Customer Ratings & Reviews

Pros: Impressive Battery Life: After a brief learning period, the Pixel 9a adapts to your usage patterns, delivering excellent battery performance. Vibrant Display: Features a bright, smooth OLED HDR display with a 120Hz refresh rate, offering a visually pleasing experience especially with media consumption. Durability: Boasts an IP68 rating, providing strong protection against dust and water. Lightweight with Premium Build for a budget device: Despite its lightweight design, the device feels premium, thanks to its aluminum frame and polycarbonate back. Having a polycarbonate back means better drop protection compared to a glass back. Top Notch Performance: Equipped with the same Tensor G4 chip as its higher-end siblings, ensuring smooth and efficient performance. Reliable Connectivity: Offers strong and stable connections across Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and cellular networks. Camera: Camera: As always, Google Pixel phones deliver, including their Pixel A series lineup. Picture quality is top-notch, and video recording has seen big improvements year to year. Cons: Average Speakers: The audio output is decent but doesn’t stand out compared to competitors. Please don’t take this as they are terrible, because they are not, they’re far from it. Initial Performance Dip: During the first week of use, battery life and performance may be suboptimal as the device adapts to your usage. Slow Charging Speeds: Compared to competitors, charging speeds are slow—up to 23W wired and 7.5W wireless. Aggressive Auto-Brightness: The auto-brightness feature can be overly aggressive in low-light environments, often dimming the display excessively. However, with manual adjustments over time, it learns and adapts to your preferences. The Google Pixel 9A offers excellent battery life after a short learning period, a bright and smooth OLED HDR display with up to a 120Hz refresh rate, and strong IP68-rated protection against dust and water. It’s lightweight with a premium feel, thanks to its aluminum frame and polycarbonate back, and it delivers solid overall performance. Call quality is excellent, even though the cellular modem isn’t the latest. So far, it has maintained a steady connection without signal drops, despite initial concerns about potential signal issues or overheating due to the modem it ships with. Fortunately, these issues have not materialized. However, the speakers are average, and both battery life and performance may dip during the first week of use. Charging speeds are relatively slow—23W wired and 7.5W wireless—and the auto-brightness feature tends to be overly aggressive in low-light environments. Saving the best for last, the camera. At the rear, you get dual cameras; one is 48mp wide, and the ultra-wide comes in at 13mp. When it comes to taking pictures, the Pixel phones are my favorite for taking pictures. They’re crisp, not overly saturated, and have excellent low-light performance. I’m not an expert when it comes to photo analysis, but comparing it to an iPhone, I tend to favor the pictures coming out of the Pixel phone. When it comes to video recording, the quality is solid but nothing like the video quality from an iPhone. For a budget device, it punches above its weight in the camera department. If you’re not tied to the Apple ecosystem, the Pixel 9A offers some of the best value for your money among budget smartphones, especially if camera performance is high up your priority list.

The 9a brings you most of the premium features of it's larger brothers, but for several hundred dollars less. If you've used a pixel phone before you'll pretty much know what your getting, but if not here are the basics. The pixel 9a is google's current gen entry level phone. Don't be thrown off by terms like "entry level" and "budget" though, because google does things differently. The pixel's don't usually boast the highest end hardware, but that doesn't matter. It's all about the software package, and that's where these phones shine. You get stock android with 7 years of updates. What that means is that your phone runs smoothly and securely for (likely) the entire time that you use it. The entire user experience is heavily tied to google's ecosystem so if you don't have a gmail account yet, now's the time. The phone is not nearly as useful without it. The built-in assistant is the best in the game, more on that later, and it still has some of the best image processing out there for its cameras. In the box you get a phone, sim ejection tool, and a cable. That's it. No charger. BOO! Stop cheaping out google. Chargers are cheap, pack one in. Worth noting, if you want to fast charge, you're going to have to buy a fast charger specifically. Anyway ... Setup is a breeze. BUT first! Update the new phone. The documentation I had recommended this so that's what I did and that took quite some time, but after that it was smooth sailing. I was moving from a pixel 6a to the 9a. I swapped my sim, followed a few onscreen prompts to select what I wanted to bring over from my old phone (everything), and in less than 20 minutes I was up and running without issue. The hardest part about this entire process is logging back into the handful of apps that didn't have their logins saved to my google account. Not a problem, but still. Not much to say aside from that. I really like the build quality of this phone. It's on the smaller side, which I honestly appreciate after lugging around nearly 7'' phones for years. Much more comfortable in the hand, even with a case, than the larger heavier phones I've been lugging around for years. The screen is great, bets plenty bright, though I prefer to manually boost the brightness because autobrightness seems to err on the conservative side. Speaking of the screen, I definitely appreciate the higher refresh rate on this one. It's a feature that's usually locked to more expensive models so this is a big win. What else ... I don't know. It's great. The new assistant is much improved and can interact with a lot of apps in fun ways. Reception, call quality, all that stuff is great. It's good. any complaints? well yeah actually. I had this really bizarre bug that, out of the box, had my pixel refusing to play notification sounds for the messages app. I tried every troubleshooting guide on google's help forums, as well as everything else I could find and nothing worked. The solution? I changed the default notification to something else. That was it. Days and days of troubleshooting over the dumbest thing, but yeah. The default sound for the messages app just won't play for me. No idea why. As it turns out every other option works, just not the one the phone came set to. That was crazy frustrating, and still is honestly, but at least it's solved. All in all, this is a great phone. It's got a ton of features but really it's just about the user experience. It's a great screen with a high refresh rate, and a battery that lasts me all day with constant use. It's great.

