Customer Ratings & Reviews

My previous phone was a Pixel 4a 5g. I really liked it, but I found it starting to freeze up so I read the reviews on this phone and made my selection. I'm still getting familiar with it. I like it. It's reliable and a nice size. I do notice that it gets hot when you are charging it while using it for something? I thought the price was reasonable. Lastly the volume could be louder when not on speaker and ringing

Awesome phone, really like the processor (feels really sharp). The only thing I hope could be better is it's use in hot weathers. Do not recommend, better wait for pixel 8.

With the price of phones ever skyrocketing as the features and specs included continue to plateau, mid-range phones are an increasingly attractive prospect for all but the most extravagant of spenders. Keeping that in mind, the Google Pixel 7a is an excellent value proposition. Though it is, of course, a step down from the Pixel 7, the discounted price may be enough to offset the compromises buyers would be making and for those in the market for a mid-range versus high-end phone, the 7a is a no-brainer. Upon unboxing the phone, my first impressions are great. The packaging is minimal and there is no plastic, which is fantastic. Google seems to have leaned hard into angling towards sustainability in its approach with the 7a, as the 7a is also made of recycled materials. There is no power brick, which is unfortunate but not unexpected at this point, and there is very little in the box — a SIM card removal tool, USB-C to USB-A adapter, and a USB-C to USB-C cable sit under the Pixel 7a itself. The color I received was the charcoal color, an understated black that there is little to say about. The back is made of plastic instead of the glass seen in higher-end flagships, but to my delight, the phone doesn't feel cheap or plastic-y. Clean, sleek, and even stylish: the 7a manages to look quite sophisticated, lacking the speckled look that recycled tech products often seem to have. Other colorways include snow (white), sea (light blue), and coral (a vivid orangey pink, the same hue as seen in Google's Nest devices). Using the phone is, generally, quite pleasant. I tested it for over a week and was happy to see that there were few bugs or issues in day-to-day use, which was not my experience with older Pixel devices (my last one being with a Pixel 3). When I did experience bugs, they were relatively minor ones like the phone freezing while switching between apps. I had no issues with Wi-Fi or Bluetooth connectivity either and Google's VPN worked surprisingly well, even with apps and sites that I fully expected to run into issues with, such as Netflix or banking sites. That said, I would like to see more functionality added to the VPN service, such as options for changing server location, but having a VPN so readily available is surprisingly useful when on the go and connecting to public networks. Battery life is great and aided further by the Adaptive Battery feature. For power-hungry users, the Extreme Battery Saver mode will likely be a life-saver but I found that I got through the day safely without needing to top up and with juice to spare. The phone itself feels snappy and the OLED screen is vivid and does an incredible job of pushing the colors. The Smooth Display setting enables a 90Hz refresh rate which is a neat option to have in helping animations and scrolling feel more fluid and smooth, but it comes at the cost of battery drain and I found the 60Hz default more than adequate for everyday use. Vanilla Android is smooth and the lack of bloatware is a breath of fresh air. Pixel phones also are in a fortunate position when it comes to security and software updates, being poised to receive security updates for a guaranteed five years and likely to receive software updates for a longer period than other Android flagships might. Speaking of security, the biometric security on the 7a is also a little more expansive than on other mid-range devices; offering both face unlock and fingerprint unlock is a great boon, and both unlock the phone quickly when activated. One area where this phone is truly unique is Google's AI features. Note that some of the photo editing tools are rolled out to Google Photos, which means that they can be used on any device, including non-Google and even non-Android devices. Still, I found that the photo editing tools were largely hit or miss for me; magic eraser and camouflage were neat in theory but I couldn't see myself using them to do things like remove entire people from a landscape like in the example photos used online. What I found far more interesting were the Pixel-exclusive