When Google announced the Pixel 5a last week, there wasn't anything that really shocked me. After all, that's not what the a-series is for. It's meant to bring flagship features to a lower price point. Indeed, it really delivers, offering the same chipset and camera that you'd find in the Google Pixel 5.

Since then, I wrote up my initial impressions, tested the camera, and then wrote up my impressions of the performance and battery life. Now, here we are.

Pixel 5a, compared to the Pixel 5

Perhaps the story shouldn't be how similar to the Pixel 5 this device is. It seems like it's more of a matter that this handset is so similar to the Pixel 5, but it still costs $250 less. Here's a key list of differences between the two handsets:

Google Pixel 5 and Pixel 5a side by side
  • The Pixel 5a is bigger, with a bigger battery
  • The Pixel 5a has a 3.5mm audio jack
  • The Pixel 5a has 6GB of RAM, instead of 8GB
  • The Pixel 5a has a 60Hz screen, instead of 90Hz
  • The Pixel 5a does not have wireless charging
  • The Pixel 5a is IP67 rated instead of IP68

Here's a key list of similarities:

  • They both have the Snapdragon 765G chipset
  • They both have 128GB of storage
  • They both support 5G
  • They both have 12MP + 16MP ultra-wide rear cameras
  • They both have 8MP f/2.0 front cameras

Personally, I kind of prefer the Pixel 5a, if those are the two devices that you're choosing between. For $250 less, the biggest compromise seems to be the display refresh rate. When I wrote about how great the battery life is, I said that I didn't even miss wireless charging.

Pixel 5a, compared to the Pixel 4a

I'm not really here to talk about the Pixel 4a with 5G, since that's yet another similar device. Let's put this simply. If you've got a Pixel 4a 5G, it's not worth it to upgrade to the Pixel 5a.

Google Pixel 4a next to Pixel 5a on wooden table

When comparing the Pixel 5a to the regular Pixel 4a, there are some big differences. Here's what's different:

  • The FHD 60Hz OLED screen is smaller on the Pixel 4a at 5.8 inches
  • The Pixel 4a is smaller at 3,140mAh
  • The Pixel 4a has a Snapdragon 730G instead of the more powerful Snapdragon 765G
  • The Pixel 4a does not have a secondary ultra-wide camera
  • The Pixel 5a supports sub-6GHz 5G

Here are the similarities:

  • They both have 6GB RAM and 128GB of storage
  • They both have 12.2MP f/1.7 main cameras
  • They both have 8MP f/2.0 front cameras

Obviously, it's a bigger upgrade from the Pixel 4a to the Pixel 5a. The obvious thing you get from the Pixel 5a is 5G, but there's a reason I haven't talked about 5G in my review. It's mostly useless, depending on where you live. Most places here in the U.S., it's no faster than 4G LTE; in many places, it's actually slower. I'm not going to get started on how useless mmWave is, because the Pixel 5a doesn't support it anyway.

The two biggest changes will be the ultra-wide camera and the larger battery. If that's something you need, go for it. If you like the smaller form factor better than a larger battery, you can wait and see what comes next.

Pixel 5a, compared to the Pixel 3a

I'm going to keep this pretty simple, because there's not too much to compare. If you're still using the Google Pixel 3a and you're wondering if the Pixel 5a is a worthy upgrade, it absolutely is. I'm also not going to make a list of bulletpoints, because everything is different at this point. All you actually need to know is that this is a worthy upgrade.

Google Pixel 5a on top of Pixel 3a XL on wooden table

I know I've talked about battery life, but the 4,680mAh is bigger than the 3,700mAh on the Pixel 3a XL. Forget about the 3,000mAh battery on the regular Pixel 3a. The Pixel 3a series also has less RAM and storage at 4GB and 64GB, respectively, and it only has a single 12.2MP f/1.8 rear camera.

