From Google Pixel 4a to Pixel 8a

Well my Google Pixel 4a's battery has become so bad that 5 or so minutes of video recording is enough for it to shutdown, and much like my first gen Pixel years ago, it can no longer determine the true state of the battery. So I needed a replacement phone, and well...I wasn't going to go back to using my Pixel 3a, that's even older and out of support I think. Anyway, it happened to be my birthday and Black Friday was  upon us, so it was a good opportunity to upgrade. For me another Pixel device was the best choice, I have got used to all the Pixel-only features, the amount and quality of the updates and most importantly the lack of bloat! Stock Android is essential for me. The 8a was on sale at a decent price on Amazon and it arrived very quickly. Interestingly, purely by chance, it arrived at the same date that my 3a arrived five years ago, but then I got my Pixel 4a not long after that, so the 3a became the backup device. 

Unlike my 4a that Google sent me for free, which arrived in a fancy box with extra stuff, the 8a arrived in a very small box with no charger. I presume most phones do not come with chargers these days, but luckily I still have the original chargers from both my 3a and 4a. In the box there was a charging cable and the usual little metal SIM removal tool and little USB adaptor used for direct transfer between phones I think but I've never used them. I put the phones side by side and went through the setup process, including the settings transfer, wirelessly. One annoying thing is the process never syncs the state of my data settings, it always leaves 4G on. When left on it cost me 2 quid a day because I am on PAYG. After the initial transfer, I then updated the 8a to the latest version of Android, version 15 (my 4a is on Android 13).  

It is going to take awhile to get used to the fingerprint sensor being in the screen rather than on the back. In some ways it's more convenient, such as when it's flat on a table but it's not quite as reliable as the old rear mounted one. Combining with face unlock helps a little, when there's enough light for the camera to see at least.

One of the first things I noticed is they've nerfed the camera app, some of the advanced quality settings are missing and it seems the photos are not the highest the camera sensor can take, at least from what I understand. The Pixel 8 and 8 Pro have 50MP cameras, but the 8a shows "64MP effectively 16MP" on GSM Arena. Apparently you have to get the 8 and 8 Pro to get the much higher quality and more advanced settings. Bogus! The 8a has a fantastic camera sensor restricted down to a much lower quality. However, it does take better photos than the 12MP 4a at least so it's still an upgrade for me. And Night Sight is still brilliant too.

I've also discovered that from the Pixel 5 series, Google has stopped unlimited uploads of videos and photos to Google Photos, so photos taken with my Pixel 8a now take up space whereas those taken with my 4a or 3a don't. This is especially important with videos that can take up a lot of space. One workaround is to turn off uploads and copy the files to my older phones and let them upload the videos and photos, but that's a bit of a faff. Also, I wish they would not keep changing Google Photos, right now if you edit a photo in the phone app, you have to save it as a new file, which means taking up more space unless you delete the old one, so editing takes longer. In the Chrome app you can just save it over the original file, that's the default, as it should be. 

The front facing selfie camera is a huge upgrade from the Pixel 4A. At 12 megapixels it's the same number of megapixels as the rear camera on the 4a and I finally get to have slow motion on the selfie camera, which is nice. There's a couple of features on the camera I've not had on a phone before, a wide angle lens in addition to the main lens, and the long exposure feature in the camera app, which is good for creating light trails. 

Long Exposure

Night Sight and Long Exposure

Wide Angle

It's the first phone I've had that has no headphone jack but I've been using Bluetooth headphones for a long time with my phones, so I'm not too bothered, and I could use an adaptor if needed. The lack of headphone jack presumably helps give it IP67 dust/water resistance. Also The speakers on the 8a sound noticeably better, a little louder and fuller sounding I think.

Battery life has been great so far, lasting all day, when I've been out with just 50% battery I've still managed to get through the day without charging. I am determined to look after the battery better than than I did on the 4a, but whether it works in the long term we shall see. I intend to try not to use Quick Charging as much. As i was writing this review, the December feature drop came out, which should help me look after the battery, it added Battery Bypass, the ability to stop charging at 80%. I'm currently charging about once a day on my average usage. 

