Google - Pixel 4a 128GB (Unlocked) - Just Black

Overall this phone has everything that I'm looking for. Pros Great camera for photos. Good battery life. Snappy performance. Size is good for those who like a one handed phone. $350 asking price for an unlocked phone. Cons Not waterproof. Ok camera for video. Speakers while loud, can suffer from distortion. *Photos of my dog and nature all taken with Pixel 4A camera*

The Google Pixel 4a is on the smaller side of the new Android smart phone world, which is exactly why I picked it. The body is pretty solid, with an audio jack and a USB-C charging outlets, and comes in the very boring colour black (some places also have blue available). I purchased this on my own, and simply added my T-Mobile nano-SIM, and was all good to go, straightaway, no calls needed to the service provider. You'll receive it charged above 50%. Comes with a USB-C - to USB-C cable (male / male, so you won't be getting a USB-C to USB-A; also comes with a wall charger that utilizes that cable) which enabled me to plug it in directly to my old Sony phone and took about 30 minutes to do a complete transfer of apps, contacts, photos, etc. (Note: I had less than 300 photos). You are prompted at initial set-up (once you turn on) to do this, aided by a built-in programme, or can do it later, on your own. At 128GB it's got plenty of memory for me. It does not have a memory card slot, so no more having to move files or change setting on where to save apps or media. Runs Android 11, but comes with 10, which automatically updates to 11 once you get it running. It's pretty quick/responsive, and quite snappy. You can opt to use gestures, so there is no notch/band at the top; gestures removes the 3 button navigation at the bottom, and invokes being able to swipe from the bottom to access opened apps, etc. - at first I hated it, but I gave it another chance, and am definitely sticking with gestures. My last phone stopped updating at Android 8, so this was new to me. The screen is quite vibrant, with 3 settings to fit your needs, and the photos come out great, crisp, and lots of colour depth with the 12MP camera, @ 2160p (compare to most LED TVs, which run at about 1080p). My Sony had a 20MP camera but its lower resolution screen made them look almost pale, when viewed on that phone. 12MP is deal, and you can read about that online. The 8MP front camera is great, though there is no flash, though it is low-light adaptable, to a degree. I am using a full body cover on it, which you can get on bidding sites quite cheaply. The phone is slim, though wide, and can be held with one hand well enough for thumb Swyping. I know that this being larger than my Sony was initially weird to hold, but the buttons are well placed and easy to use, with a hand appropriately sized to a 5'4" female. Note: I'm not reviewing Android 11 in this review, just the phone. But, the OS seems to work very nicely with it. Overall I give it a 4 (a!) for its price, durability, and specs/usage. I prefer smaller phones, so that's why I'm not giving it a full 5. Summary - This phone came out in August of 2020, is on the latest Android, has a great camera and the screen to go with it, and opens apps quickly, including browsing. Recommended to those of us who don't like having tablets and not being able to fit them in women's jean pockets (and this one does!).

overall this is a great little phone, I bought this as a replacement for my galaxy note 9 which had a cracked screen, I wasn’t sure how I would like going from a bigger phone with a stylus to a smaller phone without, but I can honestly say I haven’t missed it yet.. software experience and camera I really like the vanilla or pixel android experience vs what Samsung puts on their phones. The exclusive pixel features such as call screening and call hold are great, I have used the call screening feature and it really helps block those unwanted calls, especially the one about the car warranty. I have not used the call hold feature yet, but I am sure that will come in handy, as I do not like to wait on hold. The camera is great on this phone, I have done some astrophotography shots and they come out great and even regular shots in the camera also come looking incredibly good. the portrait shots really look good too. I am incredibly surprised with this budget friendly phone just how good the camera is. Now I do not consider myself a light user, but I do not game heavily on my phone, occasionally I play a light game here or there. I do use apps like tasker and join to automate different things and even with these apps I haven’t had any lag or slowdown on the phone, the only time I see any stutter is when I open the Google play store and go into “my apps”, when that’s opening it sort of pauses with the navigation pane on the left, but I think that’s cause its loading the apps that have updates, but otherwise no problems with this phone. Hardware and size I did by a unicorn beetle pro case for this, as it isn’t dust or water resistant, no IP rating on the phone, so I needed a decent case so I wouldn’t worry so much about breaking this phone. The fingerprint reader on the back works great and fast, not much else to say about that. I never got into face unlock and have always preferred the fingerprint to unlock. The size of the phone is actually quite nice, I didn’t realize how much I missed having a smaller phone in my day to day life, I can put this in my pocket, even with the case, and barely notice I have it on me, with my previous phone it would bulge out of the pocket so if I sat down I would have to finagle the phone otherwise it would jab me. Battery The battery hasn’t been exactly that consistent, also neither am I, so that could be part of the problem, a few days I have gotten straight through from when I unplug in the morning until I go to bed and plug back in with somewhere in the neighborhood of between 10-20 percent remaining. There have been some nights where I had to plug in before that, but I think the adaptive battery setting is still learning my usage, and I also did find some apps that were using battery in the background and restricted them from being able to, that has also helped improve the battery life on this phone. Conclusion I would highly recommend this phone to anyone who is in the market for a new phone but isn’t looking for all the bells and whistles. This checks most the boxes for the average user, if you are a gamer or more of a power user looking for more features, you most likely wont even be considering this phone anyway.

