Google Pixel 8a Review: High Price, Low Performance

Earlier this month, Google quietly launched the Pixel 8a, starting at Rs 52,999. The new model boasts several improvements over its predecessor, including a larger battery and a faster refresh rate. However, the significant price increase makes me question whether the Pixel 8a is worth it in India. Thanks to Google, Beebom received a review unit over a week ago, and I’ve spent considerable time with it. So, let’s dive into my detailed review of the Google Pixel 8a.

Pixel 8a Specs

Before we delve into the specifics, here’s a quick overview of the Pixel 8a’s technical specifications:

Pixel 8a Box Contents

Pixel box contents have always been minimalistic. Alongside the phone itself, you receive a SIM ejector tool, a 1m USB Type-C to USB Type-C cable, and the usual Quick Switch adapter. For this review, I have the 8GB/128GB Aloe color variant.

Google Pixel 8a Design and Build

I’ve always admired the matte back of the Pixel 8 Pro, and I’m pleased that the Pixel 8a follows suit. The Aloe green color variant is stunning, and the matte back panel provides a satisfying tactile experience.

The rear panel is made of plastic. However, during my time using it without a case, I didn’t notice any scratches. The plastic is of high quality, and the matte texture is resistant to scratching. The texture also makes the plastic feel less cheap.

The camera module on the back features the typical edge-to-edge Pixel design, with the camera module on the left and the LED flash on the right. Compared to its predecessors, the edges are curvier, making the phone feel more comfortable in hand than the Pixel 7a. However, the Pixel 8 still holds the edge in terms of ergonomics.

This is also the first time we see an aluminum frame on a Google A-series phone. The metal frame features tactile metal volume rockers and a power button on the right side, while the SIM tray is located on the left.

The antenna bands are slightly thicker than those on previous Pixels, which isn’t very appealing. However, if you’ve seen JerryRigsEverything’s OnePlus 10 Pro breakdown, you’ll know that thicker antenna bands add a bit more durability. Additionally, the handset comes with an IP67 rating.

The metal frame and back panel design add some redeeming qualities to the device’s appearance. However, the front of the phone is quite a different story—I haven’t seen bezels this large in a while.

To my dismay, the bezels are thicker than the chocolate shake I just had. Even the Pixel 6a didn’t have such thick bezels, which makes me wonder why Google chose this design. On the bright side, these unsightly bezels might inadvertently reduce your screen time by making you less inclined to use the phone.

Pixel 8a Display

While the bezels surrounding the display are far from ideal, the display itself is impressive. The 6.1-inch AMOLED panel boasts a peak brightness of 2000 nits, making it easy to view both indoors and outdoors. Although the display can be a bit reflective under direct light, it’s not a major issue. The viewing angles are also good.

A major improvement in the 8a is the introduction of a 120Hz refresh rate panel, which makes the user experience noticeably smoother. Although it’s not an LTPO panel, setting it to auto allows it to dynamically switch between 60Hz and 120Hz.

I binge-watched “Baby Reindeer” and “Naruto,” and rewatched “The Batman” for the tenth time on this phone. From my experience, this is a top-tier AMOLED display. The blacks are deep, and the colors are vibrant, almost making me forget about the thick bezels. Almost.

Before I could fully enjoy the device, another issue emerged. The Pixel 8a comes with outdated Corning Gorilla Glass 3 protection. In contrast, significantly cheaper phones like the POCO X6, POCO X6 Pro, and the recently launched Moto Edge 50 Fusion feature Gorilla Glass 5 protection.

After just three days of use without a tempered glass protector, minor scratches started appearing on the screen.

Additionally, the in-display fingerprint sensor is not accurate enough. Whenever my fingers were even slightly sweaty, it failed to recognize them. This inconsistency is frustrating.

Pixel 8a Speaker Output

While the display quality is impressive, the speaker output leaves much to be desired. Despite being a stereo speaker setup, it isn’t loud enough. There were mornings when I couldn’t hear my alarm, which is problematic for deep sleepers. This was never an issue with other phones I’ve tested recently.

Even my older Realme GT Master Edition, which has a single speaker, didn’t give me this problem. Although you can view and listen to content without earphones, the volume isn’t particularly loud, and the audio output crackles at higher volumes. While it’s not as grating as nails on a chalkboard, it’s still unpleasant.