Review of Pixel 9a Phone. The packaging for the phone was really minimalistic, which I liked. It included a charging cord, but not an electrical plug. The phone was/is substantial feeling and looked slim and sleek. I quickly bought a phone cover and screen protector to protect the phone. Set up of the phone was surprisingly easy and just followed the prompts. One feature that I loved was that I did not have to remove the SIM card from my old phone, but rather transitioned it to an electronic SIM card (eSIM). Easy as pie! I looked around to find an SD Card slot, but did not find one and Googled it later and found out that the phone does not support extra memory cards. After the transition, I found out that many of the Apps on the old phone, which was a Samsung Galaxy A53, did not transfer the data associated with them. (I am not one that likes to send all my info into the cloud) That was a challenge to export the data from the apps and then put the data on the phone. After the set up, I spent a few weeks using the phone and adjusting settings and the layout. The home screen is way different than my old phone and took some time to get used to. There are actually 2 home screens, one that is on top and another behind it when you swipe. I put the apps on the first home screen that I use all the time, and still include the phone app, messages, internet, camera, email, calendar, and contacts. The second home screen I decided to use for my app folders. This was decided upon when I found out that making folders on the app screen (when you swipe up from the bottom to the top) was not allowed. The app screen has all the apps in alphabetical order and it was hard to find the app I wanted because you had to know the actual name of the app and know where to look. I just wanted all my finance apps in one folder, all my travel apps in one folder, all health apps in one folder, all weather apps…etc. I was able to get that on the second home screen. Now I am more used to it and it is easy to find my apps. I really like the graphics of the phone, the brightness and clarity. All adjustable. Another feature I liked is the adaptive charging. This basically learns from your behavior of when you plug the phone in and when you unplug it. It adapts the charging rate to make sure it is 100% charged when you are ready to unplug it. This way of charging will make the battery last longer, which we all want. If you wake up earlier, you run the risk of the phone not being 100% charged, but then again, the battery lasts a looooong time, it is not an issue. I used 2 other options and was impressed with the results. The first was to choose an item in a picture and find out where to purchase that item. I loved it and it gave me great results! The second was to use Gemini and ask a question. It was the best answer I ever got from AI including Siri. It was impressive! Overall, the Google Pixel 9a is a great phone, I am glad I got it, and I hope to have it for many years!