So in conclusion, I am pretty happy with my Pixel 8a, other than the dumbed down camera app quality settings, but then I am not sure what else I could have bought instead. There certainly wasn't the budget for the 8 Pro, and there's not many other decent competitors at this price range without bloat. Hopefully this 8a will last me another 5 years or so and I'll see what Google has to offer when this phone needs replacing. 

Original Google Pixel In 2020. How Does It Fair?

It was time to replace an ageing Moto G (original model) for my son. He doesn’t use it as a phone but more of a small tablet for YouTube and gaming on the go mainly and the Moto was showing its age and had been dropped a few too many times – leaving it in a poor state.

I ended up picking up a very reasonably priced Pixel – original model from 2016. But how does Google's first gen Pixel hold up in 2020?

Firstly, I like the design of the Pixel. The front looks very similar to an iPhone but lacks the physical home button. The back is split into two sections with the fingerprint sensor on the back. I bought a Grade C and was expecting something in much more poor condition, however this just has a few surface scratches and scuffs.

It features a quad core Snapdragon 821 processor, 4GB RAM and 32GB internal storage (a 128GB model was also an option). It has a 5.0” AMOLED screen, USB C charging, a 12MP camera and 8mpx selfie camera. Spec wise, that is still a decent set up.

It shipped originally with Android 7.1 and was updated all the way up to Android 10. This is a rarity in the Android world. Being a Pixel it runs vanilla Android - something I do like. I am not keen on reskinned Android versions (such as those on Samsung or Sony phones) and it doesn't come with any preinstalled bloat that takes up space.

Performance wise, this phone nips along. It is currently on Android 8.0 (with a notification to update to Android 10). The quad core processor might not be top of the range, but the 4GB RAM helps a lot to keep things flowing smoothly and the 32GB storage is plenty for the average person to install a lot of apps and games.

The lack of expandable storage would bug me on a 32GB phone - I do like to keep about 40GB of music on an SD card in my phone - but this could be resolved buy purchasing the 128GB model.

I was pleasantly surprised. I wasn’t expecting such a fast experience. Both the OS and apps swing along nicely and gaming was great too – although I didn’t play any heavy games, but light gaming was a breeze.

It is certainly a massive step up from the Moto G with only 1GB RAM. However it really did surpass my expectations on performance. 

The cameras on the Pixel are superb. It really shows this was a top end handset. Pictures are super crisp, close up photos focus very closely and the background blur feature is great. Even the front selfie camera stood up well especially in low light.

It is a bit smaller that what I am used to (a Moto Z Play which has a 5.5" screen) but I quite liked the slightly smaller footprint. It meant my thumb didn't have to stretch so much across the device.

Audio was good for a phone, it was loud and fairly bassy - but the inclusion of a headphone socket was essential - otherwise I have to listen to my son watching people talk over Fortnite videos on YouTube.

The only downside to this Pixel – and it seems a common issue especially with early Pixels and with older phones in general, is the battery doesn’t hold up well. The 2770 mAh battery would have given decent life when it was new, but after a few years it isn’t doing so well.

I find it better value to buy an older premium phone than a new budget handset, but it is the battery that is hit and miss on older handsets.

If you can get a Pixel with a decent battery, then you can not go wrong with this handset. Not everyone needs the power a new phone offers and grabbing an older high end phone can be a great option to cut the cost down without sacrificing performance and you end up with better quality hardware.

I am loving this Pixel – and am quite jealous of its premium feel, good looks and amazing performance. It has made me rethink whether my next phone will be a Motorola handset (which we are very fond of in our house) or possibly switch to one in the Pixel range.

Written by Simon Royal. Follow me at twitter.com/simonroyal

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 

Samsung J4+ Review... A Mid Range Offering With A Big Screen

My daughter was in need of a new phone and she insisted on a Samsung and preferred a gold one. So after looking around saw the Samsung J4+. This is a mid-range handset with a premium look, that retails, SIM-free, at around £160 on launch.

