Choosing Google pixel phone
hey guys so it's october and at this point in the year google's pretty much released all of its phones for the year we've got the pixel 4a pixel 4 a5g and the pixel 5.
You're probably wondering at this point what
pixel do i buy i've had plenty of people
ask me this question because
they all are pretty similar phones but
they have different features that you
might want to get and might want to pay
a little bit of money
for also we've got the pixel 4 from last
year.
which in some respects is actually
a little more premium than even the
pixel 5 so
let's just run through like the pros and
cons of each of these pixels to see
which one you should pick up
so the first pixel is the pixel 4a and
this didn't come out in october it
actually came out a couple of months ago.
it was kind of a random drop because we
were expecting google to drop off the
pixel
4a in something like may around google i
o because that's when the pixel 3a
came out but then of course coronavirus
happened and they delayed it.
And it eventually launched but the funny
thing about the pixel 4a is that even
though it was delayed by like
multiple months it's still a super good
phone it really didn't go out of date
now the pixel 4a only comes in one sku
one size
one color it's black it's got six gigs
of ram and 128 gigabytes of storage.
Which honestly for a 350 phone to have
120 gigabytes of storage
is pretty massive like the iphone 12
standard one
starts at 64 gigabyte the pixel 4 from
last year started at 64 gigabyte and
that started at 800
that's a really good value.
now the thing
about the pixel 4a that a lot of people
are going to be kind of mixed on
is the fact that the processor it's
running is the qualcomm snapdragon 730 g
let me compare like the 730g to
something like the 765g or maybe the 855
from the pixel 4 from last year the 865
from this year.
Apps are going to open a little bit
slower and over time it might slow down
a little bit more but for the few months
that i actually ran the pixel 4a because
honestly it was kind of one of my
favorite phones this year.
it was fine now i'm not a heavy gamer at
all i do do a lot of multitasking though
and it was pretty good that chip also
uses less power
and so the battery life in the pixel 4a
was pretty solid as well
now the other thing about.
this phone is
that it only has one rear camera so
you're just getting that one
12 megapixel camera that we've seen on
like almost every pixel now.
but you are getting the pixel processing
that we've seen in also every pixel
which honestly a lot of people are just
gonna love you get night sight you get
astra mode you get
the pixel's portrait mode that's all
really solid even though this hardware
is a little bit old
now.
the other great thing about the
pixel 4a is that it has a really really
amazing screen this is like
one of the best displays that we've
tested this year here at android
authority it's it's really bright and
vibrant and it's not gonna be 90 hertz
or 120 hertz.
Obviously because it's a
300
phone but it looks really really nice
and i didn't have any issues when i was
like watching movies and tv shows and
things like that
now the other thing that the pixel 4a
has is a headphone jack.
so if you're
someone that likes to use wired
headphones a lot
apparently that's become like a
mid-range or a low-range feature which
makes no sense in my opinion but it's
really nice to have a headphone jack on
your phone.
so if you're someone who just kind of
wants that pixel experience which is
like google's
take on android with all the google
assistant features and everything that's
baked in for 350 dollars
pixel 4a is kind of hard to beat all
right so the second phone in this year's.
pixel lineup is the pixel 4a 5g and i
kind of call this phone
like the goldilocks phone of the pixel
lineup this year because it takes
certain aspects from the pixel 4a and
then takes certain aspects from the
pixel 5.
it kind of combines them into one
really solid
in-between phone now as you can see it
looks
a lot like the pixel 4a they almost look
exactly identical they use the same
materials on the back.
they're generally the same shape they
both have a headphone jack same colors
but the biggest differences here are
going to be the general screen size
which is much bigger.
on the pixel 485 g
the processor from the pixel 5 and the
wide angle camera from the pixel 5.
now the processor is the snapdragon 765g
versus the snapdragon 730 g.
that's going to be a little bit faster you're
going to be able to launch apps a little
bit faster
in general this phone will probably last
a little bit longer
and take a little bit longer to slow
down compared to the pixel 4a
but the other thing that this adds is 5g
capabilities which is probably why they
called it the pixel 4a 5g.
now it is running the qualcomm
snapdragon x 52 modem instead of the x55
modem so
the peak speeds that you're gonna get
from 5g are not gonna be quite as high
but honestly they're still multi gigabit
it's not going to be an issue for you.
like at all so last and most premium
pixel that google releases here is the
pixel 5 and i actually did a full review
of this phone
really recently so go watch that review
if you haven't already
but the pixel 5 actually shares a ton of
similarities with the pixel 4 a5g
which is why i kind of called the 485g.
