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IPhones high-end fantasy and Android phones start at $ 750, and the best phones regularly exceed $ 1,000 these days. You may think that a $ 400 phone should make a lot of sacrifices, but in the past week with Google's new Pixel 3A ($ 400) and Pixel 3A XL ($ 480), I did not feel . In fact, thanks to its camera, it's the first phone I've used in a while that really appealed to a few people.
The sacrifices were made in the name of a price of $ 400, of course. Most of these features are just not particularly important. If they are important to you, the new Galaxy S10 Plus offers them all for double the price. You can also wait for one of the folding phones worth $ 2,000 to be twice as thick and an exhaustive list of new problems. For me, a $ 400 phone that checks the boxes and adds a few is enough.
Good where it counts
The A on 3A probably means "affordable", and you're going to give up some luxuries for the price – most of them being on the surface.
Like the standard Pixel 3, the OLED screens of both models do not extend to the top or the bottom of the phone. They are also in 1080p, and not in 1440p. So there are a few less pixels on each screen than some expensive phones. You may notice if you have sharp eye, but the screens are still as sharp as those of an iPhone Retina.
A small frame at the top and bottom of the screen is not really fashionable at the moment. I liked having a small place to hold the phone, though. Some new high-end devices have no frame, no edging and their curved edges flowing to the sides. Features such as this one are nice and cause many accidental screen entries if you do not have a folder.
The body of the 3A and 3A XL models looks like glass, but it's actually polycarbonate, a high-end plastic. Google has retained the appearance of previous pixels with a nice matte finish on most of the back of the phone, which becomes glassy near the camera. Phone makers seem to like glass right now, but polycarbonate is more durable. You may not even need a holster with the Pixel 3A. It can survive light falls and is not likely to slide off tables and counters, like some of the slippery phones at the moment. (I'm looking at you, LG G8 ThinQ.)
Two of a kind
You probably now know if you are more of a small operator or an XL type device buyer. In both cases, the two versions of Pixel 3A are identical apart from their size difference. The power button and the volume knobs are well placed on the right side and a headphone jack is located at the top, unlike many expensive phones including the Pixel 3. The standard 3A model features a high-quality audio system. a 5.6-inch screen and the Pixel 3A XL 6-inch display. They also have the same cameras and the same interiors.
Both phones feature a new Qualcomm Snapdragon 670 processor, 64GB of storage and 4GB of RAM. The Snapdragon 670 is not as fast as the 855 chip of the expensive phones, but it is faster than anything you'll find in most devices at $ 400 and does not really present any significant problem. I have not encountered any slowdowns or shifts whatsoever. The games work well too. These phones work just as well as anything you can buy. They even have the Google Titan M chip to protect personal data on the device and Bluetooth 5.0, which improves the performance and reach of some wireless headphones.
You can buy the phones in three colors: black, white and "purple-ish". Yes, it's a real color choice. I had the purple-ish version and it shocked me to learn that it was purple. I would call it a very subtle subtle white, but to see if I became color-blind, I collected a bunch of purple things and placed them next to them. Secretly, I hoped to make a fool of Google to call it purple. But I'm crazy. It turns out that if you put it next to enough purple things, it will look like … almost purple-ish. If it is not next to all the purple items in your home, rest assured, it's definitely an off-white. And I shake my fists to Google's designers in the sky who think otherwise!
Jeffrey Van Camp
The XL has a bigger battery, but both seem to last about a day in my tests – about average for a 2019 phone. Unfortunately, there is no wireless charge (no sealing either, just a resistance to dust and rain), but Google includes the fast charge of USB C, which I tend to use most of the time.
Bells and Whistles
Usually, a cheaper mid-range phone will feature diluted features that debuted on more expensive devices a year or two ago. Not today. As this is a Pixel phone with the latest and most powerful version of Google's Android operating system (unlike most Android phones), as well as monthly security updates, Google decided to introduce some remarkable features.