I've own many Pixel phones over the years and the true test of the A-series is not how well it compares against the current generation main line, but how it compares against the previous generations main line. And I can gladly say that the Pixel 9A not only matches the performance of the Pixel 8, it beats it in many areas. Now if you follow the Google hype, they'll want to point out AI this and AI that. Well, the truth is that most of the AI services aren't actually running on your phone and are instead tied to servers online. You can test this out yourself by disconnecting your network. Things like Gemini and Pixel Studio (the generative picture app) cease to work. And this isn't a bad thing. You don't want those running on your phone and eating through your battery like crazy. But that also means nothing about the phone is really special to need to run them. With that said, the rest of the phone is great. I found myself enjoying photography with the 9A, be it macro work or telephoto images. Editing is extremely snappy and I rarely felt like I was waiting on things before moving on to the next step. Google's implementation of magic eraser continues to be sub-par at best, but that is on the software, not the hardware. I found that while gaming, browsing the web, or messaging friends, the battery on this device was able to keep up with me. And when not actively being used, I could go days between charges. Something to consider if you plan on back packing and only need a device for emergency use. The microphone has no issues picking up my voice, but I was saddened that they went from two down firing speakers on the Pixel 8 to just one on the Pixel 9A. In place of that speaker is the holder for your SIM card, which would normally be on the side. Speaking of SIM card, one thing I was surprised about was the ability for your phone to convert a standard SIM card from a previous device into an E-SIM on the Pixel 9A. But be aware, this is a one way conversion and if you switch phones down the road to something without an E-SIM, you'll be picking up a new SIM card from your carrier. Speaking of switching, Google continues to have lack lust performance in transferring between devices. While apps will get installed and Google apps will sync your settings, almost everything else will need to be setup from scratch. Again, not a gripe against the phone, but it's sad that Google hasn't figured out a solution when many competitors have. All in all, this is a great replacement to the Pixel 8, with a lot longer security update window and the specs that should keep you up to speed for the length of that window.

The Pixel 9a has a nice design that marks a departure from the signature camera bar of previous Pixel phones. I think it looks great. The phone is solidly constructed with an aluminum frame and composite matte casing that feels comfortable in hand without the sharp edges found on some competitors. I like the weight of the phone, compared to heavier glass backed phones. The phone has a sleek, flat profile with rounded edges and an upgraded 6.3-inch display. The display is extremely bright at 2700 nits—with a 120 Hz adaptive refresh rate for a smoother, more vibrant experience. The phone uses Google's Tensor G4 chip, it comes paired with 8GB of RAM and storage options of 128GB or 256GB. The battery is very large at 5100 mAh. The charging is 23 watts wired charging and 7.5 watts wireless charging. I found wired charging to be perfectly fine, but the wireless charging to be a bit slow. The cameras are a 13MP ultrawide camera and a 48MP main camera. It has macros focus and I think the only thing missing would be a telephoto lens. At this price, though, I understand not having it. The AI features are really neat. “Add me” lets you put yourself into group shots. Best take can blend faces from different photos to compose a picture. Magic Eraser, Audio Magic Eraser, Night Sight, and Astrophotography are also here and fun to use. Gemini (Google's AI assistant) is also here and I really like the “live” feature where you can have a natural conversation with the chatbot. The must have feature on a Pixel is here, too, the ability to avoid unwanted calls. Once you use this, you won’t want to use another phone without it. The Pixel 9a is a great value with minimal compromise on features.

Google Pixel 9a is an excellent place in the mid range market for the Android eco system. Setup was nice and easy some basic info, activation and you are off to the races. Screen transitions feel nice and smooth on the new cpu chip. The colors are very vibrant and really pop at you. You are getting the latest in face unlock/fingerprint unlock tech as well. The camera is a 48MP and all the pictures I took to test look amazing in quality. Battery life is really something this phone shines at. Of course this all varies on use but while mostly idle in not in use I can get around 3 days or so charge on this. The screen is slightly bigger over the 8a if you are upgrading from that (.2"), the peak nits however at 2700 is very bright. I'm the type that likes to have my brightness cranked so it really helps the colors pop but be warned in a dark environment this will hurt the old eyes a little. Overall this phone feels really great in my hands, it doesn't feel oversized like some of the "max" versions of other phones. At the price range for what you get, this one really hits the right spot. All my calls were crystal clear, WIFI and Bluetooth working as intended no issues. 7 years of OS updates and you can rest easy knowing you are going to be covered with this phone for years to come. If I had to offer one bit of criticism I wish they hadn't put all the buttons on side of the phone, it makes it awkward to hit some of the shortcut key combos but not a deal breaker. I would recommend this if you want the feel of a top end phone with the price tag that comes with some of them.

The Google Pixel 9a is an attractive, mid priced phone that performs like a high end phone. It has a beautiful 6.3 inch, 2700 nits display, a 48MP main wide camera and a 13MP ultra wide camera, and both fingerprint and face recognition unlock capabilities. The main camera supports macro focus for small details. Performance is very quick including web browsing, scrolling, and opening applications. The 5100 mAh battery supports fast charging. In average use of browsing the web, making some calls and writing messages, taking pictures, performing some ai queries, and viewing some youtube videos, I found that this would last approximately two days. The phone has the latest Google ai features like Add Me, Pixel Studio, and Best Take. These features work extremely well and allow you to do amazing things with the great photos that the Pixel 9a takes. The phone also has Gemini 2.0 Flash which I find to be the most capable ai assistant available today. The ai features are fast and readily available. One feature that I used is called Deep Research which browses websites and generates a useful report with key findings and links to original sources. In summary, I would highly recommend the Pixel 9a as a well built and useful device that has a long battery life, excels at taking and manipulating photos, and incorporates the latest and most useful ai features.