(This is a review from from my Google account, I bought this phone from bestbuy so I thought might as well put it here to with some picture comparison, two night mode pictures from both and one normal picture. The first 3 pictures are the galaxy s10+.) I bought this phone for my father, just arrived today, I wanted to see if the hype about the cameras were true....boyy I'm shock at how a $350 phone blew my galaxy s10+ to the side, I bought this galaxy for 1k+ and for it to be blown away by a phone thats only 350 is kind of disappointing, the pixel is such a simple phone straight to the point, being pretty isn't its objective, put a case on it and it look just like any other phone, ill update this review later with a speed test Update: Did a speed test and they were almost identical in opening apps and searching for something on the web, this was an average consumer speed test no milliseconds analysis that you wouldn't even be able to perceive the difference if you were really using these phones on a separate basis. Also did a quality test of the screen, the galaxy s10 plus gets brighter and thats about it, the pixel colors are accurate and blacks looks deep. On YouTube the samsung is able to hit 1440p the pixels maxed is 1080p, when turning my samsung brightness up standing next to the pixel i never realized how saturated some colors were on the samsung I did this test on the Weeknd song "binding lights" the red suit looked so saturated on the samsung, the pixel also does an amazing job at contrasting colors. My last test was a sound test and the pixel 4a won by a landslide won't even get into detail, the pixel almost sound like a little speaker. I'm still shock at the difference, a flagship phone from 2019 should still be able to outperform a mid 350 dollar phone of 2020 that's really a huge disappointment, for this price range this phone is the best you can get. On the other hand the galaxy still beats the pixel in raw power, so if you're a gamer the pixel wouldn't be the best option, though it still performs well.

I love my decision to buy this awesome affordable google pixel 4A I have plenty of memory It has an great camera that's good enough for me an average photographer Easy to use and I get the latest updates plus as an bonus it's an unlocked phone so I can take it to any carrier I love it so much I'm really thinking about upgrading to one of the bigger brothers 4a 5G or the pixel 5 Almost forgot it also has fast charging with great battery life

Awesome phone. My daughter loves it. It's fast, pictures are high quality, touch screen is responsive.. I have a pixel 3 which I paid almost double the price when it was new. This phone is so much phone for the money. For everyday users like me, movies, texting, games and of course calls it's perfect. When I upgrade,. I'm not getting the 6, I'm getting the 4a or the new version. I can't stop thinking how much you get with this phone. Its not water proof and the case is plastic, however I got a good protective case. As far as water proof, we really haven't had an issue. I also was able to add her to my google 1, so we share cloud storage and apps. It backs up without any effort. I got so fed up of paying so much money for apple products and feeling wanting. The pixels phones are affordable enough to replace and not so expensive you need insurance, considering most deductibles are about as much as a new pixel 4a. Just an awesome Google product.

Love my phone, not to heavy, fits well in my pocket and in my wallet. Has held up for me now going on 2 years stii charges up and not over heated. Well worth the money that I spent on it.

This is a competent, functional camera attached to a mid-market phone. And that's okay. As I get older, I am less inclined to carry 5 pounds of camera equipment around my neck for hikes or sightseeing. The Pixel's camera is no match for a high-end point and shoot, let alone a DSLR. But it stomps anything this side of an iPhone 8. Funny thing, most phone camera modules cost about $25. The optics are cheap and the sensors are tiny. The secret sauce is in the image processing engine. And Google has added a ladle of that sauce to this camera module. Don't expect it to replace a dedicated camera for critical work, but at least it won't embarrass you the way my LG's camera did. The price was acceptable, thanks to BB's rewards program. And, obviously, it works great with Fi. All boxes checked.