Reading in progress is a program that runs quietly in the background, listens and records the name and artist of each song you hear, if you turn it on. Google quickly notes that it does all this internally on the device. It can help you discover new music and play it on Spotify or on Google Hopes, YouTube Music. This seems to save the songs offline to a certain extent. Even in airplane mode, he captured some random songs that I played – also old ones, like Matchbox Twenty's "3Am". It does not always catch less success from the past and seems to need an internet connection at some point to collect the points.
Overall, reading in progress is not completely cooked. Google knows very well passively capture some songs (maybe most?), But sometimes it does not pick up a song, even if it was a hit, and there's no good reason to that. I would like to be able to ask him to check a song. Currently, this has to be done separately via an app like Shazam or Google Assistant. If you search "Now playing," you can find a hidden app that lets you see all the songs your phone has recorded. Again, I would like him to have more. I'm also worried that Google has a deeper motivation to record every song I play near my home. You can disable this feature by searching for "Now playing" in the settings.
Google Maps AR Directions are more fun. Google Maps has always worked very well in a car. Use it to walk … not so much. It's a guessing game that you walk in the right direction or that this street is the right street.
The other day, I spent another 15 minutes running a circle family member (and rectangles) to find the Museum of Science here in Boston. My phone had no idea of the direction in which it was going and I had trouble translating the 2D world of cards into reality. I would have liked to have AR then. It allows you to hold your phone, scan buildings it sees, report your location and draw big arrows in the direction to follow. As soon as you start walking, he asks you to lower your phone and return to 2D mode so that you do not get hit by a bus or head into a river.
These new features will come soon on the standard Pixel 3. All the rest of the interface is standard Android, and rather catchy. My only complaint is that the new system of gestures on the screen, similar to that of the iPhone, Google for multitasking makes it more difficult to display the menu of applications. The application menu and multitasking both involve dragging up. The new ability to swipe sideways to scroll through recent applications makes it much easier to copy and paste between applications.
Night view
You may notice that the Pixel 3A does not have a double or triple camera at the front or back. There is only one camera on each side. This is normal on some cheaper phones. What is not normal is the extraordinary quality of the photos taken with 12 megapixel rear cameras and 8 megapixel front cameras. His moves seemed as good, sometimes even better, than those of the Galaxy S10e and the LG G8 during a shootout that I made the other day. This is a remarkable feat, since the other phones each have two rear cameras on which to support them.
The rear camera seems to be identical to the more expensive models of Pixel 3. Even the effects of depth blur (bokeh) in the portrait mode of the Pixel 3A, made with software, looked as good or better than what Samsung or LG could concoct.
Like the Pixel 3, the 3A phones also have Night Sight, a complete game changer for low light photography. In the gallery, you can see some photos taken with and without Night Sight. Most of these photos come from an evening on the roof, which I attended the other day. By the end of the night, everyone was trying to take group pictures, mostly on iPhone, and had problems. After seeing how clear some of the pictures of Pixel 3A were, I was asked to take a picture for someone else.
Night Sight is not perfect. This sometimes brightens the sky too much and the group shots tend to look like they were shot with a weak flash. But it's better than the sad, dark, dead photos that I usually take at night.
Ready for a close up
The Pixel 3A starts at $ 400 and comes unblocked, ready to run on AT & T, T-Mobile, Sprint, Verizon and most other US networks (though you do not rule out contacting customer service. Verizon if you are having trouble with this carrier). . Only you know what your own resellers are, but if they are not charging wirelessly and they are not IP68 waterproof (this can handle splashing, maybe more), then let's talk about it. The Pixel 3A and 3A XL offer a remarkably good camera, a fast interface, regular updates of features and security, a headphone jack, a semi-durable design and an affordable price.
I used all the flagship Android phones on the market and, for now, I think you'd better save a few hundred dollars and buy a Pixel 3A or 3A XL. They are not the most stylish, but they can take a picture at night.
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