Featuring a 6” screen, 2GB RAM, 32GB internal storage and 3300 mAh battery it packs a punch for its price.

As well as that it comes with Android Oreo - and is due to be updated to Pie - a 13 megapixel camera and 5 megapixel front camera which even has a front flash. It has a MicroSD slot and 3.5mm headphone socket, but uses microUSB instead of the newer USB-C.

This phone isn’t going to be up to heavy gaming - but it isn’t marketed for that. The quad-core processor and Adreno 308 GPU is more than enough for everyday use and average games. This is aimed at the social media generation, the communicators, the picture takers and Snapchat fans.

Its large screen obviously makes it a large phone at 161.4mm x 76.9mm, but it doesn’t feel chunky and is only 7.9mm thick. My daughter has the gold version - also available in black, pink or blue. The colour refers to the back and side edges, the front of all of them are black.

The back of it however is a finger print magnet, within minutes of handling the phone it was covered in smudges and marks.

For a mid priced phone the screen is very impressive. 720 x 1480 pixels on a 6" display offers a very crisp view.

The left side has the volume buttons as well as the SIM and MicroSD card tray/slots. The right side has the power button and speaker. Yes, the speaker is on the side. It sounds odd but it makes better sense than on the back (which can be muffled when laid down), but I prefer mine on the front.

The J4+ runs Android Oreo 8.1 overlaid with the Samsung Experience - the newer name for TouchWiz. The system runs fast and there are a lot of fans of the Samsung interface but I prefer stock Android without the cutesy bright interface.

The cameras perform well, the 13 megapixel camera takes great pictures, that only suffer in very low light and the 5 megapixel front camera works excellent for its intended purpose - selfies and video calls.

It has a huge 3300 mAh battery gives it enough power for nearly two days - and it could be pushed more with light use.

Overall, I have - and my daughter has - been impressed with this offering from Samsung. It is a great looking phone and runs super smooth. Anything we have run on it, loads and operates with no lag or feeling sluggish (not that you should expect it to for a new phone).

It is difficult to write a review for phones these days, as they all do the same and in fairness all do it very well. Unless there is a feature not up to standard or a design that isn’t to your liking, then a phone is going to please you.

With that in mind, the Samsung J4+ is a great mid priced handset with a great feature set, decent power, great battery and nothing bad to say about it and if you like the Samsung Experience you will enjoy this phone.

If you are wanting a big phone to keep up with your followers all day and pose for selfies then you will like this phone.

Written by Simon Royal. Follow me at twitter.com/simonroyal

Motorola Moto X Style Review

I fancied a phone upgrade and it had to be a Motorola, so I picked up a Moto X Style. The X range was their flagship range and the X Style (known as the X Pure Edition in some parts) is the third iteration released in 2015.

The impressive specs, the fact my wife bought one recently and the glowing review of the second gen Moto X from fellow writer, Moto fan and owner of this blog, Carl Draper, helped sway my decision.

Specs

Spec wise, the Moto X Style features 64-bit Hexa Core Snapdragon 808 processing, 3GB RAM, 5.7” IPS screen, 32GB internal storage, SD slot, 21 megapixel camera and dual flash capable of recording 4k video at 30fps. It has a 5 megapixel front camera with flash, stereo front facing speakers and a fairly hefty 3000 mAh built in battery. It shipped with Android Lollipop and was upped to Marshmallow and Nougat.

The right side has the power and volume rockers, the bottom has the Micro USB port, the left side has nothing and the top has the headphone socket (a necessity for me) and a pull out tray which houses the Nano SIM and Micro SD card. I like this as it means you don’t have to take the back off to access them. My wifes has a dual SIM, but mine only takes one.

That's the technical specifications dealt with, but how does it handle day-to-day?

Feel

The Moto X Style is a large handset, but feels very comfortable. As will all Moto handsets the build quality is superb. Mine is the black version with a wooden style back, my wifes is the champagne version, which has a light blue back and light blue speaker grills on the front.