AI features like the call features, live translation, and live caption, which I truly do think could be game-changers for how people use their phones (with a bit of polishing). Other AI features seemed to range wildly in real-world applications; At A Glance, for example, was pretty practically useful, but I found the AI-suggested apps to be a miss. Another area where Pixel phones shine is in photography. The Pixel 7a is great at photos and videos, especially in daylight. The 7a does lack a telephoto lens, meaning it relies on digital zoom for magnification. This does unfortunately have an impact on photo quality, especially past the 2x and 4x magnification point, but beyond that, the 7a does generally live up to the Pixel reputation of fantastic cameras. Sadly, however, the 7a is not a perfect phone. Some issues are fairly minor and easy to overlook. The plastic back, while sleek and pretty to look at, is a fingerprint magnet. Within minutes of handling it, it already looked greasy and was coated in fingerprints. The phone itself is large and heavy, especially as a woman with smaller hands, being larger and heavier than even some flagships. I also found it slightly annoying that occasionally, for whatever reason, biometric unlock wouldn't work and I would still be required to input my pin, which I haven't experienced with other devices. The placement of the fingerprint scanner on the screen also seemed suboptimal for my preferences; having it on the power button makes it more natural to use, though with face unlock as an option it becomes less of an issue. Some issues might be enough to make a person in the market for a new phone look to the Pixel 7 instead. For instance, while the speakers are decent and, being stereo, have a good amount of balance, they have mediocre audio quality at best and come off as tinny, particularly when listening to music. This can be almost painfully tinny when the volume is maxed out. The screen also gets fairly bright indoors and accordingly, I found that adaptive brightness worked brilliantly in indoor settings, but outdoors the brightness was middling, and I wished that there was just a bit more brightness to make using the phone outdoors easier. Charging is also abysmally slow, taking around 2 hours to reach a full charge from 0%; this is mitigated in part by having such a decent battery life that you likely won't need fast charging anyways, but it is still worth noting. Other issues are not exactly pressing enough to make one turn away from the Pixel 7a nor easy to overlook. One such issue is the "Real Tone" feature, which purports to help capture the skin tones of people of color "beautifully and accurately." I am Asian with medium-tanned skin and found that the camera sometimes struggled to do so with my skin tone, especially in low light conditions and most notably when using the front-facing/selfie camera, where it lightened my skin. The selfie camera also seemed to make selfies come out "soft" despite turning off face retouching. After fiddling with settings for a half hour, I couldn't seem to figure out how to make it stop lightening my skin or softening my photos taken with the front camera. The frustration and irony in the well-intentioned Real Tone feature not being able to manage not lightening a person of color's skin were not lost on me and although I loved the photos taken with the back camera, I can't help but feel some bitterness that I cannot for the life of me get the front-facing camera to take a photo of me that looks like me on a device that's supposed to "beautifully and authentically" reflect people of color's skin tones. Another issue is that the 7a runs noticeably hot with even light to moderate use, like browsing the web or taking photos, which does make me worry about its overall health and the battery's longevity. It never gets scalding and I haven't seen a notification that the phone is overheating yet, but I do worry that with more intense use such as video calls this will become a more pressing concern. Ultimately, the 7a performs well as a mid-range contender. There is nothing it does horribly at, and even areas where it excels. When compared to a Pixel 7, there are few reasons to shell out more for the 7 when the 7a holds its own so well. The issues the 7a does have aren't dealbreakers and are acceptable compromises in this category, or can be addressed through software updates in the future. It is also significant to note that in daily usage, there were more positives than drawbacks and that using the 7a was a largely enjoyable experience. I highly recommend giving the 7a a try, especially for the more casually oriented shutterbugs among ye.

