Google Pixel 5a costs $ 449, adds bigger screen and water resistance

Google has officially unveiled its next mid-range phone, the Pixel 5a. The big news today (and still the biggest selling point of the Pixel A series) is the price, which is $ 449, which is $ 100 more than the Pixel 4a. Google’s blog post has a phone comparison sheet showing its lineup as the Pixel 5, Pixel 5a, and Pixel 4a.

Part of the reason for the price increase is that the Pixel 5a is a larger phone, with a 6.34-inch screen and 73.7mm width compared to the 5.8-inch screen. and 69.4mm from the Pixel 4a. Another big change is the addition of IP67 dust and water resistance, which means the phone should survive submersion in 3 feet of water (1 meter) for 30 minutes. Like the Pixel 5, the body is covered in plastic covered metal instead of the pure plastic body of the Pixel 4a. We haven’t really seen the appeal of this in the Pixel 5, but the phone is probably stronger now.

As usual, we get a no-frills design that only takes care of the essentials. On the front there is a slim bezel OLED display and hole-punch camera on the top right, while on the back there are dual cameras (main and wide-angle) and a capacitive fingerprint reader. . Specifications include a Snapdragon 765G (it’s a 7nm chip with two Cortex A76 cores and six Cortex A55 cores), 6GB of RAM, 128GB of storage, and the largest battery of any Pixel at 4680mAh. The main camera is 12.2 MP and looks like the same Sony IMX363 sensor that Google has used for the past four years. There is a 16 MP wide angle and an 8 MP front camera. Oh yes, the headphone jack still lasts at least a year.

If there’s one disappointment with the Pixel 5a, it’s the 60Hz display, which feels quite slow in a world where 90Hz and 120Hz are often the norm. We’re not talking about high-end phones either. OnePlus sells a 90Hz phone in the US for $ 180, while the Galaxy A52 5G has a 120Hz display and costs $ 500 in the US. (And sure, there are better deals out there internationally, but the Pixel 5a doesn’t compete in those markets.)

Since its launch in 2019, the Pixel A series has been one of the best mid-range phones you can buy. The phones typically combine solid specs, a straightforward design, stock Android, and three years of Google’s Day 1 Android updates. Phones are great if you can get them, but most people can’t. Google is one of the biggest companies in the world, but its hardware division has a very small footprint, typically only selling Pixel phones in nine to 13 countries. The Pixel 5a’s distribution will be even smaller, with Google officially only listing the United States and Japan. For comparison, a high-end launch from Samsung or Apple typically debuts in around 70 countries and often spreads to over 100 countries in the following months.

Google is also lagging behind when it comes to the phone’s support lifecycle. The Pixel 5a will get three years of major updates and three years of security updates, while Samsung is now offering three years of major updates and four years of security updates, even on cheaper phones in the Pixel 5a price range. Samsung will be much slower than Google to ship them, but it’s wrong that the creator of Android no longer offers the longest support lifecycle.

The Pixel 5a is on preorder now and will ship on August 26th.