Customer Ratings & Reviews

Solid phone, still working good a year later. Pretty tough exterior held up after multiple drops with no case.

It's a really good phone! Only thing is that the finger print sensor didn't work at first--to fix, just add the fingerprint multiple times as multiple fingers.

Amazing phone with very good quality, i liked it so far..

I have had my new phone for almost a week now and here are my thoughts/observations: Design: Nice design and lighter than other phones that I have had. Despite its camera bump, its a slim, compact and sleek device. The matte black gives it a neat, classy look. Being a small phone, it is easy to pocket and grip, feels right sized. Display: The display is bright and appears beautiful as the phone adapts to the multiple styles and themes offered. One gets used to the lower refresh rate (60 Hz) fairly quickly, so it doesn't take much away from the overall experience of the phone. I did feel the touch response was a little slow, as it asked me to press down my finger a little longer, a few initial times. Camera: The phone has two rear camera sensors, a 12.2MP primary camera and a 12MP ultrawide camera, and can take some highly detailed, sharp pictures in well lit areas. The night mode does kick in when it is dark enough, but not all areas of low light. The Magic Eraser feature works great with removing distracting objects from photos with just a tap. It can even change the color of objects to keep the focus of the image sharp and clear. Features: The voice typing is easy, fast and accurate. The call screen and transcription features are very useful daily features. One can even issue verbal commands to the Google assistant without using the words "Hey Google". The haptic feedback feels precise and impactful, especially while unlocking, typing and swiping apps out of memory. Battery: The phone can last a full day starting 6 am, with regular usage, watching videos, gaming, social media, texts and emails, using cellular network, but will need to be plugged in around 9 pm. It's a shame there is no wireless charging, although the phone charges up to nearly half its strength, in 30 minutes. Overall, I am happy with the new phone. It provides a number of features and is good value for money.

