Google Pixel 3a Review

The Google Pixel 3a is the most sensible smartphone you can buy right now. 

There are faster smartphones, there are flashier smartphones, there are phones with fancier features that would certainly be nice to have, but the Pixel 3a nails the essentials. 

You get a top-tier camera, solid battery life, and snappy performance for just $649. It's currently the best value smartphone around.

Great photography for everyone

The Pixel 3a feels like it has a single purpose: making great photography more accessible. The best smartphone cameras on the market have typically been locked away behind four-digit price tags, and those just keep climbing higher.

Google clearly wants to change this. The search giant has kitted out the $649 Pixel 3a with the same camera you'd get in the $1,199 Pixel 3. There are a few technical differences, but the results are almost indistinguishable.

This is exciting for a number of reasons, but mostly because of how damn good the Pixel 3 camera is. It's not the very best camera you can buy - Huawei's P30 Pro holds that honour for now - but it’s easily in the upper echelon. In fact, it's arguably the equal second on the market, alongside Huawei's P20 Pro and Mate 20 Pro. And while you expect an amazing camera on a $1,000+ phone like the Pixel 3, it's unprecedented on a midrange device such as the Pixel 3a.

The Pixel 3a takes great photos in almost any situation, and does so consistently. It's genuinely hard to take a bad shot. And there are a whole heap of clever software features on board that can help you get even more out of the Pixel 3a camera - even though it only has one rear-facing camera lens.

Portrait mode - one of the most popular features on dual-camera smartphones - works on the Pixel 3a's single camera setup. Much like its multi-camera brethren, the Pixel 3a is able to simulate DSLR-like "bokeh", tastefully out-of-focus backgrounds you get behind your subject when taking photos using a high-end lens. You're also able to adjust the amount of blur behind your subject, and can even make the background monochrome while keeping your subject colourised through a feature called colour pop. Neither feature is 100% perfect - portrait mode will occasionally blur something it shouldn't and colour pop can sometimes remove colour from your subject - but both work well for the most part.

Here's a portrait shot comparison:

And here's the same photo with colour pop:

Huawei's P30 Pro might be the new king of lowlight photography, but the Pixel 3a still performs extremely well. Part of this is thanks to a dedicated mode called Night Sight. When using Night Sight, your Pixel 3a will capture up to 15 frames at different exposures over the course of six seconds which are then combined into a final - brighter - photo. While Night Sight works best with a tripod, it can still account for shaky hands.

Here's a lowlight photo without Night Sight:

And here's the same shot with Night Sight on:

Impressively, the tech is smart enough to account for moving subjects, such as in this Night Sight photo from a gig:

For comparison, here's what my photos from that show looked like without Night Sight:

While the Pixel 3a doesn't have a dedicated zoom lens, there's software assisted digital zoom that looks almost as good as a dedicated lens. Software clearly can't replace physical optics, but you'll get surprisingly good results if you're only zooming in by a factor of two or three.

There is of course a limit to just how much software can do, and you'll notice pixel interpolation (where the software has tried to reconstruct the image using existing data) if you zoom in too much further. 

The image below compares zoom factors on the Pixel 3a. The Pixel 3a zoom slider doesn't provide concrete details as to how much you're zooming in, but the first image is at 1x zoom, and the final is maxed out.

It's not an overstatement to call the Pixel 3a a game changer. Never before have you been able to get a smartphone camera this good at such a reasonable price. No other phone in its price bracket compares, and hell, the Pixel 3a even takes better photos than many devices worth twice as much.

Not missing much

The most notable compromise is the plastic back. While we're now seeing glass backs on phones as cheap as $399, the Pixel 3a is built from a good old-fashioned polycarbonate. It may not have the same allure you get on a glass-and-metal flagship phone, but the Pixel 3a build feels solid. 

I'd argue Google's plastic is nicer than some of the glass on cheaper phones. And hey, it's one less thing that can shatter if you drop your phone. If you're the kind of person who'd prefer to use a case, this matters even less. As a side note, Google's official Pixel 3a fabric cases are lovely.

