Google Pixel 9A review: a midrange phone done right

The A-series Pixels have been excellent over the previous few years. And within the Pixel 9A, Google has taken a very good midrange telephone and made it nice.

It’s $499, which feels excellent for what you get within the 9A. Spend a bit extra for the Pixel 9, and also you’ll get some upgrades like a greater ultrawide digital camera and extra RAM, in addition to little touches like Wi-Fi 7 moderately than Wi-Fi 6E. However each time I needed for one thing on the 9A that it doesn’t provide, I saved coming again to that value. At $499, it’s simpler to let go of some issues than it was with, oh, the $599 iPhone 16E.

Greater than only a listing of specs, the Pixel 9A behaves like a tool in a mature product line. After I switch a Pixel Watch 2 from one other Pixel telephone to this one, it simply works. After I use quick pair to attach some OnePlus earbuds I used with one other Android telephone, it simply works. That hasn’t all the time been the case with the Google telephones I’ve examined, however the firm has carried out a significantly better job of connecting the dots in its ecosystem for this technology of Pixels. And for $499? That’s an actual candy deal.

{Hardware}, display screen and battery life

Final yr, after I reviewed the Pixel 8A at residence in Seattle, I believed the display screen was simply advantageous, however my colleague Vjeran Pavic took the telephone on a visit residence to Croatia and declared it too dim. Honest level; Seattle’s grey skies aren’t a lot of a stress take a look at for display screen brightness. So I paid additional consideration to the 9A’s show, particularly since Google claims it’s 35 p.c brighter than the earlier one. It dealt with some uncommon sunny days in March properly, and it’d even be acceptably vibrant to somebody who lives in a sunnier place than I do. It’s additionally greater, at 6.3 inches in comparison with 6.1 inches, although the telephone is barely barely bigger than the 8A, which is a pleasant bonus.

The 9A will get one other form of improve within the type of an IP68 score, which implies it’s dustproof and proof against water immersion. The IP67-rated 8A was water submersible, too, however the 9A can survive in deeper water for as much as half an hour. There’s wi-fi charging, which is appreciated even when it’s simply as much as 7.5W. And the 9A breaks from the remainder of the Pixel sequence by setting the cameras flush with the telephone’s again panel, moderately than on a raised bar. It’s a definite look, and I don’t hate it, however essentially the most putting factor about my assessment unit is the colourful pink “peony” shade. This telephone isn’t the usual black rectangle, and I respect that.

The 9A has the largest battery within the Pixel sequence with a 5,100mAh cell, and Google claims it has one of the best battery lifetime of any Pixel once you use excessive battery saver mode. Battery life is nice, if not excellent. A average day, largely spent on mobile knowledge with a wholesome dose of streaming video and 4 hours of display screen time, introduced the battery down round 50 p.c by the tip of the day. I examined the telephone with the always-on show enabled full time, display screen refresh fee at its highest setting, and used gentle mode moderately than darkish mode. All these battery-draining settings make the Pixel 9A’s battery much more common.

Like the remainder of the Pixel 9 sequence, the 9A makes use of Google’s fourth-gen customized Tensor G4 chipset. It’s paired with 8GB of RAM, and it feels snappy. It dealt with Diablo Immortal with no downside, as our deputy editor Todd Haselton noticed. Once you do not forget that this can be a $500 telephone — with seven years of software program updates at that — it’s fairly spectacular.

I really feel like Pixel telephones have hit their stride not too long ago. Small tweaks over the previous couple of generations have added as much as a giant distinction in day-to-day use. After I’m scrambling to log into the Starbucks app whereas I’m sitting within the drive-through, I can use face recognition to authenticate and autofill my credentials with my password supervisor moderately than scanning my fingerprint. I can faucet on a immediate to pair a beforehand saved set of earbuds and be assured that the method will work with out manually connecting them. These small moments add as much as a greater expertise.

There’s loads of AI right here, too. There’s the face-swapping Finest Take and Add Me digital camera options, which come in useful each infrequently. I used Gemini Dwell for a considerably useful, if a bit awkward, brainstorming session. Associated: if you know the way to get a three-year-old to make use of the lavatory at preschool, let me know. However the 9A is lacking some AI options on the opposite Pixel 9 telephones, just like the Screenshots app and name notes, which I used to be bummed about. It runs a smaller model of Google’s on-device AI than the opposite Pixel 9 telephones.

The Pixel 9A has good cameras for a $500 telephone. There’s a 48-megapixel predominant digital camera with stabilization, a 13-megapixel ultrawide digital camera, and an honest 13-megapixel selfie digital camera. Not unhealthy, contemplating Apple solely provides you one rear digital camera on the $599 16E.

However the 9A makes use of a smaller 1/2-inch sensor than the one utilized by the opposite Pixel 9 telephones. You’ll hit its limitations in low gentle, the place pricier friends retain extra advantageous element. Portrait mode isn’t too spectacular both — there’s a smeary look the place components of the topic ought to be progressively falling out of focus.

The 9A produced a number of the most intensely flat and over-processed photographs of high-contrast scenes — the type you affiliate with unhealthy HDR — that I’ve seen from a smartphone digital camera shortly. It’s not each time, and so they don’t look fairly as unhealthy on the telephone display screen, the place the highlights are brighter due to Extremely HDR, however once you export them off your machine, you lose that info in quite a lot of circumstances. For those who’re choosy about your photograph high quality, that is one space the place it is sensible to step as much as a pricier machine.

At its finest, the Pixel 9A looks like an absolute steal. At its worst, it looks like, properly, a $500 telephone. Possibly the space between $499 and $799 — the Pixel 9’s going fee — isn’t a lot in case you’re paying for it in installments, but it surely’s a large distinction in case you’re paying out of pocket.

One of the best endorsement for the Pixel 9A is that there’s loads you simply received’t discover as you utilize this telephone. You received’t discover efficiency or battery life, as a result of they’re advantageous. They’re not excellent, however they’re not noticeably unhealthy. You don’t discover how seamless it’s to make use of face recognition to open your password supervisor and log into your financial institution app. On a telephone that prices half the going fee of a top-tier flagship, that’s fairly rattling good. And that peony pink doesn’t harm both.

Images by Allison Johnson / The Verge