Pixel 8a Software Experience

A Pixel is supposed to excel in the software department, and while it does shine in some areas, it falls short in several fundamental aspects. On the positive side, you get to enjoy features like Circle to Search, Gemini AI, AI Generative Wallpapers, Audio Magic Eraser, Best Take, Magic Eraser, Photo Unblur, Real Tone Video, Super Res Zoom, and Night Sight with Astrophotography. Plus, you get a pure Stock Android experience with no bloatware. The Pixel 8a also offers solid haptic feedback.

However, there are notable issues with the Pixel 8a’s software experience. First, there are minor stutters in the UI during basic tasks like switching between apps or opening and closing the camera app.

The RAM management is particularly problematic. With around 10-15 apps open in the background, the device would reload 8 out of 10 apps when revisiting them.

Let me share an example. One evening, I was playing CoD Mobile and needed to reply to a WhatsApp message. I accidentally tapped into the app itself from the notification, and when I returned to CoD Mobile, the game had reloaded.

I had to reload the game from scratch and reconnect to the match, which is unacceptable. Most frustratingly, I only had three apps open in the background at the time.

Pixel 8a Performance

Performance has never been a strong point for Pixels. While other phones in this segment use the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, the Pixel 8a is equipped with the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1-equivalent Tensor G3. This processor is supported by up to 8GB of LPDDR5x RAM and 256GB of UFS 3.1 storage, which is an improvement.

It’s also the first time a Google A-series phone offers more than 128GB of storage. With these pros and cons in mind, how does it perform in real life? As usual, this section has been divided into three parts. Let’s take a look!

Day-to-day Experience

While daily usage varies from person to person, there are certain issues you don’t want to encounter on your phone. Unfortunately, the Pixel 8a inconveniently brings most of them. At the top of the list is extremely poor thermal management. As long as you’re not using the phone, it’s fine.

However, as soon as you unlock it to take even two pictures or listen to music, it starts heating up, reaching up to 40 degrees for no apparent reason. In an office environment, it’s not as bad, hovering around the 35-degree mark.

But outside, the phone becomes uncomfortably hot. This leads to throttling, and we’ll get to the benchmarks shortly. As a result, the UI stutters become more noticeable. Although not extremely severe, they’re still present.

Additionally, due to poor RAM management, multitasking is a hassle. With every other app reloading, I found myself clearing my recent apps list like I did on phones from years ago.

Benchmarks

I ran numerous benchmarks, including all the Wild Life tests, CPU Throttling, and the usual AnTuTu and Geekbench tests. The CPU Throttling test confirmed my suspicions, showing a 59% throttling.

In my Pixel 8a vs. Pixel 8 comparison, you’ll notice that the 8a performs worse in all the scores despite having the same chipset. It also heats up more, reaching up to 46 degrees in an air-conditioned room. Here’s a quick rundown of the Pixel 8a’s benchmarks:

Gaming

When gaming, the thermal management is even worse. After an hour of playing CoD Mobile, the game started stuttering in certain areas, a clear sign of thermal throttling. The phone also became unbearably hot, forcing me to quit the game.

I noticed that the handset’s temperature left a small red patch on my right hand’s skin, as it was cupping the camera module during gaming.

Even if you achieve 90 FPS in the game, it doesn’t matter if the device throttles like this. I also tried a few other games, and here are the results:

For gamers, it’s best to steer clear of the Pixel 8a.

Pixel 8a Cameras

Primary Sensor Shots

In terms of optics, the Pixel 8a features a 64 MP Quad PD wide camera primary sensor, paired with a 13 MP ultrawide-angle sensor. For selfies, there’s a 13 MP front-facing camera. I tested this setup in various scenarios, and here are my observations:

The Pixel 8a prioritizes natural-looking colors over aesthetics. While this is commendable, I noticed that the primary sensor sometimes struggled to detect the subject.

For example, when there was a subject in front of the camera, it inexplicably chose to focus on the couch behind them. This wasn’t an isolated incident; every shot from that angle had the same issue.

Ignoring that, the pictures were generally good. There wasn’t much loss in detail when zooming in, and the dynamic range was impressive, balancing shadows and highlights well. The Pixel 8a’s sensor also maintains natural-looking skin tones and retains good detail when zooming in on the skin.

However, as the sun sets, the primary sensor’s performance drops from good to decent. Details become smudged, and photos show significant noise. Color accuracy also suffers, failing to replicate real-world colors as well as it does during the day.

On the positive side, the Pixel 8a handles light sources well, avoiding blown-out highlights consistently. However, the camera processing is inconsistent. Sometimes, photos are captured quickly, while other times, it takes 3-4 seconds to process an image.

