From Google Pixel 3a to Google Pixel 4a

 Well, having had my Pixel 3a since late November I was all set for not upgrading for a long time, but I thought wrong, thanks to a free gift from the very kind folks at Google, I now have a beautiful new Pixel 4a in "just Black". It arrived in a nice welcome pack with a weird tasting mocktail, some spicy biscuits and some nice sugar coated sweets... The standard phone box is inside, which contains the usual USB C cable, adaptor and charger. 

After swapping my SIM over, I did try to do a settings transfer by USB cable but couldn't get it to work, so I opted for the over-WiFi method which worked perfectly. The 4a is even smaller than my 3a, and the front is nearly all screen, with a punch hole selfie camera. I've not had that on any of my previous phones. Here's both side by side (photos taken with my Pixel XL, which feels chunky in comparison to both!).  The 4a is only available in black and there's no XL version, although there will be a 5G version to be released at some point.

Although externally smaller than the 3a, the Pixel 4a has a slightly larger screen (5.8" instead of 5.6") thanks to the punch hole camera, and nearly the same resolution. The cameras are almost the same (except a slightly wider aperture - f1.7 in the 4a instead of f1.8) but the 4a gains the dual exposure controls and Live HDR+ photography features from the Pixel 4. Internally, the 4a has a bit faster CPU and a slightly bigger battery (3,140mAh instead of 3000mAh) and again supports 18W fast charging. The 4a has 6GB of RAM instead of 4GB and twice the storage at 128GB, which is great for me since I do take a lot of photos and videos. It still has the fingerprint sensor in the same place on the back, which I prefer to face unlock, or having it on the front. My finger easily find the sensor when picking it up. 

One hardware change is the removal of the Active Edge, which I never used anyway and had disabled. But the best thing is the Pixel 4a still has a headphone jack, as although I often use Bluetooth headphones, I still like having a headphone jack as backup and so I can plug my phone directly into my amp. 

I found a cheap flip case on Amazon because I really don't like taking my phone out naked, particularly on my walks. It's the usual faux-leather affair, but I like that it doesn't have that annoying flap that my 3a case has, and it stays firmly shut with a decent magnet. Also it doesn't get in the way of the camera like the 3a case did.

Cameras

Photo quality is pretty much the same as on my 3a, just as great. I've not played with the dual exposure controls yet but the Google AI blog explains how those and Live HDR+ work. With Live HDR+, you get to see a more accurate view of what the finished photo will look like in the preview image. Video quality seems to be exactly the same as the 3a as far as I have noticed.

Night Sight is impressive as ever.

When I first saw punch hole cameras on phones I thought they would be annoying but generally I don't notice it's there, as long as images and videos aren't fullscreened over it, which they generally don't unless in ultra wide resolution.

Issues?

So far I have found no problems with the 4a, and thankfully it does not have the slight GPS issue I had with the 3a when i got it. One thing I'm still getting used to on the 4a is navigation on the Home screen is gestures-only so to switch apps you have to swipe up from the bottom, hold, then tap the app you want. To go Back anywhere, swipe left from the right edge of the screen. You can also quickly swipe between apps by swiping the white bar at the bottom left or right. I can't see anyway to disable it and I don't really want to change Launchers, eventually it'll be stored in muscle memory.

Battery Life

With its slightly larger battery  (3,140mAh instead of 3000mAh), the 4a has so far given me a few more hours of battery, likely offset slightly by the newer/faster CPU. The screenshot below was on a mixed usage day, went for a walk, took plenty of photos, used GPS/Google Maps, browsed the net in the evening a lot. Since I have had it, the 4a has often had 30 or more percent left of battery before going to sleep.

Android 11

Just four days after getting my new Pixel 4a, and as I was preparing to finish this review, Android 11 was released both to it and my 3a.

 

I straight away noticed a couple of new features. The first thing I noticed in the update are app suggestions are added if you have an empty spot on the bottom row of your Home screen, not really keen on that so i haven't left a space. 

Media controls have been tweaked...

There's a whole bunch of new features and tweaks - too many to go into them all here, including a new power menu, native screen recorder and improved permissions, so I've left a link at the bottom of this article.  

 Conclusion

Overall, the Pixel 4a feels snappier than my old 3a, thanks to that extra RAM and faster CPU, and with twice as much storage I don't have to worry about filling it up too quickly. Just like the 3a, the Pixel 4a is a great mid-range phone, everything works near perfectly. It is buttery smooth, has a great camera, very good screen, and all day battery life. It's absolutely a worthy successor to the 3a, with a better screen to body ratio, bigger battery, larger screen, faster CPU and twice the storage on the base model. I intend to keep my 4a until it stops working, with my 3a as backup, unless Google decide to send me a newer device again...

