Should you still buy the Google Pixel 4a in 2021? A VERY long term Review! By BubVisuals

So this is the Google Pixel 4a an android phone, that's been on the market since August 2020 and at least for a little while has been my android phone of choice immediately upon release it caught my eye due to the perceived amazing value that it offered, and now you can get it even cheaper. So should you buy this phone in 2021, let's find out, first, as usual, we're going to be taking a look at the specs. The 4ray features a snapdragon 730 g, 6, gigabytes of ram, a single storage option of 128 gigabytes, which is a little strange in my experience, but this seems to be common within the pixel line, along with in theory two colors, but in practice just one. I have seen the barely blue one on the internet, but I haven't been able to track one down to buy new in the UK, so you're left with this one. This one's called just black, which is fitting almost because that's green, but while the lack of customization is a little disappointing, if you're fine with the storage which I am and the color option, which I am then I mean there- shouldn't really be too many practical problems, just kind of on principle. Finally, in terms of key specs, it weighs in 143 grams, which is actually pretty light for a phone of this size, and it has a battery size of 3 140 William hours.

We're going to be talking more about specific specs, like screen resolution and camera stuff later on, as well as how well these specs translate into performance, but as for these key specs, that's pretty much it next up. We have the design and build quality. I honestly believe this will be a divisive one as some love the design and some think it looks like a toy. I personally love it. Furthermore, I think the matte black looks sleek if a little plastic the pale green, lock button is a nice touch and the camera, while still protruding, is much less so than phones like iPhones, meaning it's less likely to get scratched, which is always nice, something that isn't less likely to get scratched, though, is the phone body, both the back and the frame are made of plastic, and I, in my use case without a case or skin, as we can see, have acquired some pretty noticeable scratches, which isn't great.

Furthermore, I haven't been particularly rough with this phone either just a few light drops here and there so make sure you put either a case or a skin on this phone. If you plan to pick it up- and you don't want to scratch it, the screen is protected with gorilla, glass, 3 and honestly, I found this to be one of the most durable parts of the phone. I haven't seen any scratches or cracks, which is nice, but still as we can see from the case, I would certainly recommend some form of protection overall, while the design is nice. In my opinion, it's pretty clear to see how google made this phone cheaper. They sacrificed a nice glass or aluminum, build for a plastic one to save money and there's also no official IP rating on the 4a either, so just be careful not to get it wet.

After this, we have the button layer which, in my experience, did take a little of getting used to with all the buttons being on the one side, but honestly after getting used to it, I actually quite like it well. I've had my complaints about the volume bar style buttons versus separate volume buttons in the past because of the tactility of these buttons. I haven't found myself having those same issues that I had in the past. Furthermore, I also think the fact that it's right next to the lock button has trained me to sort of know which one is up and which one is down, so I haven't had too many issues with misc licks either lock button is also nice and tactile along with, as previously mentioned. It is like this nice minty green accent, as we talked about before, which I love all button.

Combinations feel well-thought-out and despite my initial reservations, I ended up really enjoying this layout, there's also a dedicated fingerprint scanner that we're going to be going over in a bit but yeah button layout, very positive. In my experience following on, we have the screen. The Google Pixel 4a features a 5.81 inch 1080 by 2340 OLED display with a PPI of 442 and an aspect ratio of 19.5 by nine. It features a peak brightness of 803 nits, and this is a pretty great screen, especially considering how much this phone costs well. The auto brightness can be a little of a pain, in my opinion, it's still nice and bright.

In fact, I actually wrote this part of the script on the beach in direct sunlight, and I could see it fine. The resolution also makes it great for watching videos and while it is lacking, some of those more advanced features like 3d touch that you'd find on iPhones. It is still very good for the price. I kind of feel like with this phone. Google have focused on the really important elements of what makes a phone great and just kind of cut the rest of the nice to haves um.

Next, we have the fingerprint sensor. This thing is awesome. Well, it may not be as flashy as an under screen fingerprint scanner. It's ergonomically placed so both left and right hand. Users can comfortably use it.

Unlike a certain Samsung phone, I hate the Samsung s8 one day I'll get over it. It's fast, it's accurate and in this time we're wearing masks. I actually prefer it to face ID yeah, nothing more to say here really. After this we have the camera, which is always one of my favorite things to talk about. Pixel 4a features a single camera system with a 12.2 megapixel resolution and an aperture of f 1.7. The front-facing camera has a resolution of 8 megapixels and an aperture of f2.

