Review: Google Pixel 4A and Pixel 4A 5G

Google made a splash last year with the Pixel 3A and 3A XL, two identical but different-sized phones that cost $399 and $479, respectively. Phones in this price range usually offer mediocre cameras that produce not-so-pleasing photos, but by bringing the same great cameras from the flagship Pixel 3 that came before, that was no longer the case. With the Pixel 4A and Pixel 4A 5G as its successors, Google raises the bar further.

The Pixel 4A is $50 cheaper than Google's previous low-cost handset, starting at $349. Not only does it use the excellent main camera from the high-end Pixel 4, but it also checks off all the other boxes like having a modern-looking display and a battery that lasts all day. But, unlike in 2019, its sibling isn't just a sized-up clone. The 4A 5G is $499, has an additional camera, and has a more powerful processor to enable support for 5G, the up-and-coming new network standard following 4G LTE.

If you're hunting for a big or small Android phone and you don't want to spend a penny more than $500, these two Pixels are our favorites and should be at the top of your list.

Let's get the basics out of the way. Both of these phones are made of plastic, but unlike a lot of polycarbonate phones that try to mimic glass, these have a matte texture that doesn't pick up fingerprints. They look alike, with a "squircle" camera module on the back, screens with slim edges around, and a selfie camera that looks like a hole-punch floating in a sea of pixels at the top of the display.

You can snag either in "Just Black," but the Pixel 4A 5G also comes in white. It would have been nice to see more colors, as the pair on offer both look a bit drab, but Google pointed to the pandemic for its production woes. (Update: A Barely Blue option now exists for the smaller Pixel 4A!) At least the power buttons are accented white, a nice touch that makes these phones a little more distinguishable from the spate of gray and black phones.

With a 5.8-inch screen, the 4A is a small phone for people who hate big phones (it's only slightly bigger than the iPhone 12 Mini). The 6.2-inch Pixel 4A 5G is the opposite, even larger than the flagship Pixel 5. It's still not too unwieldy to hold, at least not in my large hands.

You'll find the same OLED panel on both with a 2,340 x 1,080 pixel resolution. It's sharp, colorful—I can stare at these screens all day. I've been partial to the smaller 4A, using it to watch my favorite shows more often than usual because it's so lightweight and compact I can easily wrap my palm around it. But I can't deny the appeal of the extra screen real estate on the 4A 5G.

Did I mention you get a headphone jack, NFC, and a rear fingerprint sensor? Lately, I've had to quickly plug in headphones for meetings after forgetting to charge my Bluetooth buds. The 4A range is a good reminder of how helpful the 3.5-mm port is to have as an option. The same goes for NFC, which lets you make contactless payments with services like Google Pay. It's not always present on cheap phones (looking at you, Motorola), so it's great to see here.

And everyone may have their opinion on the various kinds of fingerprint unlocking. I prefer capacitive fingerprint sensors on the back of phones over the increasingly common sensors under the display; they're often faster and more natural to access. This one works great.

Photograph: Google 

Inside the Pixel 4A is Qualcomm's Snapdragon 730G chip with 6 gigabytes of RAM, a sizable step up from the Snapdragon 670 in the Pixel 3A. Performance has been very smooth. I didn't experience any noticeable stutters or lag even after playing games like Dead Cells and Alto's Odyssey for a good deal of time. It feels worlds apart compared to phones like the Moto G Stylus ($300) and the Samsung Galaxy A51 ($400), where some sluggishness is an everyday occurrence.

The chip inside the Pixel 4A 5G is the same Snapdragon 765G in the OnePlus Nord. It's slightly snappier than the 730, but you'll have to put both phones side-by-side to notice. Don't feel like you need to shell out for the 4A 5G for the better chip, because honestly, both phones perform really well.

That 765G processor is what enables 5G connectivity on the bigger Pixel, but you shouldn't buy this phone just because it has 5G. Yes, you'll eventually need a new phone (and you likely need to upgrade your data plan) to access 5G, but while it promises faster internet speeds, the network is sparse in the US. You'll likely spend almost all of your time on 4G LTE. Even if you do hop on 5G, speeds aren't that much faster, though service should speed up in the future. It's a nice perk in a phone, but 5G will really only come into its own a year or two from now.

The batteries on both Pixels have been bumped up over their predecessors. The Pixel 4A has a 3,140-mAh cell and the 4A 5G has a 3,885-mAh capacity. The former hit five hours of screen-on time on a day when I took a short trip starting at 7:30 am. With plenty of social media and web browsing, gaming, and snapping photos and videos, I only had to plug in around 11 pm. That experience tracked with the bigger phone, giving me just about a full day of juice. Power users, these phones aren't going to last more than a day, but they should still be sufficient.