Snappy performance is another tick in the Pixel 3a's favour. It may be a tad slower than a top-tier phone, but this is only really noticeable when you compare devices side-by-side. It never felt sluggish during day-to-day usage, and still handles more intensive tasks like gaming well, for the most part. There are no issues with 2D gaming, but more demanding 3D games aren't always quite as smooth (which is easy to forgive, given the price).

Battery life is also solid: I'd typically have around 30% to 40% charge left at the end of a typical day. While the Pixel 3a won't last two full days, it will comfortably last a full day with a solid buffer.

Google says the Pixel 3a will get three years of major operating system updates and security, which is the same promise it makes for its top-tier Pixel devices. It's the best post-purchase support guarantee in the Android world. Better yet, the Pixel 3a will also be first in line for those updates, and will almost certainly be one of the first phones to get Android Q.

There are a few other small omissions worth mentioning. There's no water-resistance, no wireless charging, and storage isn't expandable. The first two are nice to have, I wouldn't call their absence a deal breaker. The lack of expandable storage is a trickier situation, given the Pixel 3a is only available in a 64GB configuration.

While lack of a microSD slot is par for the course with Pixel phones, they've typically come with unlimited full resolution backups for your photos in Google Photos. The Pixel 3a comes with a similar offer, but pictures are saved at "high quality" (which means they may be compressed or resized) - you can’t just back up the original full size image. If you're keen to keep your full resolution photos, you'll need to pay for extra Google Drive storage or manually copy them across to your computer.

You do get a classic 3.5mm headphone jack though, which is very welcome (and missing from Google's top-tier Pixels).

Who is the Google Pixel 3a for?

The Google Pixel 3a truly feels like a phone for everyone. It makes incredible smartphone photography available to a much wider audience without compromising on battery life, performance, display, or build quality.

Again, the Pixel 3a is the most sensible smartphone you can buy right now. You might not get secondary camera lenses or the fastest processor around, but you end up with 90% of a premium handset at somewhere between half and a third of the price. The Pixel 3a is an unprecedented bombshell that could disrupt the entire smartphone industry. It's unrivalled in the mid range and is bound to get people questioning flagship prices. If Google can put a top-tier camera in a $649 phone, why can't Apple? Why can't Samsung? Why can't Huawei?

The Pixel 3a is the antidote to ever-climbing smartphone prices. It's an unpretentious device that eschews unnecessary flair for focus. It's a damn fine phone that's worth every dollar.

More Google Pixel 3a camera samples

I don't want a Google Pixel 3a, what else can I buy?

Google Pixel 3a XL

If you'd prefer a larger device, there's also a supersized version of the Pixel 3a touting a 6-inch display and large capacity battery. The Pixel 3a XL is a little pricier - coming in a $799 - but it could scratch the itch if you need a big screen. Other than screen and battery capacity, the Pixel 3a and Pixel 3a XL are identical. 

Motorola Moto G7 Plus

If you're looking to save a little more, the Moto G7 Plus is a solid smartphone that comes in at $499. The camera isn't anywhere near as good as what you'll get with the Pixel 3a, but the Moto G7 Plus performs well, will last the whole day, and has more of a modern design - notch and all.

Huawei P30 Pro

If you really want the best camera smartphone and are okay with spending a good chunk more, the Huawei P30 Pro is the phone for you. It can take crystal clear photos in complete darkness. It can zoom to an absurd level without losing detail. It's incredibly versatile, and unlike anything we've seen on a smartphone before.

Alex Choros

Managing Editor + Group Telco Editor | X | Instagram | Threads | LinkedIn

Alex Choros is the Managing Editor of WhistleOut Australia and an award-winning journalist. He's been writing about consumer technology for over a decade and is an expert on the Australian telco sector, to the point where he knows far too many phone and internet plans by heart. In addition to leading the WhistleOut editorial team, Alex is responsible for ruining the office Sonos with his troubled taste in music.

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