With a rocky launch of Google’s in-house SoC named Tensor, I had some hopes that the Pixel 6a will fix some of that. Not having the 6 or 6 Pro will make it tricky to compare it to. However, with regards to the retail price the 6a is released at, as well as other alternatives at that price point, I am finding some really weird head-scratching misses in this phone. The build quality appears to be barely passable for its price. The rear camera array has a strange pill shaped area for the camera, which has me wondering why it is designed this way. It is confusing because I thought it was some sort of protective film for the camera glass. And it doesn’t appear to sit flush with the rest of the visor design. There’s no wireless charging here, which is a letdown because there is a phone that is around this price point that can do wireless charging. The display, while not a deal breaker, is the typical 60Hz refresh rate. But again, that same other phone can do 120Hz refresh rate. Granted, that alternative phone is not available to American buyers (yet?). But knowing that there is a phone out there with those features, it’s a bit concerning. And for some reason, Google killed off the headphone jack for this iteration. I’m quite disappointed in this because there may be times when there's major signal congestion that hampers the Bluetooth connection. The camera, while not high spec like its flagship model, is still good enough of a performer to take excellent photos. It still competes with competing flagship phones on image quality. The only drawback is the image resolution when compared to other phones. And when you have that perfect shot, only to realize it’s partially ruined by some photobomber, Google’s “Magic Eraser” comes to the rescue. It’s surprisingly effective on many things. And when the image condition is just right, you won’t even notice the erased subject was even there. In a change from the norm, the Pixel phones of 2022 all have under-display fingerprint readers. The 6a is no exception to this. And my impression after using it for several days is mixed. My job involves handling books and boxes many times a day. And paper can absorb moisture, especially from fingers and thumbs, if done repeatedly enough. Because of this, using the under-display fingerprint reader is very finicky, and possibly slow. This is unlike capacitive fingerprint readers from my previous phones (Pixel 4a 5G, Note 9) where I can still unlock the phone despite having dried or cracked skins. But for the 6a, I need to actively prevent my finger or thumb from getting too dried where it becomes problematic for the reader. Yet even with proper skin care, there are times when the reader wouldn’t recognize the fingerprint on the first try, or the second try, or the third try. And I have cases where it prompts me for a second security unlock more often than before. 5G support appears to be limited to sub-6 bands, which is a bit of a downer as mmWave 5G is available only through Verizon directly or from the Google store. I’m not a fan of having different models available to support certain network bands. Despite support for sub-6, finding spots where this is available is rather tricky. Certain spots will show its support in the status bar. But such coverage for this is not widespread. When finding such a spot, a quick speed test showed download speeds of over 400mbit/s, with uploads at a dismal 30+mbit/s. But your download speed will definitely vary depending on where that tower is, how far you are from it, and what obstructions are between you and that tower. There is WiFi 6 and WiFi 6E support in the phone but I do not have a router supporting this. And any kind of data transfer happens quickly enough that it never becomes an issue. Stock Android on a Pixel phone has always been an enjoyable experience. There’s no bloat to worry about and the usual suite of Google apps is there for you to use. As of late, I have moved away from Chrome as my default web browser and have opted for Firefox instead. Pixel specific features are one of the better qualities of owning a Google phone. Call screening is a joy to have around due to random spam/scam calls that pop up from time to time. Every single one of these calls that I had screened ended up hanging up before Google Assistant could finish saying its introduction. Some miscellaneous notes: Due to underwhelming experiences with the under-display fingerprint reader, I cannot test nor verify if it can be unlocked with unregistered fingerprints. This has been noted in a few phone media outlets but I cannot verify it by any means. As I do not have a lot of games, I loaded up Genshin Impact to check its performance in comparison to my previous phone (4a5g). It runs much better than before and it can now handle the visuals without having to dial down all the settings to the minimum. Overall the Pixel 6a has some good points and some bad points. I’m unimpressed with the under-display fingerprint reader. I expected more given that other phone makers have come a long way from the first iteration of this tech. The camera hardware is the same. While not old or broken, I still wish there was a better camera hardware to take bigger photos. Performance is quite nice and I did not notice any performance hiccups when using the phone. I’m torn between recommending and not recommending. The biased side of me says to get it despite its faults. But I am having difficulty flat out recommending it because of it. You won’t go wrong with the phone. But I fear your user experience may suffer due to the odd quirks that the phone comes with. Google could potentially fix these things with software updates. But you cannot trust a company to do just that. I believe a tech YouTube personality said this best. I cannot remember the exact phrasing but it goes something like this: Buy the phone for the features it has today, not for what it could become later. Verdict: (biased) buy it, (unbiased) flip a coin The Good: cheaper(?) alternative to the Pixel 6, Pixel-exclusive features, first to get Android updates The Bad: fingerprint reader is underwhelming, no high refresh rate display, no headphone jack The Ugly: what the fingerprint reader sees when I use my dried and cracked skin thumb

