The Problem with the Pixel 4a (Premium)

After three months of delays, Google finally announced the Pixel 4a, which embodies everything right and wrong about the firm’s hardware efforts.

I gotta be honest here. I’m not sure if I’m getting one. Let’s step through the pros and cons.

Pro: The price. The Pixel 4a starts at just $349, $50 less than the over-hyped and underwhelming new iPhone SE. For that $50 savings, you get a bigger display (5.8-inches vs. 4.7), a more modern design, a superior camera system, and double the storage (128 GB vs. 64 GB). Plus, Android, which is superior to iOS.

Con: There are no upgrades. I hope you want 6 GB of RAM, 128 GB of UFS storage, a non-XL form factor choice, and the color black, because there are no upgrades or other choices you can make. The only way you could pay more would be to buy it from Verizon, which apparently charges for the SIM, or pay another $99 for Google’s Preferred Care service.

Pro: Display. The Pixel 4a provides a superior OLED display, compared to the LCD unit in the iPhone SE.

Con: Display/form factor. Every single previous Pixel model—Pixel 1, Pixel2, Pixel 3, Pixel 3a, and Pixel 4—came in both standard and XL sizes, the latter of which provided a larger display. But not the Pixel 4a, which only comes in the smaller display size. I prefer XL.

Con: Color. Where every single previous Pixel model was provided in multiple color choices, the Pixel 4a is only available in matte black. Hope you like black! I do not.

Con: Android 10. Thanks to the stupidity of its release timing, Pixel 4a will ship with last year’s Android 10 release and not Android 11, which will become available just a month later, in September. That’s dumb.

Con: Camera system. The Pixel 4 was widely-panned for providing a second telephoto lens instead of a more useful ultra-wide-angle lens. So with the Pixel 4a, Google got rid of the telephoto lens, and it replaced it … with nothing. The Pixel 4a ships with just a single rear camera lens, which I’m sure works well based on my extensive experience with previous Pixels. But seriously. Just one lens in 2020?

Pro: Battery life. Thanks to its small display, the Pixel 4a allegedly gets killer, all-day+ battery life. I’d rather have a bigger display. Or another color choice. Or two or three camera lenses.

Con: No wireless charging.

Con: No water resistance.

Con: No facial recognition. This is one of my favorite Pixel 4XL features, despite it being not as fast and accurate as Huawei and OnePlus. That said…

Pro: Fingerprint reader. Google has brought back its fast and accurate rear-facing fingerprint reader. I love that too.

Pro: Design. Unlike the ugly, old-fashioned iPhone SE, the Pixel 4a comes with a modern, all-display design with a hole-punch front camera. This may be a first for Pixel: This is a design that is both modern and attractive.

Unclear: Performance. The biggest issue with the previous-generation Pixel 3a family is/was performance, but the Pixel 4a features a faster processor, more RAM, and more storage. I hope/expect it will perform better, but that’s unclear for now.

I’m not sure what to do.

The Pixel 3a XL, while excellent, and the Pixel 4 XL, while decent, do not outperform the Huawei P30 Pro I’ve been using in recent months, and there is no way the Pixel 4a will meet my needs let alone offer up any real competition. I don’t mind reviewing the Pixel 4a for others of course, and it looks like my Pixel 3a XL is worth $135 on trade, which would lower the total cost to $215. Or, I could just wait for the Pixel 5 in the fall. Assuming that comes in an XL variant, of course.

I could change my mind. But I think I’m going to sit this one out. Google is losing me.