Terrible, not eve 1 year and the battery was huge as a bubble and today my screen broke in pieces because of it.

Phones have come along way since the last time I was using an Android phone. The last several years I have been using an iPhone as it made my job easier, but I have always liked and appreciated Android and all the features they bring to smartphones. Now since I have been fully entrenched in the other ecosystem I have not really kept up with everything going on with Android, but when I had the opportunity to go back I was excited to get a chance to see what android has now. My first thought was wow this is an entry level phone the quality has gone up tremendously. I would say for most people these phones are perfect they have everything they need and they run great. No more of the days where you are giving up performance with price everything you need done this phone can handle and even has some features you don’t see by the other guys at this price. My only cons with the phone is it’s a bit bulkier than I typically like, it can get a bit warm when you do some moderate use and the screen brightness is not great when outside. The pros definitely outwiegh any cons for this phone. The screen is great especially once you turn on the 90hz mode and having the same chip the high end pixels have definitely shows in the performance and how quick everything responds. Overall if you want a phone that can do it all that wont break the bank this is it. The performance on the phone is great and can do everything you want.

Picked this up b/c my other phone broke. I've always been an Android user but I never had a Pixel before. And I may never go back. The phone is fast. Takes great pics (haven't tried vids yet). And the display is sharp with 90hz refresh rate. The downsides to the 7a is it gets warm fast, like after 15 mins of constant use - YouTube, shopping, reading news articles - doesn't matter what I'm doing. Also, the screen size is a bit smaller than what I'm used to and still haven't adjusted to it.

Upgraded from a Moto G7 and this phone is much, much faster. Have not run into any deal breaking issues. Only gave it 3 stars because it charges very slowly. Takes about 2 hours to get to full charge. My old Moto G7 would charge to full in about 45 minutes. Also the UI truncates the name of apps on your home screen. Any app with a name longer than 7 letters just shows the first 7 letters followed by ... Very poor design decision especially since there is plenty of room to wrap the text. Phone gets hot in more intensive apps but doesn't seem to affect performance. Not too much of an issue once you put a case on it.

It can be argued that phone sometimes gets a little heat, but still I'd say it's a pretty good phone. The camera is pretty good, which is a plus considering its cost.

I got this phone for my grandma and she is loving it! She does think it gets a little warm but otherwise it works good for her.

Bought this phone as a mother’s day gift! It is absolutely amazing only reason it doesn’t get a full 5 stars is because it overheats while using the camera.

I just bought the phone a week ago and already having issues with the phone. I noticed while I was downloading my backup from the old phone, the new pixel one was heating up! Later I noticed whenever I m using the phone for more than 20 mins the pixel phone is heating up. Other than this, the phone is good! Has anyone else noticed this issue?

Didn't receive due to address issue. Replacement was to be sent out, confirmed by two customer service reps. Got what looked like a refund receipt via email and looked as though a refund had been issued instead in my best buy account. Contacted best buy and after giving them all my account info was told they exhausted all their tools and couldn't see a refund had been issued and I would have to call my bank. I said I would like confirmation that if a refund is issued that I replacement isn't going to go out and my account be charged again (this has happened before with a different business) because I didn't want to go buy another phone case and then get charged for a replacement after. The only response was I needed to call my bank and I could call a customer service number if I needed to.

I will be on my 3rd 7a. Seems like the overheating issue may be a hardware problem with all the phones. Hopefully this last one will not get super hot when charging.

Phone got hot. I had NO signal in my home even though I have an individual cell booster there. The only place there was a signal was in the T-Mobile store! I had to pay a restocking fee to Best Buy even though the phone was defective. My daughter in law had the same phone with the same problem. I purchased a OnePlus from OnePlus and am very pleased with it.

Device heats up in video calling. Screen do not responds some times.

This phone made me realize how good Galaxy phones are and that Google is a software company not a hardware company. This phone heats up a lot doing mundane things. The cellular signal is terrible and I get constant dropped calls. Id honestly would recommend instead a Galaxy or One plus phone hands down.

Screen locked up and quit working less than a month after receiving the phone

Love it so far! Super easy to turn on, transfer over prior phone data and get going! Very intuitive and similar to the Android operating system but includes helpful tips and tricks that pop up in real time. Love the wireless charging and a battery that lasts all day when I'm using my phone for work. The only negative I've experienced matches what other reviews say in that this phone tends to get warm quickly. This is not as noticeable when in a case and does not seem to impact performance. Overall very happy with this purchase and upgrade!

This is a great affordable phone does everything you want it to with speed and the frame rate is consistent even when gaming! Only bad thing so far is that overheating is an issue, other than that would highly recommend.

Heating up way to fast and seem like any use of the phone makes it heat up. Battery drains pretty fast. 2 day life spans on battery works if you are not using the phone.