TLDR: (that’s Too Long, Didn’t Read) The Pixel 6a is not Google’s flagship top-end phone, but you’d never know it from the rich feature set. The large, beautiful display with an under-screen fingerprint scanner, the great battery life, and the amazing set of features all fool you into thinking you spent a lot for their top-end model… but this is the “affordable” one in the series. There are a few features that the 6 and the 6 Pro have that the 6a doesn’t have, but you’ll probably not miss them for the cash you saved. A fantastic phone at a great price. Pros: * Large always-on OLED screen with small bezels. * Hole-punch selfie camera. * Under-screen fingerprint sensor. * All-day battery life with fast USB-C charging. * Great cameras with computational fun. * Android 12 with Material You is really nice. * First to get all the new software goodies versus non-Google Android phones. Cons: * No wireless charging (present in the 6 and 6 Pro) * Plastic back instead of glass or metal. * No headphone jack (not a con if you’re OK with Bluetooth headphones). * Slightly less RAM than the 6 or 6 Pro versions. * Cameras are not quite as good as those in the 6 or 6 Pro. Setup: I’m a long-time iPhone user and it’s been a while since I last set up or used an Android phone. I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to set up. The onboarding process was fast and fun. I didn’t try to switch my stuff from iPhone to Android although that was an option. This Pixel phone even came with an adapter to directly connect the cable for another phone into this one for faster transfers. I used a pre-paid Verizon nano-SIM and everything worked as expected with one exception; Google’s version of Visual Voicemail is not compatible with my pre-paid Verizon plan, so I’m back to the 90’s in dialing a voicemail number to listen to my messages. Like most phones these days, it came with a cable but not a USB charger. I had a 30w USB-C charger lying around it happily announced that it was “Rapidly charging” with a countdown until full… nice! No wireless charging on this phone, but the wired charging was so fast that might not even miss it. Usage: I won’t get into too many details of Android 12 because that is available on most newer Android smartphones. The nice thing about the Pixel phones, though, is that it not only has a “clean” version of Android without a ton of added fluff that other brands then to pre-install, but it also gets the new stuff faster than other brands. If you happened to watch the keynote from Google I/O, you’ve probably seen a bunch of the cool new features that are baked into this phone out of the box. The new Material You UI is really fun and fluid and easy to make it your own. For those that spend time on the phone calling businesses, you can have the phone transcribe the other end of the call so you can read what they’re saying and even navigate those horrible “press 1 for this or 2 for that” systems by reading the screen and tapping labeled options! If you’ve ever been on permahold(tm), you can stop paying attention for that voice which means you made it in, and instead have your Pixel ring when it senses that your turn is up. All the new search functions are amazingly helpful! I love Lens as it really works to tell you what the camera is aiming at. Speaking of the camera, while the specs of the 6a’s cameras are not quite as good as the 6 or the 6 Pro, you’ll still get amazing results for selfies, photos and videos. One thing that didn’t work as well as I had hoped was the under-screen fingerprint sensor. It worked well enough, but the sensor is at a very specific spot under the screen. Generally, when the phone wants to scan your finger, it puts an icon on the screen over where the sensor is so you can put your finger on the icon and get a good scan. I noticed that in many applications; both native from Google and others, the icon is not lined up with the sensor. You put your finger over that icon and the scan doesn’t work. I got in the habit of putting my finger about a 1/4” away from the icon for these applications and that worked. The good thing is that this is an easily-fixed problem with a software update. The fingerprint sensor itself seems to work fine. Battery life was great and did really last over a day’s worth of typical use. The phone does tend to get a bit warm if you use it for a while, though. Not hot enough to have to put it down, but definitely warm enough to notice. I didn’t care so much about the lack of a headphone jack. Who really uses wired headphones these days anyway? If you’re truly an audiophile with a wired set of cans, you can always buy a USB-C to Headphone adapter on the cheap that will work. The display is bright and clear and the colors really pop thanks to being OLED. The refresh rate is a tad less than the 6 or the 6 Pro but is more than good enough for typical use. Conclusion: There is TON to love about the Pixel 6a and only a few small things to mention as not being great. It really does feel like a phone that hits much higher than its price would indicate. Not everyone needs to the top-end phone, and with the 6a, you’re not missing much from its more-expensive siblings. You really are getting more than you pay for with the 6a… fast, fun and fully-featured.

It's fast, and it has a good camera, the photos have excellent quality, my husband really liked it.

Happy with the purchase. Sage colour looks nice and the full touch screen gives space on the screen. Been just a week, so not going into battery life, durability etc. Little disappointed the phone does not come with a proper charger

Excellent phone. No lag in the apps. Screen resolution is very good. Easy to hold and text with one hand. Pictures are pretty good indoor and outdoor.