Photograph: Google 

Pixel phones are known for their excellent cameras. Last year's Pixel 3A made waves largely because the cameras on most $200–$400 phones aren't very good, especially when it comes to night scenes. The Pixel 4A range shows off Google's camera leadership even more.

Both phones have the same 12.2-megapixel sensor you'll find on the 2019 flagship Pixel 4—and honestly, it's all you need. I much prefer to have one really good camera instead of several average ones. The Pixel 4A 5G adds an ultrawide camera to the mix (just like the Pixel 5), and they all share a nearly-identical 8-megapixel selfie camera too.

I can't stop taking photos with these phones. Daylight shots don't look over-sharpened or over-saturated, and the camera manages high-contrast scenes incredibly well. Portrait mode still isn't perfect, but it manages to snap some great photos of my dog. At night, the camera maintains good detail and saturation, and the improved white balance keeps the color temperature in check.

Heck, photos captured with Night Sight, a mode that takes several photos at different exposures and stitches the best together, sometimes even beat out results from the $1,200 Samsung Galaxy S20 Plus, adding much more accurate colors and greater detail. These are some of the best camera phones available today, and you don't need to shell out over a grand for 'em.

The Pixel 4A 5G does have a leg up over its smaller sibling. That ultrawide camera gives you the ability to take in more of a scene for extra variety in your photos. It also works great at night if you use Night Sight too. And, for the first time, Night Sight works in Portrait mode. Want to snap great bokeh-filled shots at night? Now you can do that! These portrait night shots rival those from the new iPhone 12 Pro.

The 4A 5G also can take better videos, with several new modes to spruce up your footage. I really like Cinematic Pan, which removes audio but slows down your footage and makes panning look super smooth. It's a great effect. I talk about these new video modes in greater detail in my Pixel 5 review if you want to learn more (again, the Pixel 5 has the same camera system as the 4A 5G). These improvements may make their way to the smaller Pixel 4A via a software update down the road.

You'll also find many of the same camera features from the Pixel 4 on both 4As, like Astrophotography mode and Live HDR+. You can put either phone on a tripod, point them at the sky, and get surprisingly great photos of the stars above. Photo quality will naturally depend on the amount of light pollution in your area, but I managed to capture some stars in the New York City night sky. (I didn't see any UFOs, though.) Live HDR+, on the other hand, shows what your photo will look like in real time before you snap it, so you don't have to wait for the image processing to finish. Dual-exposure controls are here too, allowing you to dial in the precise level of exposure and shadows to your liking.

Google's Android experience adds another rung to the excellence of these phones—the ever-accessible Google Assistant is still the best voice assistant, and there are so many small smart features like Now Playing, which automatically tells me what song is playing in my surroundings on the lock screen. The 4A 5G also has Hold for Me, which has Assistant take over when you've been put on hold so you don't need to listen to terrible hold music, and it lets you know when the person on the other end starts talking. (This will eventually come to the Pixel 4A too.)

Still, there are some areas where these phones could improve. First, they're missing any kind of IP-rated water resistance, so you should be wary near pools. There's also no MicroSD slot so you'll have to pay more for Google cloud storage if you run out of space. That said, 128 gigabytes is what you'll find on most phones in this price bracket.

The stereo speakers are sufficient if you're in a quiet room, but introduce some ambient noise and you'll quickly be reaching for your headphones. Watching a video in the noisy outdoors of New York, I had to crank the volume up to the max, and dialog still got lost. Similarly, the screen is just bright enough to see in sunny conditions, but I sometimes had to squint. Video performance is also not as good as what you'll find on competitors like the Samsung Galaxy A71.

My last gripe is small: There's no wireless charging. Considering it's available in the iPhone SE ($400) it would've been nice to see it here. (I say this selfishly, with wireless chargers littered around my apartment.) If wireless charging and water resistance are must-haves, you probably want to upgrade to the Pixel 5.

The best part about all Pixel phones is that you get security updates and Android version upgrades straight from Google (the company that makes Android) for three years. That length of support can't compete with Apple, which supports its iPhones for five years or more, but it's much longer than most other Android phones (especially cheap ones).

At a time when millions of people are out of a job, these two phones are a third the price of many high-end models, yet will do everything you need—and do it well. The Pixel 4A is what most people should get, but if you really want a big screen, the 4A 5G will do more than satisfy.