As I said in my dedicated video, the dynamic range in photos on this phone is pretty awesome. Sharpness is nice there's a decent amount of detail along with a good level of saturation, despite that, only being one focal length. I had a lot of fun taking photos with this phone photos. Pretty much always came out great and to take this even further. The pixel actually has raw photos as stock.

What this basically means is it saves all the metadata, so editing photos is a lot easier in post. You have a lot more detail to work with. I personally love editing photos, so this is definitely a plus for me. So yeah, thanks, google, in terms of portrait mode, while it is very easy to take pictures with I'd, say much easier than on the iPhone side of things generally, I do prefer the blurriness offered by the iPhone I found. The depth of field element was just a little lacking, but still it was nice that you could select what you wanted to be.

The main focus point after you've taken your photo so yeah again, nice feature pixel also has night sight which again works pretty well. Well, it does like some of the controls I'm used to on the iPhone side of things. Photos did turn out clean along with a good level of dynamic range and acceptable sharpness in terms of selfies. They also turned out great, I like how the pixel renders skin tones and for selfies overall, the quality is very much good enough, so yeah the photo side of the camera on the Google Pixel is pretty excellent. But what about the video, the Pixel 4a shoots 4k and up to 30 fps, which is a little underwhelming for 2021, but all the same.

The 4k video looks great on this phone. As we can see, we do have a nice amount of dynamic range, colors, look good and just for some insert shots like I'm going to be doing for the behind the scenes of this video over on Patreon, I found the Google Pixel 4a to do pretty. Well, it also shoots 1080p, slow motion in up to 120 frames per second, and while this does look like phone slow motion, I'm still pretty happy with the results. The front-facing camera shoots 1080p at 30fps, and while this certainly is a quality downgrade from the main camera, I've still found it to be. Okay.

For some casual shots that said, though, if you want quality, probably just flip it around and use the main camera overall, the camera on the Google Pixel 4 8 is punching well above its weight class. I had an amazing time taking pictures with it. I think the video is great for the price and, if you can get by with a single focal length as well as 4k 30fps, the camera on this phone will be pretty much perfect for you. Following on, we have probably the most important aspect of any modern smartphone the OS and app performance. I've always been fascinated by the performance of the pixel line, as it should, in theory, be similar to the iPhone experience.

I mean google make the phone. Google has the operating system, so is it good absolutely scrolling through the on menus is very smooth performing system functions is snappy and overall OS performance on the 4a is pretty great in terms of support. The Pixel 4a will get three years, which is nice and seeing as this was released in August last year, you are gonna, get just over two years of support. So it's nice to know that you are gonna, get some longevity with more intensive tasks like watching 4k videos or playing games. I've personally never had any trouble with this phone.

I personally do prefer to play casual games mostly, but I think for most people, but the latest of gamers, the performance offered by the 4a should be totally fine. Moving on the speakers on the 4a are actually pretty nice. They feature a stereo technology similar to that on the iPhone line, meaning that it utilizes both the top and bottom speaker for a more even sound experience. It gets decently loud and well. It's obviously going to lack the bass and clarity that dedicated headphones or speakers are gonna.

Have it's certainly good enough for some casual listening? The 4a even has a headphone jack which, to be honest personally, I don't find particularly useful, but still it's nice, that it has it. Finally, we have the battery life, as I briefly touched on at the start of this video. The Pixel 4a has a battery capacity of 3140 William hours, and I've really enjoyed the battery life experience of this phone. It's genuinely stunning for such a great value phone. It easily lasts me all day and then some and when it finally does run out, you can use the included, take notes apple seriously.

The box is still nice and compact. You can include a fast charger, the 48 charges so fast. It's almost funny yeah, nothing but good things to say on the battery life overall, while I've been wanting to try a pixel since 2016, I only got around to it this year and oh boy, do I regret getting the s8 instead of the pixel. Even more now I hate that phone, the Pixel 4a is one of the cheapest phones. I've tried all year.

In fact, it is the cheapest new phone I've reviewed on this channel, and it's probably my favorite android experience ever the value for money that this phone provides is crazy and as long as you're, okay with the plastic, you build and single camera, and you want to go for an android. I'd strongly recommend checking this phone out, alright guys, so that's it for today. I hope you've enjoyed this one. Let me know by the way: what do you think of the pixel series? Do you own one? Do you plan to buy one feel free to? Let me know in the comments I always enjoy reading this once again a huge thanks to these people pledging on Patreon. If you want to help support the channel, get bonus behind the scenes, videos, exclusive, wallpapers and much more than feel free to check that out.

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Source : BubVisuals