this is google's brand new pixel 4a

this is a budget phone that has from
what most people are saying

a really great camera and so this comes
in at just 349.

and will come out on august 20th now
it's available in just

one color and that's called just black
so let's go ahead and open it up

and see what we've got so google was
nice enough to send this along so i

could take a look at it
and it's not a sponsored review but they

did send the phone
so let's go ahead and open this up and

see what we've got we'll do a size
comparison we'll set it up and then

we'll actually see what it's like as far
as its pictures now this year we don't

have the
xl version it's just the 4a so this is a

little bit smaller than i thought
so i'll set this aside we'll take a look

at that in a moment and let's take a
look inside the box

so we'll take this out and we've got a
little bit of

documentation here let me take this
apart

got a sim card tool and then we also
have

our safety and warranty and a get
starting guide inside we have a usbc to

usbc
cable we also have an adapter that

allows us to transfer our information
and then we have a power brick this is

the typical pixel power brick
we've seen before and this supports up

to 18 watt fast charging
so let's put this aside and take a

closer look at the phone
so here's the phone itself let's peel

this cover off
and it should be a really nice screen

size the bezels look pretty small
but it's got a matte plastic back to it

it looks pretty good
in fact it's very similar to the pixel 4

xl as you can see
here's a size comparison so it's not

quite as big
but let's go over the outside of it and

then we'll talk about the specs
so on the back it's all black and then

we have our fingerprint reader we've got
a single camera

we'll talk about the specs in a moment
on the right side we have a power sleep

wake button and a volume button
and it's got a nice clicky feel to it

and this button is sort of a
bluish green color on the bottom it

looks like we've got two speakers and a
usbc

jack on the left hand side there's
nothing really other than a sim card

tray slot so let's open that up now
inside the sim card tray slot is just

room for one sim card
there's no expandable storage but for

the price you get 128 gigabytes of
storage so that's pretty good

and then on the top we have a microphone
and a headphone jack which you don't see

too often
so for 350 dollars you get this if you

want to wait for a 5g
version that will ship this fall for

4.99 now
internally we have qualcomm snapdragon

730 with six gigabytes of ram
and then on the front we have a 5.81

inch 2340 by 1080 443 pixel per inch
oled

display it supports hdr and uses gorilla
glass 3 so it's a step back but gorilla

glass 3 is pretty hard and should resist
scratches pretty well

on the front we have an 8 megapixel f
2.0 fixed focus lens

with 1080p 30 video and on the back we
have a 12.2 megapixel f

1.7 with optical image stabilization
dual pixel phase detect autofocus camera

with 4k 30 video now let's go ahead
and turn it on and then we'll talk about

some of them some more specs and see
what it's like

so it's booting up here you'll see it's
a nice edge to edge display

and to give you a size comparison with
say the iphone se which i think is it's

going to be its
main competitor it's very similarly

sized it's a little bit bigger
the display has a higher resolution and

pixel density
but it seems about the same size

so again next to the pixel 4 xl
you'll see the screen size so let's go

ahead and get this set up
now bluetooth crashed the second i

turned it on so that's kind of
interesting but let's go ahead and hit

start
and we'll get this set up and see what

it's like to use
so we'll connect to a wi-fi network i'm

going to skip the sim card for now
next it says you can transfer your data

so we'll hit next
and we can plug in our old phone and

what i want to do is actually
transfer data from my pixel 4 xl to this

device so i can try it out the same way
i would use it there

so let's go ahead and plug it in

so i've got my pixel 4 xl and
let's plug it into the pixel 4a

there we go it says phones connected
check your other phone

copy data verify verified me
we'll hit confirm and it's copying the

account now it's saying getting account
info says checking for data and then we

can choose what we want to copy or not
copy

so photos and videos i don't need to
copy those

and let's go ahead and hit copy and it
will move everything over so we'll wait

for this to finish
and then we'll continue so now that it's

copying i can continue to set this up
we'll hit next

i have to agree to their terms hit
accept

accept now i need to set up a pin once i
set up a pin

i need to set up pixel imprint so we'll
go ahead and

hit next and then touch the sensor on
the back to set it up

and it says it's added and we'll hit
continue

now it says your assistant will be right
with you and it looks like

the setup is done or copying is done so
we'll hit close on the pixel 4

xl and then we'll go over to the 4a and
continue it already recognizes my voice

so i'll go ahead and hit next
and we'll say no thanks to anything else

and then it's just giving us tips and
tricks so it's going to

continue doing this add some finishing
touches and then we should be able to go

to the home screen now it's saying i can
go home i'll hit next

switch apps it's just telling me how to
use this

and we'll swipe up to go home and now
it's completely copied from my pixel 4a

or 4xl rather to the 4a so it gives you
an idea of the display let's see what

what wallpapers are available so there's
no new wallpapers per se but let's go

ahead and
switch to this one or maybe we'll go to

for fun we'll pick a daily wallpaper and
set that

so now i'll wait for everything to
finish installing it's going to take a

while for all of these apps to install
once that's done we'll take a closer

look at it but the battery in this
is 3140 milliamp hours

many people that have used it already
are saying that it's better than what we

had with the pixel 4xl which is great
we don't have squeeze to activate

android assistant so we have to swipe up
from a corner

and go into assistant here and then
also i need to install a bunch of

updates as well so i'll wait for this to
finish and then we'll take a closer look

