Gadgetory

there was a time when Google launched the program that felt like sort of a case study all of you might remember this as the Nexus at first began as a showcase of hardware and software with the Nexus 1 which was my first ever Android phone which later evolved stretching the boundaries of design offerings from Samsung and later took a step back and defined what a flagship killer concept should be in which companies like oneplus were famous for today you'd think that that formula was successful enough but no it was shelved and in return the company went back to its roots and see the pixel was a different animal it was all about a premium foam with a great camera and a price to match this was more a product to compete with the galaxies and the iPhones and then necessarily succeed in the process the pixel 3 was truly a great camera with a mediocre phone and as a result it didn't sell well at all and the aftermath usually companies will just drop the price tag of the failed product and try to sell it aggressively but not Google instead we got this this is the Google pixel 3 a a far less expensive iteration of that failed product that's surprisingly far better than I expected I'm hey I'm gonna be better with pocket now and let me tell you more about it in the title of this video I called this almost everything that you need and true I know that's a bold statement needs very but one of the things that I've learned is that most people are just looking for a good phone with good battery life and great photos and you'd be shocked at how much this phone nails the essentials for just 399 visually it looks a lot like the pixel 3 I mean it even feels like a pixel 3 but trust me it's not and by a significant margin somehow Google managed to make the polycarbonate finish feel like if it were glass but lighter I'm glad Google gave me the option to pick my unit size in color as after months with the pixel 3 Excel I really wanted a palate cleanser and this purplish color is awesome it almost looks like bleached white that only grabs the purplish tone depending on the angle that you're looking at it it takes me back to the times when all phones were polycarbonate and then feel like a fragile thing you could break the main advantage to that polycarbonate is that it handles fingerprints better and the dents are far less noticeable if you drop this phone now obviously corners had to be cut for this phone to be less expensive starting with the fact that there is no water resistance here and at the front we have dragon trail glass which I'm not going to call less quality than Gorilla Glass we just don't know much about it under the glass we have a 5.6 inch 1080p + OLED at 18 point 5 by 9 aspect ratio and a sad 75% screen to body ratio don't worry the always-on display that we praised on the pixel 3 is here those of you that we're looking for a bezel less display this is not your phone but in Google's defense it's actually not a bad display at all it's not the brightest but it gets the job done it has a good 441 pixels per inch and colors are actually really good for its price point now what isn't common on this price range is stereo speakers and believe it or not there are here and they actually sound really good you'd be shocked what content consumption on this phone is actually not bad we even have a headphone jack though that is easy to find at this price range now other corners cut our internal but this is actually a good time to make a comparison with an iPhone because since Apple owns the software usually they don't need grid internals for their phones and their iPhones perform great same case here Android is Google software and it shines in the pixel 3a even with the qualcomm snapdragon 670 four gigs of ram and 64 gigs of storage we have a 3000 milliamp hour battery that supports a fast 18 watt charger that comes in the box and well that's about it still again Google is more software company than it is a hardware company and I think the biggest story about the pixel 3a is the software experience and the perks you get if you grab a Google phone one of the major advantages is that you get the latest version of Android before any other smartphone you also get the pixel launcher which is one of my favorites though you will notice some minor differences with the pixel 3 like the lack of the live birth wallpapers that I love and you also won't get unlimited storage on google photos in full resolution though you can still pick for the optimized version and you'll be fine now loved it or hated the pixel pill user interfaces here I noticed Google has even brought the haptics to interact with the app launcher and yes you can squeeze the pixel to launch the Google assistant as well now one of the main reasons why the pixel 3 was not one of my favorite devices was because even if it was a showcase of software it didn't really perform well on that phone in the case of the pixel 3 a obviously you can't really ask a mid ranger to do great things but software actually performs just as well as on the pixel 3 meaning that performs ok I'm not saying that it's faster than the pixel 3 or in any way better but it's not the opposite either you can multitask between applications or launch the app tray or launch the Google feed and you'll rarely ever see or notice a stutter here and there another perk is that this phone is optimized for Google fly and I can't stress enough how much I love this service those of you that are looking for a good prepaid plan that's also an international lifesaver the Google pixels are the best phones for this and true you can get Google fly on other smartphones but those of you that are looking for a device that's well optimized to jump between networks like US Cellular Sprint and t-mobile you'll actually need a pixel and this is the cheapest way to get into that and then even better is the fact that the pixel 3/8 clings to the network well in phone calls sound good and then another pleasant surprise is that this phone has really good endurance I mean the pixel three was not great when it came to battery life but the advantage of the 600 series Snapdragon is that it's more power efficient I've been able to get through the day just fine and I can't say that I've gone beyond the day but at least I haven't had to deal with any battery and anxiety which is great but now let's jump into the reason why you're here why these phones are called pixels it's mainly because of their cameras but I'm gonna start this by telling you that I still find what we have here to be impossible because true the sensor is important but also important as the ISP which is processor dependent and the Snapdragon 670 doesn't have a great one which means that Google was able to figure out how to get great photos from a sensor and software the pixel 3 a does not disappoint photos are just as you'd expect from a Google pixel with fantastic color saturation and contrast and detail is fabulous all around I was expecting the pixel 3a to just kneel when it came to low-light performance but know it works just like the more expensive brother and you do have Knight sight here to boost highlights even more I'm gonna go quiet for a bit just to let you see some more samples because they're really fantastic now portrait photos are good but I do notice that performance is not as good as on the pixel three hair is sometimes not well captured or if you were wearing headphones the photo is just going to be a mess things of the pixel three did not have to deal with you know the sad part is the audio capability of this phone sadly as I expected video is not great following all the steps of the pixel three yes you can record 4k video with 30 on this phone but the audio is just as bad as on it's more expensive brother stabilization is okay and the selfie video is also good though again not a device that will blow your mind away and then last but not least even if the samples are all fabulous I think it's time for Google to make peace with the fact that they need to jump on more camera sensors you need the versatility of other lenses and sadly the pixel 3 is not going to help you and nor will the pixel 3 a to conclude let's go back to the initial premise one is this almost everything you need I mean why is it not everything what's missing for this to be the perfect phone I mean we have a great camera good battery life pure Google software that includes updates a good experience consuming content and decent enough hardware what more could you want right well it's actually two things the first is that most people don't really buy phones for less than a year and I have yet to meet a mid Ranger that ages well I'm sure Google will support this phone for its promised time but there's a huge question mark over how well the phone will perform over time as even the pixel 3 is struggling and then the second is really the looks I mean Samsung has the market flooded with good-looking mid Rangers and the same goes for Oppo and other Chinese brands I mean Google I get it that you're a software company but you're not selling software here you're selling a phone and I think that it's time for you to adopt a more 2019 sex-appeal design if you're ok with a forgettable design I mean for 399 this is probably the best phone you could get it's got the experience it's at the camera it pushes all the buttons that guarantee a great experience which makes me wonder why you would even consider paying more for anything else let us know what you think about the pixel 3a in the comments down below and while you're at it follow us on social media as our extended coverage happens on instagram also subscribe to our channels english and spanish for more content like this one it also follow me on instagram and twitter for weird running pics and stuff please give this video a thumbs up if you like what you saw i'm how you Metairie but I thanks so much for watching we'll see you on the next one