In the box is the phone, usb-c to usb-c charging cable (no power brick), a binder type instruction manual and SIM card tool. First Impression - Right out of the box, I noticed that the phone is thick, heavy but sturdy. The shape, size definitely reminds me of another type of phone. I haven’t had a google phone in a while, so I am very curious to see the updates. The Visual/Design/Camera - Out of the box, the display was very bright and images were crisp and clear. There is a simple three button (power, up and down) on the right side and fingerprint scanner on the screen. There are no buttons on the left side. There is one singular speaker and mic hole on the bottom with a usb-c charge port and a singular mic hole on the top. Simplicity at its best. There is a dual lens camera on the back with a dedicated flash and a camera on the front. With that said, the camera takes really good, high resolution pictures. I took a photo of something that I own that has been engraved and you can literally see the lines of the engravement when you zoom into the photo. The camera also has different modes/settings to take photos. My favorite so far is the add me feature. The best part, I can finally be in my own photos. I tested this out and it is a little hard to get used to at first but the camera tells you which way to turn and where to be to add the person in photo. I would also like to note that I love the video setting because you can separate the audio from the video. Example, if you have a baby crying in the video, you can pull the audio and delete the baby crying from the background. I tried this feature with one of my work outdoor videos and I was able to eliminate the loud vehicle noise of the vehicle I was driving from my video. Keep in mind these are my two favorites so far. There are so many more other settings to use. The Interface - There are better features with this phone, the main one, Gemini. Gemini is a AI feature that acts a personal assistant. I was able to hold multiple long winded conversations with feature. I tested it out first by asking it to help me choose a car to buy. Through the process, it lead me to a car that I actually had plans to buy in the past. It was able to give me details and where to find an available dealership to buy it. Battery Life - Once I got all of my applications set up, I was able to use the phone (10 hour work day with heavy usage and going between WiFi and cellular) and my battery was at 87 percent. I did not charge the phone in about 24 hours and it is was at 64 percent. With that said, the battery life is impeccable. Overall, there is currently no negatives to this phone so far. The design of the phone is top tier, sturdy and functional, with the three side button and fingerprint sensor on the screen, this phone is a great phone for someone new to android or even someone that has always used an android. I would highly recommend this phone to friends and family.

I have used plenty of Google Pixel phones and this doesn't disappoint especially at this price point. Inside the Box: sim ejection tool USB C to USB C cable The phone Specs: 1080p pOled screen 120 hz panel Tensor G4 128GB storage 8GB of RAM 48MP main camera 13mp Ultra wide For the price this phone is a pretty good value . You get the almost the same Tensor G4 found in the Pixel 9 and pro series and 120hz screen. The only negatives is I think it should of gotten 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage in 2025. Especially since every tech company is pushing AI these days the more RAM would help make this phone last longer. But for now this phone at its price is a great phone. You get the typical Pixel features in the UI which is an almost stock Android experience with Google features added in. The AI features found in the 2024 release of the regular pixel 9 series with the camera is found here as well and it's nice to have . The pictures taken from this phone is in my opinion slightly worse than the ones I take on my Pixel 9 pro but for half the price it's fine. Overall if you want a premium phone but not spend $800 this is a great phone.

I have been a Pixel user several times since the Pixel 3. The first and only A series phone I owned was the 4. I always preferred a smaller phone but the sacrifice in battery life wasn't worth it. Now with the 9a Google has nailed the functionality and size with a big battery and I am all for it. The flat camera bump is a great design. I hope it carries over to the flagship models also. By reducing the camera bump it makes it easier to slide in and out of my pocket and it feels more balanced when holding. The battery easily lasts for more than a day with normal use and idle battery drain is excellent. Everything you could want to do day to day runs fast and smooth. For the average user this is more than enough and a great value. The good: Very good value at $499 Nice bright 120hz display Long battery life Seven years of support The usual top notch photo quality and software Durability (hooray to no glass back) The bad: Not the best for gamers Some AI features are missing The screen bezel is still quite large Slower wireless charging