at it
now i have everything moved over from my

pixel 4 xl
and all the apps are laid out the same

way i added a couple others
but it's pretty much exactly the same

all of my messages and everything else
and so i've been using it for a little

bit
i had it update and one of the great

things about this is it gets all of the
latest updates

so the update that actually came out
yesterday at the time of recording this

video
is also out for this device so if i go

into my system updates here
you'll see it has the august 5th update

on it even though it's august 4th
so it seems to be that we're going to

get all these updates
just like you would expect with a pixel

device but the overall usability of this
seems to be pretty good

most of the time it's really fast it
does feel a little bit slower due to

maybe that slower
refresh rate than we have on the 4xl for

example
so if i just scroll through the the app

drawer here you'll see it's a little bit
smoother on the 4xl

due to that 90 hertz refresh rate but we
have 60 hertz on the pixel 4a

and that's good enough for most in fact
every iphone has 60 hertz

so it seems to be doing okay and then i
tried out a couple different apps we'll

take a look at a couple games in a
moment but if we take a look at the

camera
the cameras are pretty interesting we

only have a forward-facing camera that's
got a fixed focus

so you can see here it's fixed and
maybe i'll go to video and it will

record 1080p
so this is the 1080p video from the

forward-facing camera of the pixel 4a
and so i'm not sure how it sounds but

it's probably not as good as this
microphone but it may sound halfway

decent
now as far as the rear facing camera the

rear camera
should record in 4k so we have selfie

illumination for the forward facing
let's spin it around here

go back and you'll see that we've got
our different settings so

let's go into our settings here and
you'll see it kind of lags from time to

time
so we've got our grid and then video

stabilization which it has that's built
in

and of course we've got 4k like i said
so advanced

and then you can do raw plus jpeg
control we'll go back here

go back and you can do 16 by nine crop
now let's go to video mode and take a

look at those settings quick
you'll see we've got 4k at 30p like i

said
and again framing and things like that

so
you've got all of those different

settings as well as frequent faces so
it will recognize as well now let's take

a look at some of the photos and videos
from this camera

and see how they look compared to say
the pixel 4 xl

as well as maybe the iphone se for a
quick comparison

now other than the cameras the display
on this phone is actually hdr like i

said
earlier so if we go to one of my videos

you'll see that we have
1080p hdr we don't have 1440 or 4k

but we do have hdr so if i rotate this
hit play

the speakers are actually decent too so
here take a listen to these

and the speakers actually surprised me a
bit because i wasn't expecting

stereo speakers out of the top but we
have stereo speakers from the top

earpiece here and the bottom as well it
sounds pretty decent

and it's better than i expected from a
budget phone of this price

now as far as gaming i'm sure quite a
few people will want to try that out so

let's go into asphalt 9 as well as we'll
try call of duty in a moment but you'll

see we'll resume here and you can see
the frame rate so

i played around with this a little bit
they do sometimes

slow down a little bit you'll see as i
drift i had to start this game over a

little bit but as i drift
around this corner or go through this

building you'll see
all the action going on and it seems to

be okay but occasionally it has a little
bit of a hiccup as you can see

now if we go back home and try out a
game like call of duty

we'll wait for it to load now i'm in
call of duty mobile and i just wanted to

show you the frame rates it seems to be
very playable i don't really see any

issues here
although occasionally it seems to have a

slight slowdown but
the screen is vibrant and you saw the

little hiccup there the screen is
vibrant and it's very playable

now while playing that for just a moment
i did start to feel the back of the

device get a little bit warm
that's to be expected but it does seem

like it's going to heat up quite a bit
as you play so maybe it'll slow down as

you have extended gameplay but it seems
to be okay overall

now the only thing that this phone
doesn't seem to have that some people

may care about
is there's no dual cameras on the back

like the pixel 4 xl
there's also no wireless charging so you

will have to use the usbc on the bottom
for most people that won't be a problem

but it doesn't have those features i
wish they would have included that coil

since those are fairly inexpensive from
what i understand but other than that it

doesn't have that and it has 802.11 abgn
and ac there is no wi-fi six so it's not

really
a bad price for all of the other

features that you're getting a decent
display and everything else

and then of course that battery that i
mentioned earlier 3140

milliamp hours i expect it to get at
least through a day from what i'm seeing

online
of course it will take further testing

to know that for sure but you'll see it
should last until 1 15 pm that would be

tomorrow and so battery usage of course
has only been

used for a little bit since i've been
setting this up and using it for the

games during this article
but it seems like it should get through

a day without a problem
for 349 dollars i would definitely check

it out now you'll also get three years
of software updates with pixel devices

and you've got a year warranty so i
would definitely check one out if you

wanted a budget phone
that actually seems to perform pretty

well will run all of your basic social
media apps and things like that

fairly smoothly and has a pretty decent
camera for the money i don't know that

you can distinguish
this camera from the pixel 4 xl based on

the photos i showed you
you don't have that squeeze for google

assistant but other than that it's a
pretty good deal

with the 2020 iphone se i'd love to hear
from you in the comments below