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The vast majority of our reviews come from verified purchases. Reviews from customers may include My Best Buy members, employees, and Tech Insider Network members (as tagged). Select reviewers may receive discounted products, promotional considerations or entries into drawings for honest, helpful reviews.

• Rated 5 out of 5 stars

  Class Leading "Budget" Phone

  • Tech Insider Network Member
  • Top 250 Contributor

  I've been using the Google Pixel 9a for almost a week now and even though this phone is pretty "basic" when it comes to included hardware. This phone provides everything you need in a smartphone now a days. This phone shares some of the same hardware that its bigger brothers the Pixel 9 Pro and Pro XL have. Such as the Google Tensor G4 processor and Titan M2 security coprocessor. The pixel 9a has 8gb of ram. I have to admit that I was expecting this phone to have some hiccups but I was wrong. This phone has run pretty flawlessly. Google Gemini and the editing features that come included with the camera app and google photos with this phone have all run pretty good. My favorite mobile games all play without issues. Google is promising 7 years of software support and updates for this phone. If google keeps that promise, then this phone will theoretically get updates for the life of its hardware. The camera on this phone is pretty amazing! It has a 48mp 1/2" image sensor! That is quite large for a camera phone. The lens is f1.7 aperture and has optical and electronic stabilization. All that means that you will be able to capture great photos and videos in most situations. Google also has the best "computational" photography on a smart phone. It is pretty amazing at setting a pleasant exposure. Skin tones are amongst the best I've seen on any smart phone. My favorite thing about this phone is the camera, and the magic editor in google photos. It makes taking photos and videos fun. This phone has a very bright 6.3 inch display, they advertise 2700 nits of peak brightness. It also has a variable refresh rate of 60-120hz. Amazing screen for this price point. I honestly do not know if you can find a better screen and camera on any other phone at this price. The battery is large, 5100mah. Google claims up to 100 hours when put in extreme battery saver mode. I haven't tested that mode, but I will tell you that I didn't charge this phone for almost two days once and the phone didn't fall below 80% This phone has very impressive standby battery life. The ai features included in this phone are so helpful, Google Gemini is the name of the new ai assistant and sometimes I feel like I am speaking to a live person. It listens and understands you so well, and provides very helpful information. Once in a while it has been incorrect (I think) about certain topics and questions I asked but I imagine it will only get better as google updates it over the years. I could ramble all night about all the software features this phone has, but to keep things short.. I'll say that software on this phone is the ultimate assistant. It is so great and helpful for editing photos and videos, making plans, finding directions, reminders, studying. It's kind of scary how quickly and easily you can get things done with google's new assistant. Even after a week, I feel like I haven't seen all the things this assistant can do. The Google Pixel 9a is hands down, the best "budget" phone on the Market right now.I might even argue that it is probably the best phone released so far this year. Most people don't need all the bells and whistles that expensive "flagships" have. This phone has everything you could need, it is classy, feels great in the hand and is water resistant. If you don't want to spend a small fortune on a phone, I highly recommend this phone. I Love it, and I think you will also.

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  Posted 7 months ago by Ponskippa