Ultrawide Shots

The ultrawide-angle shots on the Pixel 8a are acceptable, but there’s nothing remarkable about them. The dynamic range is good, but details are lacking when zoomed in, especially at night, where performance worsens.

Pixelation is noticeable, which is expected with a 13MP sensor. Details in the photo can start to resemble oil paintings, and apart from a few scenarios, I wouldn’t recommend using the ultrawide lens. Additionally, there’s a slight color difference compared to the primary sensor, which tends to capture cooler photos.

Selfies

However, the Pixel 8a excels in the selfie department. If you enjoy taking selfies, you’ll be more than satisfied. Portrait shots are particularly impressive, with edge detection and depth mapping working seamlessly to separate the subject from the background.

While the level of detail may not be outstanding when zoomed in, it’s still adequate. Skin tones are accurately reproduced, and lighting is well-balanced. Even in low light conditions, selfies turn out well.

Videos

When it comes to videos, the Pixel 8a can record up to 4K 60FPS footage. I tested it and found the optical image stabilization (OIS) to be reliable. The microphone quality is also decent. There were no issues with focus hunting, and the sensor smartly focused on the important elements in the frame.

On the other hand, the front camera can shoot up to 4K 30FPS videos, but it’s also capable of recording at 1080p 60FPS, which is commendable.

Pixel 8a Battery and Charging

Selfies are the highlight of the Pixel 8a’s camera setup. While everything else is satisfactory, it’s not the best in its class. In a comparison with the iQOO 12’s camera in our dedicated review video, the Pixel 8a fell behind significantly. You can watch the comparison video here:

The Pixel 8a is equipped with a 4,492mAh battery, an improvement over the 7a’s 4,385mAh unit. With this capacity, I easily managed to get through a day of normal usage. Recently, I’ve been keeping my smartphone mostly idle, checking most notifications on my smartwatch. I only use my phone actively at night to play CoD Mobile with friends.

During the day, I also scroll through reels on Instagram and Facebook, and use WhatsApp. I fully charged the device on Friday around 6 PM. By Saturday at 1:30 PM, I still had 24% battery left.

I then pushed the device further by running benchmarks for about three hours, playing games for an hour, and watching YouTube content for 30 minutes. With this usage, I got around 4.5 hours of backup. For a compact phone, the battery performance is satisfactory.

The issue lies in the charging speed. A turtle could complete a 4 km marathon before the Pixel 8a fully charges. Taking 2.5 hours to charge is unacceptable for a phone in 2024. With most phones, even at 5% battery, I can get fast charging that allows me to use the phone within 15 minutes.

Pixel 8a Connectivity

I won’t delve into the usual Wi-Fi and Bluetooth specifications, as the device is adequately equipped in those areas. Instead, I want to address the biggest issue I have with Pixel devices—network connectivity.

Unfortunately, the Pixel 8a doesn’t resolve this issue, as it can’t. The fault lies with the Tensor G3’s modem. In areas where my personal OnePlus 11R gets full bars, the Pixel 8a only manages two.

You’ll rarely see a full 5G signal with this device, resulting in call drops and slower 5G speeds. I conducted 5G tests using the same SIM in the exact same location on both the Pixel 8a and my OnePlus 11R, highlighting the problem:

Is Google Pixel 8a Worth Buying?

Despite the Pixel 8a’s improvements over its predecessor, it’s plagued with numerous issues. From its outdated front design to severe thermal throttling and persistent 5G connectivity problems, these issues are hard to overlook.

In India, the Pixel 8a faces tough competition from a multitude of phones. In the same price range, you can opt for the 8GB/256GB variant of the Samsung Galaxy S23, which is arguably a better compact phone. Additionally, the Galaxy S23 offers more storage at a similar price point, while the Pixel 8a’s 256GB variant comes at a higher cost. For superior performance, stability, and even better cameras, the iQOO 12 is a compelling option. The OnePlus 12R is also available at a much lower price in the subcontinent.

Considering Pixel’s history, it’s possible that the price of the Pixel 8a may drop significantly in the coming months. However, based on my experience, it’s difficult to recommend the device at its current price of Rs 52,999. Until Google addresses these long-standing issues that have only worsened with the Pixel 8a, I find it hard to endorse.

Pros & Cons

Final Verdict

Connectivity

The Google Pixel 8a is the latest addition to the brand’s A-series lineup, boasting several improvements over its predecessor. While it offers a stock Android experience, a 120Hz display, and a larger battery, the device is marred by significant drawbacks. Poor thermal management leads to subpar performance, and the front bezels are unacceptably large. At a price of Rs 52,999, the Pixel 8a fails to justify its cost.