the next one bye. You.

Source : Mitesh Shah