• Rated 5 out of 5 stars

  Cut-Rate Price, Full-Rate Phone

  • Tech Insider Network Member
  • Top 50 Contributor

  In the era of unlocked phones and carrier freedom reigning supreme, the retail price of flagship phones has been steadily climbing to match the feature set and unsubsidized costs. As the highest-end phones continue to push well beyond the thousand dollar mark, a new market segment of “affordable flagship” phones appeals to a much wider range of buyers, eschewing top-tier performance and specs for a device that still delivers a premium experience. Google introduced the Pixel a-series as midrange counterparts to the high-end Pixel phones starting with the 3a, and since then a new Pixel a series phone comes annually about six months following the flagship. Featuring the same custom processor as the highest end Pixel 9 Pro phones, the 9a packs nearly all the top features into a half-price device that makes more than acceptable concessions to get there. - Unboxing & Setup Mimicking other smartphones, Google’s unboxing experience is spartan but organized. A charger, USB-C cable, SIM tool, and a USB-C cable are included alongside a very short quickstart guide. My first impressions were mixed. The a-series phone of this generation feels like a step down in materials quality - although the Pixel 8a had a more obvious and sizable camera bar, the phone also had a much nicer feel in the hand. The 9a feels noticeably lighter and thinner than the last-generation phone, but the plastic back feels lower quality than I was expecting and gives the impression of being thin, cheap plastic. If you use a case you’ll never notice this, but it was an early (and mercifully, one of very few, if not the only) disappointment . Initial setup is a breeze, especially, if you’re coming from another Android phone. You’ll be prompted to power-on your old phone and connect to the Pixel 9a to transfer your data over either wirelessly or wired - the latter is definitely better for large transfers as the wireless option slowed down significantly after just a couple gigabytes of data. Otherwise this worked flawlessly transferring data from a fairly recent Android phone. The remainder of the initial setup sets your Google device and account preferences, including how you want to configure your Google assistant, Wallet, any smart watches, face unlock, and more preferences. Once setup is complete, apps identified during the data transfer (and any other apps you had downloaded previously) are downloaded from Google Play to update them to the latest version. - Screen & Sound Coming from a Pixel 9 Pro, it was difficult to discern any difference in screen quality between it and the 9a unless I put them side-by-side. The only significant difference between them is that the 9a doesn’t use a special backing for fully variable refresh rates and backlighting - which makes little difference for most people. The 9a’s OLED screen is bright, vibrant, and fills nearly the entire front of the phone for a wonderful viewing experience. The bezel is slightly more noticeable than on the 9 Pro, but again this is really only noticeable with the phones side-by-side. The 9a does lose out slightly on peak brightness, but at 2700 nits it’s still plenty viewable in bright daylight. By default, the Pixel 9a runs at a 60Hz refresh rate to preserve battery life. You can enable 120Hz in settings if preferred, and I would recommend this - the high refresh rate makes a difference in just how fast and fluid the phone feels in use, making the most of Google’s latest Tensor processor, albeit at the expense of some battery life. The front-facing earpiece speaker and a bottom-facing speaker offer stereo sound, and these speakers get pretty loud with little distortion at high volume. Though the EQ seems tuned for speech, bass reproduction is good when listening to music. There’s no headphone jack, as expected, so you’ll need to use a USB-C headphone adapter (not included) or a Bluetooth device if you want to listen privately. - Performance Sharing Google’s homegrown Tensor G4 chip with the high-end Pixel 9 range, the Pixel 9a doesn’t sacrifice much in the way of computing power. The only notable difference from the higher-end phones is that Google equips the 9a with 8GB of RAM - half as much as the Pro model and a quarter less than the standard 9. This cutback does impact the availability of Google’s ‘Gemini’ artificial intelligence model, which in the Pixel 9a runs on-demand and only in limited capacities. In real-world use, unless you’re completely on-board with Gemini and deeply embedded in the Google ecosystem (at which point you’re likely considering a Pixel 9 or 9 Pro), 8GB of RAM is plenty for the Pixel 9a. The Tensor G4 is still doing the heavy lifting under the hood and overall performance is excellent. I never once experienced any hitching or lockups switching between applications, multitasking with media on in the background, or editing photos directly on the phone. The fact that Pixel phones are devoid of bloatware and OEM-specific add-on apps is a major plus that helps bolster the phone’s smooth performance. - Camera One of the most notable changes between the higher-end Pixel 9 phones and the 9a is the camera array. Stepping down to two rear cameras (one 48 megapixel wide sensor and one 13 megapixel ultrawide sensor) sounds like it may be asking the Google Camera app to pick up a lot of slack, but the fact is that both these sensors are high-quality and on par with flagships of years prior. In any case, Google’s work with AI has been integrated into the Camera app on the Pixel 9 range, and the AI-enabled post-processing makes this phone’s pictures stand out just as well as any modern flagship phone. The most noticeable loss moving down to the 9a is the lack of optical zoom - all zooming is now done in-software for up to 8x digital “Super Res” zoom, which performs well enough with the AI enhancements but doesn’t quite make up the loss of optical zoom. Still, this won’t be a problem for most casual users. The front-facing camera isn’t as impressive as it is on the higher-end Pixel 9 models, but it still delivers good shots and the AI enhancement picks up the slack to balance out the image. - Battery and Charging The major focus for Google’s in-house Tensor processors is improving power efficiency. The Tensor G4 chip already made substantial improvements for the Pixel 9 and 9 Pro series phones, and these improvements carry down to the Pixel 9a with some further design choices (such as a marginally lower resolution screen) to make the slightly smaller battery last just as long as, if not longer than, the larger-capacity phones. Indeed, starting from a full charge and using the 9a an above-average amount (including a couple hours streaming music and at least one Maps trip with navigation), I usually end my day between 40% and 50% charge. With Battery Saver enabled I could likely go two full days off-charger with this usage pattern. Starting from the Pixel 7a, the a-series phones support wireless charging which is a welcome addition to the midrange smartphone market. Using the older Qi charging standard means wireless charging is limited to 7.5 watts, with wired USB-C Power Delivery charging able to deliver 23 watts for a rapid charge - 0 to 75% in about 40 minutes. In addition, Google enables “adaptive charging” by default, which will automatically reduce charging speed as the battery nears a full charge to reduce wear on the battery cells and extend the phone’s life - quite welcome for a phone with a 7-year support cycle. This feature is seamless if you have a regular alarm in the morning as the phone will trickle charge so it reaches 100% just minutes before your day starts. Clever stuff! - Bottom Line Every new Pixel a-series generation brings steady improvement, and this year’s Pixel 9a continues refining the affordable experience while keeping to Google’s incredibly long support window for every new device. Unless you’re a power user, the Pixel 9a doesn’t sacrifice much versus even the Pixel 9 Pro I daily-drive, and I could realistically grab either in the morning and not really notice which one I took with me. Quite impressive praise for a device with half the MSRP of the flagship. Ultimately the Pixel 9a, just like the 8a before it, is a great all-round phone that’s priced right and seemingly set to last. If Google Gemini and similar generative AI features aren’t the topline feature you’re searching for in a phone, the 9a delivers all you could want at a much more palatable price. Highly recommended!

