Google announces Pixel 4A as midrange camera King

Google announces Pixel 4A as midrange camera King

(Web Desk) - Google has officially announced the $349 Pixel 4A today, which is available for preorder now and will ship on August 20th.

From an industry-watching perspective, it’s fascinating that the most important detail is the price: $349. That’s $50 less than both the base-level iPhone SE and last year’s Pixel 3A. The Pixel 4A may be late, but it’s priced to sell.

It needs to be, too, as competition in the sub-$500 price range for phones has become incredibly tight. The camera and its clean version of Android are the main ways that Google is aiming to differentiate the Pixel 4A from the likes of the OnePlus Nord, Samsung Galaxy A71, and iPhone SE.

Although there have been many rumors to the contrary, the Pixel 4A only comes in one screen size (though the upcoming 4A 5G is expected to be bigger). It also comes in only one color, the appropriately named “just black.”

Google is keeping the same camera module it used in the Pixel 3, 3A, and Pixel 4: Sony’s 12-megapixel IMX363. Though the sensor itself is clearly showing its age, the results are still as good or better than what you can get on any other smartphone at any price. For photos, the Pixel 4A matches the Pixel 4 in quality — though it is a beat slower when it comes to saving photos. For video, as always with Pixel phones, its capabilities are mixed at best.

Google has gone with its first hole-punch display, an OLED screen that’s 1080p and quite good for this price range. The 5.8-inch display puts the Pixel 4A at the lower end of Android phone sizes these days, but it’s quite comfortable to hold and sturdy within its plastic body. Google has kept stereo speakers in the Pixel 4A, which is a rarity at this price point. It has also kept the headphone jack, which is a rarity at any price point.

But perhaps the most important specs for the Pixel 4A are the RAM and storage, both of which are actually good news. The Pixel 4A ships with 6GB of RAM, which is enough to run Android 10 and up without forcing background apps to quit early. It also has 128GB of storage, which is double what the entry-level iPhone SE offers. That means that the Pixel 4A is $100 less than an iPhone SE with comparable storage.

Of course, the one place where neither Google nor any other Android manufacturer can compare with the iPhone SE is on the processor — especially at the low end. Where the iPhone SE has Apple’s very best in-house chip, the Pixel 4A makes do with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 730G. It’s fast enough for what it is, but whether it will continue to be for several years is harder to say.

In lieu of face unlock or an in-screen fingerprint sensor, the Pixel 4A has a more traditional fingerprint sensor on the back of the phone.

Last but not least, the Pixel 4A has a 3,140mAh battery, which is notably larger than the smaller Pixel 4’s battery. In my testing, it has not been a problem getting the phone to last all day.

The aggressive $349 price point paired with the baseline level of quality and Google’s promise of three years of software updates adds up to one of the better deals in smartphones right now.