Battery and Performance

The large 3000mAh battery offers impressive battery life - easily coping with a more than a day of average use and it ships with a quick charger. The 3GB of RAM certainly gives it some breathing room and the Hexa Core processors handle everything with a breeze. Nothing is slow on it, the OS is superfluid and apps open and run very quick. I’m not a gamer so couldn’t say how it handled in that area.

Screen and Audio

The 5.7" screen is large and bright and the 520 ppi makes it super crisp. Notifications are displayed on the lock screen and the screen can be woken with just a wave of the hand in front of it.

Call quality is clear and loud. It is a phone after all so it needs to excel in its primary function. The audio from the stereo front facing speakers is superb (for a phone). I haven’t even bothered to pair up my bluetooth speaker yet.

The headphone socket was essential and produces louder music than on my previous phone with the same earphones. I had a brief issue with fluff and paper stuck in it preventing it being used - the perils of buying a used phone - but I have resolved this now.

Camera

The 21 megapixel camera takes amazingly sharp photos. The image stabilisation is very good.  The camera opens quickly - via the menu or by double pressing the power button - and there is zero delay in snapping pictures.

It can also shoot videos in 4k. This is a pointless addition personally as I never need to shoot video that high, but its nice to know it is possible.

Storage

The 32GB internal storage will make a huge difference. 16GB on my previous handset was getting tight. Coupled with my 64GB Micro SD card I now have almost 100GB of storage.

Packaging

A small note. Boxes never normally interest me, however this X Style came in the biggest most impressive box I have ever seen for a mobile phone.

Comparison To G4

This Moto X Style was replacing my beloved Moto G4 which has been used daily for two years and never let me down so finding a replacement wasn’t going to be easy. While the specs are not drastically increased, the larger internal storage and RAM on the X Style made it a good decision. The larger crisper screen, inclusion of stereo speakers and NFC added to it. The improved cameras sealed the deal.

Conclusion

I am very impressed with this X Style. It looks amazing especially with its wooden style back and the bump in storage will help dramatically. It may be stuck on Android version 'Nougat' (currently two revisions behind the latest), but this doesn't matter too much in the Android world.

Written by Simon Royal. Follow me at twitter.com/simonroyal

Is Silence Golden? Not For Me And My Phone

I am a slave to my smartphone. It rings, dings, pops and clicks constantly with each service or app having its own unique sound. With every Facebook comment and tweet my phone makes a noise, it buzzes and I feel the need to look at it instantly.

I've never been a fan of putting your phone on silent. It bugs me when you ring someone and they don't answer it and then get the excuse 'sorry my phone was on silent’ - or you send a message, which you know has been delivered but it takes them an hour to reply. Yes I am impatient.

But I have noticed I look at my phone a lot, probably too much. So I decided to try out putting it on silent. My wife has hers on silent all the time and doesn't feel the need to read every notification as soon as it appears. My phone would still vibrate, but no audible sound would come out.

I tried it. To start with I felt quite free. Liberated from whipping my phone out like I was in a showdown in the Wild West. I got all sorts done without looking at my phone every few minutes - cleaning, house work, watching TV but the best was listening to music without the sound dipping for each notification.

However the novelty of a quiet life soon wore off. When you have a different sound for every notification type you know when a WhatsApp message comes in, which is more important than the latest comment on a Facebook thread. Therefore if I was particularly busy I could ignore a Facebook pop, yet look at a text message. With my phone on silent, all notifications felt the same - so I would miss messages that needed looking at - I even had a habit of missing calls.

This was somewhat overcome by my Microsoft Band which shows notifications on my wrist and vibrates each time - but it just wasn't the same. The fact I own a wrist notification device compounds my need to see every notification as soon as it arrives. I don’t even need to take my phone out of my pocket.

So after less than 48 hours, I turned my phone off silent and am enjoying my usual array of sounds. I am making a conscious effort to not look at my phone for every Facebook and Twitter notification - which isn’t going too well - but I still pick it up for messages.

I will have to admit defeat and come to terms with the fact that my smartphone has taken over my life. Social media, instant messages and always being available to answer a call is what my day-to-day life has become.

Silence certainly isn’t golden for me. Ding!