- You can buy the flip case here on Amazon.

- Wired has a thorough overview of new features and tweaks in Android 11.

- Here's what I thought of the Pixel 3a when I upgraded from my Pixel XL.

You can find me on Twitter and Instagram 

From Google Pixel XL to Google Pixel 3a

I needed a replacement for my ageing first gen Google Pixel XL as the battery has pretty much had it and I managed to crack part of the screen on it too. I knew the ideal replacement would be the Pixel 3a and luckily it was reduced in the Black Friday sales not long after my birthday. I chose "Just Black" as I didn't like the odd colour buttons on the other colours. And the Purple-ish wasn't purple enough for me. This is the first time I have had a brand new device, I have always owned secondhand phones.

I chose the Pixel 3a as it's about half the price of the new flagship Pixels but still has a great camera and stereo speakers of the flagship.  As a bonus, unlike many flagships now, including the Pixel 4, it has no screen notch and it has a headphone socket!

Transfering my settings between my old Pixel XL and the Pixel 3a was very easy with the provided OTG adaptor in the box, it walks you through the steps. it synced messages, installed apps, various system settings and the photos I had stored on it.

Although the screen is slightly larger than my old XL (5.6" instead of 5.5"), the device as a whole (being the non-XL version) is actually smaller and lighter. It feels significantly lighter at 147g than the Pixel XL's 168g. I assume the plastic body saves quite a bit of weight. The screen is OLED rather than AMOLED, it seems brighter, crisper, though it has a lower pixel density (~441 compared with ~534).

I love Ambient Display on the 3a, constantly showing the time and what music is currently playing is very handy. Also I don't think I have ever previously had the option of  listening and identifying what's playing nearby, all the time. Lift to Wake is always great to have too.

The Pixel 3a has a feature where you squeeze the sides of the phone to activate Google Assistant, I haven't had a phone with that before. I haven't really played with that much, apart from it accidentally being squeezed in my pocket. I've changed the setting so that now it won't activate with the screen off. I have a cheap flip case on it, as I wanted to protect it, it still allows the sides to be squeezed.

Problems?

Only slight issue I have had is the GPS was all out of whack. At first it struggled to find my location at all, then I calibrated the GPS in Google Maps and GPS Status app. Oddly the Untappd app had location completely disabled in its settings for some reason so I fixed that. And that's the only minor issue I have had so far. It still seems to go off a bit and needs calibrating every now and then.


Battery Life

With the knackered battery in my old Pixel, I would start getting anxious at 60 something percent, but with the 3a I'm getting much better usage, thankfully. Though my old XL had a slightly bigger battery, it was so worn out I could run my battery down in less than an hour of web browsing and it would often shutdown at 30 or more percent.

My first full days usage, which is always the heaviest as you end up playing with it the most, I got over 16 hours usage. This was a day of sitting in coffee shops and pubs browsing the net on the wifi a lot, and walking round taking plenty of  photos.

I am now mostly getting between 16 and 19 hours, often with over 5 hours screen time, and that's when letting it go down to around 15%, with Ambient Display and Bluetooth on all the time. I always have it connected to my Xiaomi Mi Band 4 watch.

Cameras

Part of why I went for the 3a is of course the camera, and it's fantastic! The original Pixel was impressive for the time and this is even better, I am very impressed, particularly as this isn't a flagship device.

The selfie camera is great too, and the Portrait mode, where it blurs the background of the shot around you, makes them even better. Those work most of the time, but it's worth taking several shots to make sure at least one of them works right, particularly if you have wild hair. This photo was taken at sunset, so it's in fairly low light.

Night Sight is even more impressive on the 3a than on my old Pixel. These photos were taken around 10pm. These were just quick shots taken off a bridge and in a market square.

Some more Night Sight shots taken on another wet winter night:

It also takes Motion Stills, which seem to be automated, they're a few photos bunched together in a little animated gif. Can be useful for capturing a reaction of someone or a car going past.

The 3a also takes much better videos than my old  Pixel XL, they look brighter, less washed out.  Having optical image stabilisation also helps, my old XL didn't have it.

I am very happy with my Pixel 3a so far, it's been the first smartphone I have had where everything works near perfectly. It is buttery smooth, has a great camera, good screen, and all day battery life. It's taken a little getting used to the new Home screen navigation, swiping up from the bottom to show recent apps, rather than pressing the right hand on screen button on my old XL. I could have just installed a third party launcher and changed it to the old way, but I'd rather keep it stock for now. I hope to keep my pixel 3a for as long as possible, as long as it still works well.