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  Posted 7 months ago by Turbolence

• Rated 5 out of 5 stars

  Almost perfect. That's what you need

  • Top 500 Contributor
  • Tech Insider Network Member

  This phone is indeed an almost perfect phone. Size: It is just right. It fits very nicely in hands and in pockets. There is no annoying (unnecessary) camera bump in the back. Which is really annoying. It has a 6.3" flat screen: very bright and smooth, refreshing. Very well made phone and very solid! The Pixel 9a has round corners. It is a bit thicker than usual, but that difference in thickness is providing the phone with good handling and allowing a long-life battery to be installed. And again, no camera bump. I never asked for slimmer phone with huge camera bump... The power, and volume buttons on the right side of the phone. For some reason, the power button is above the volume buttons. It is a bit confusing (to me)... Google maybe has some reasons for that set-up. The pixel 9a starts up very quickly. Easy to set up (first run). It gets up and running in no time. It supports eSIM without any issues. The pure Android experience is guaranteed to Pixel Phone users. No bloatware. Having a Google phone means you will always have your phone up-to-date with the latest security patches. Also, Google promises 7 years of updates. It is indeed better than other smartphone brands. On spec sheets, the phone looks just fine. Some benchmarks software might show some lower indicators. I've been using the phone for a while now and can't be bothered by any lag or shortcoming. The Tensor G4 processor is doing a great job running all the apps just fine. Connecting to WiFi is fast and has an adequate range (distance from router). It connects great to my WiFi 7 router. As I mentioned above, I am using an eSIM, so the network radio is just fine. Getting 5G without issues (almost everywhere). The same to say about Bluetooth connectivity: Working very well. Talking AI, this phone is packed with Google AI nice features... I like how simple Gemini works. It is fully integrated in the OS and always available when needed. Out of the box, Pixel 9a is loaded with useful features and some interesting photo manipulation apps. It gets beyond that to AI audio manipulation. Very useful. The phone is capable of deleting unwanted noises from recorded videos without issues. While Pixel 9a has only 2 cameras (on the back side), they are very good at making nice pictures. Recording 4K is possible, but you may get a larger storage if you are planning on recording long videos. Battery life is amazing. The Pixel 9a gets me through the whole day’s activities. That includes: Web browsing, videos watching, taking photos, reading and responding to emails, and listening to music (through the car BT). Very essential phone that is capable of doing all that you need. What is always amazing with Google Pixel phones is the close-capturing camera. The Pixel 9a camera can capture very minor details at almost all lighting and distances. Most of that is also controlled by the Google AI. Still, this is not a flagship phone but indeed a very capable one. Out of the box, the Pixel 9a comes with a USB-C cable. I charge it using my 66W adapter. It charges very fast. No complaint. Wireless charging is also available. That's a big plus indeed. I'd recommend this phone to almost anybody who is looking for a: nice-looking, capable phone with a long-lasting battery, advanced AI, long-term OS updates support, just the right size phone, and for a good price.

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  Posted 6 months ago by SL7977089