Not the best phone but it gets the job done, worth a buy

Great value. Fast food. Screen is bright even outside. No junk apps installed

I am switching from OnePlus 6T to this Pixel 6a, this Pixel 6a is definitely faster. On power up, you get option to transfer from previous phone and I opted to use the usb cable to do the transfer. Plugging the two phones together using usb cable to transfer data was quite easy and completed flawlessly. Using this phone needs some getting used to, one big difference is the unmovable search bar at the bottom. To power off, you have to press the power and volume up button at the same time, which feels pretty strange. The user interface is very pretty. You can enable the icons to match the phone's theme, this is pretty interesting. The default home screen icon arrangement is a 4x5 grid but it is very easy to change to a 5x5 grid to match my previous phone. Being a 6.1" phone, the Pixel feels narrower in my hands, so its keyboard buttons are a little smushed. One big improvement compare to my previous phone is how fast the fingerprint sensor is, it even match the Samsung S21 Ultra in fingerprint unlock speed. When unlock using fingerprint, it gives a short buzz to indicate that it's working. I’ve also noticed that this Pixel phone can get quite warm. On average, the Pixel is my warmest phone. During initial setup was the warmest. This Pixel 6a has two speakers, which lets me have a stereo sound that none of my other phones provide. Battery life is very good. Actively using the phone for 5 hours only drops the battery level by 40% (i.e. from 100% to 60%) On the first day, I ran it down to nine percent before realizing that the OnePlus quick charger wasn’t charging this Pixel 6a. Neither was my battery pack, so I had to buy a new charger that support PD (power delivery) to charge the phone. Luckily I found a Quick Charge 3.0 charger lying around and it seems to do the trick. But I am still buying a new charger so I can have maximum charging speed. This Pixel 6a is very smart, it can do voice typing, live translate offline. Using camera to translate is so much smoother and accurate than Google Translate. This phone is able to transcribe calls and videos with the capability of TV captions even without internet connection. The camera is a massive improvement over my OnePlus 6T, especially the night sight, which captures accurate colors in environments where I can barely see what I’m looking at. The wide angle is a nice feature that my old phone didn’t have. And the return of the Photo Sphere feature! A really cool feature that I haven’t seen in a few years. It can also meshes panorama photos and photo sphere a lot cleaner that other phones. One other feature that stands out is the Magic Eraser, I had so much fun using the feature to make clean and convincing photos. Overall, I’d say the Pixel 6a is a good modern phone, with amazing camera capabilities.

Absolutely amazing product, best mid range phone in all of android phones. Great processor, Camera, screen, build quality. Very happy with this device! Battery easily lasts 9-10 hours, with heavy use.

Very nice. Easy to handle, fast internet, nice screen very clear picture. Battery lasts all day with heavy use.

Excellent phone overall, the only downside is the battery life. I purchased a few of these for the family and we all have the same complaint, also there is no fast charging but that is not a big deal.

The Cell Phone purchased is excellent and all looks fine. I love to buy more products in BestBuy.

Good phone, great price features you get for the price point

AWESOME PRODUCT. NICE PRICE FOR ALL THE FEATURES FOR A WELL ROUNDED PHONE

A great phone from Google. And the price is an excellent selling point

Great phone for the asking price. Compared to the Pixel 6, this is a great phone. You get the same tensor processor chip as the more expensive 6 phone, 128gb of storage, and 6gb RAM which is enough for most people. You also get a front screen fingerprint sensor. Unfortunately this front screen fingerprint is a bit slow, and sometimes unresponsive. They never should have moved the back face fingerprint sensor that worked perfectly. I have had a Pixel 3A and a Pixel 5 before this phone, and not only was the back facing sensor fast, it worked nearly 99% of the time. This phone has a 4,410mah battery size, and so far battery life is pretty good, probably because the screen resolution is 2400x1080 @60hz refresh rate. While most people would be happy with the resolution, unfortunately for me it “feels” a little slow because of the 60hz refresh rate. While this was likely done to decrease manufacturing costs, there are other phones that have higher refresh rates for even less than the cost of this phone. Now, I suspect users that have never used a phone would never notice this, but it is something worth mentioning. All of these issues do not detract from the simple fact that this is still a great phone overall for the asking price. You get pure android, no bloatware, a very snappy user interface and processor, and a great camera! Speaking of the camera, the “Magic Eraser” works great. This gets rid of unwanted objects, or possible photo bombers from photos taken with the camera. A big reason to get a Pixel phone is that you will get a few years of android version updates, and you will always get security updates from the second they come out. Other manufacturers can be very slow to test and then release their security updates, and especially their major OS updates. Keep in mind this phone, like many other phones, no longer comes with a battery charger. Just a cable is included. You need an 18 watt charger that has “PD / Power Delivery”. I happened to have one from an older pixel that worked just fine, however if you have an older phone charger it may not charge well, or at all. The phone does fast charge when using a charger that works. Also be sure to use the included USB-C cable, as if you have an older USB-C cable it will either not charge at all, or charge slowly. The back of the phone is made of plastic, which for me I prefer as it is not as slippery as the Pixel 6 glass back. I always put my phones in a case anyway, and it really doesn’t matter that much anyway, but if I ever want to not have the case on, I am a lot more comfortable with the 6A back than the 6. Great phone for the money, and most people would be just fine getting this over the more expensive 6A.