The goldilocks phone
now it still has that 16 megapixel wide
angle camera that you've got in the 485g
so if you want a wide angle camera you
can get that in the pixel 5
and it's got these qualcomm snapdragon
765g
with the 5g capabilities .now a lot of
people were kind of annoyed
that they
were still using this chip because it's
not a super premium chip
it's still kind of a mid-range ship but
that is what allowed google to lower the
price in this phone
so you know that kind of makes sense.
now
other things that they did to kind of
add
value to add premium nest to the pixel 5
was one they made it out of aluminum
which you wouldn't really be able to
know is aluminum.
because
it's got this plastic bio resin on top
it definitely feels like plastic it's a
little bit textured so it feels a little
bit better than like the pixel 4a or the
pixel 4a5 g
even though those feel pretty good
already
but they did that to kind of add
stability to the phone just add a little
more rigidity and it's probably going to
be a little less likely to like
crack if you drop it or something like
that.
now they also added some
other frills to the pixel 5 to make it
the premium pixel experience for the
year for example
they added wireless charging which is
kind of surprising for an aluminum phone.
because we don't
usually see metal phones with wireless
charging but google actually did a
physical cut out in the aluminum where
they put the wireless charging coil
and then they added this bio resin shell
on top.
so you're still getting the
wireless charging
that you would expect from a more
premium phone but in a metal phone which
is really interesting
and it's also got reverse wireless
charging too if you like .
charging things
like your pixel buds
the other thing that it has is as ip68
water and dust resistance and if you're
someone who
uses their phone outside a lot or you
just like to use your phone in the
shower and you don't have to
worry about it breaking .
from moisture
damage
then this is a really useful feature a
lot of really expensive phones
like flagships have this feature so it's
nice that google put that
in this phone and the other probably
major thing it's got a 90 hertz
more edge to edge display compared to
the pixel 4a 5g.
so if you like to have a smoother
android experience just it's a little
more fluid it's not necessarily
necessary
but it's definitely a little bit better
of an experience.
that 90 hertz display
is really nice and the pixel 4a 5g and
episode 4a
definitely have a little bit of bezel on
the top and bottom especially on the
bottom
but the pixel 5 in .
particular is nearly
bezel-less it's very edge to edge
and i feel like that screen looks
amazing also the power button instead of
just being a colored plastic
is this aluminum which i think is kind
of a nod to .
the fact that the phone's
base
is actually made out of aluminum so
that's nice as well
now this phone costs 699 dollars which
is a 200
premium over the pixel 4a 5g personally.
i think they should have kept
the 150 premium that they're going from
the pixel 4a
to the pixel 45g i think at 650 this
thing would have been a home run
but you know google always lowers the
prices of their phones like a couple of
months after they're released anyway.
i
mean black friday is kind of coming up
in like
one or two months after the release you
can usually get them for like 100 bucks
off
so i wouldn't be surprised if you could
pick up a pixel 5
for something like 600 in the near
future.
so those are all the pixels for this
year but there is also something to be
said about picking up a pixel 4
from last year now i didn't like the
pixel 4 a lot because
it had really really bad battery life
and honestly i feel like if you can't
use your phone.
because it's
dead then what's the point in picking up
that phone but
the thing about the pixel 4 is it's
using the qualcomm snapdragon 855 which
is
not the newest processor now.
the 865 and
865 plus are out
but that processor is going to be faster
than the 765g
or the 730g that's in the pixel 4a
so if you're someone who games a lot or
just likes to have
a little bit of a faster phone.
That
could be a viable pickup now the pixel 4
only had six gigabytes of ram it started
at 64 gigabytes
but it was made of glass it still had
the wireless charging and ip68 water and
dust resistance.
it had the solely face unlock and also
the solely features with the radar which
didn't work very well but if you're into
weird techy things
there could be something to be said
about that and if you just
want a phone .
that feels maybe a little
bit more premium in these phones
that phone is on sale for quite a bit
less for example on prime day this year
you can get the standard
pixel 4 in a 128 gigabyte variant
for 550 dollars .
you could get the 4xl
and 128 gigabyte variant for 650
so it kind of sits right in between like
the pixel 4 a5g and the pixel 5
as a more premium option for people that
want a little bit of a faster phone
and it's still going to get the same
three years of android updates.
although it'll probably get one year
less than something like the pixel 5. so
if you want a little bit of a faster
phone you just don't really care about
the battery life and that kind of stuff
that could also be a pretty good option
all right guys well hopefully.
that
should help you decide which pixel to
get this year if you're interested in
picking up
a google phone there's a lot of viable
options now there's like four
or five depending on the size that you
want to get.
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