The big difference is the chipset though. The Snapdragon 670 with 4GB RAM just doesn't seem to cut it when compared to the Snapdragon 765G and 6GB RAM in the Pixel 5a. In the course of my testing, I was using the Pixel 3 XL, Pixel 3a XL, Pixel 4, Pixel 4 XL, Pixel 4a, and Pixel 5. When running tests on the Pixel 3a XL, it was so clear that this was an immature product. It had a lot of value for its day, but today, it really doesn't stand up like the rest of those products did.

If you liked your Pixel 3a or 3a XL, you're probably thinking that it might be time for an upgrade. The Pixel 5a is it.

Who is the Google Pixel 5a for?

If you start to look at that $449 price range, there's a lot that's available. And of course, the goal is always to provide value. The most obvious competitor at that range is the iPhone SE, which starts at $399 with 64GB of storage, but costs the same $449 with 128GB of storage.

Google Pixel 5a with grassy background

It's tough to call one the better product because I have a feeling that most would decide based on their preference in operating system. Still, the Google Pixel 5a has an FHD OLED display, an ultra-wide camera, and 5G, if you're into that. The iPhone SE has massive bezels, an LCD display, and a single-lens camera, although it does have wireless charging.

So, who should buy the Google Pixel 5a? Let's take a look.

  • People that are looking for value at a mid-tier price
  • Users that want great battery life at that price
  • Users that want a great camera at that price

Here's who should not buy the Google Pixel 5a:

  • Customers that record a lot of high-resolution, high frame-rate video
  • People that care about lossless zoom in the camera
  • People that want a proper flagship phone

It's worth remembering that the Pixel 6 is coming. If you skipped the Pixel 5 because of Google's choice to not use a flagship chipset, stick around. There's no need to settle.

Conclusion

There's a lot that's good here, as you'd expect. Google continues to deliver value in a way that few can compete with. It brings software features like Now Playing, dual exposure with the camera, and more to the mid-range price point. Of course, that existed with the Pixel 4a as well.

It's still missing wireless charging, which is a shame, but it's made up for with a big battery. The biggest problem that I has was that the camera caused the device to overheat on numerous occasions. It's been widely reported by now that the camera shuts down when recording 4K 60fps video, but there were times it would shut the flash off just when taking pictures. It was a real pain point.

That's just one thing to get hung up on. If you're looking to spend under $500 on a phone, I'm not sure what else you'd be looking at, to be honest. It's got a great OLED display, even if it's not 90Hz, and it's got a phenomenal camera that includes Night Sight, astrophotography, and more.

For this section of the review, we're going to be looking at performance and battery life. The Google Pixel 5a packs a Qualcomm Snapdragon 765G chipset, just like the Pixel 5, and it's got 6GB RAM instead of 8GB. Let's talk about battery life first though, because that's the part that's interesting to me.

The Pixel 5a is bigger than the Pixel 5, and it has a larger battery that comes in at 4,680mAh instead of 4,080mAh. For me, this is actually the most impressive part of the phone. We're actually talking multi-day battery life here, something that I hesitate to ever say out loud. Plenty of companies promise multi-day battery life, but it's rarely delivered. However, I truly think that for most people, the Pixel 5a's battery can last from when you wake up one morning until you go to bed the next day, so that's roughly 36 hours.

Here are some examples. Every day that I started off with a full charge, the device was over 50% by the time I went to sleep, the lowest being 51%. That's with normal, every day usage as my daily driver. I used apps as I normally would, Bluetooth was used frequently with the Pixel Buds A and the TicWatch Pro 3, and I've been taking pictures frequently.

Google Pixel 5a on wooden deck

Speaking of running around taking pictures, take a look at my camera samples from Yankee Stadium. I started off around noon, walked around Heritage Park where the old stadium used to be, and took pictures all day at the Motorola Edge product launch. I took so many pictures and videos that on several occasions, the phone got too hot and the flash needed to be shut off. However, deep into the game at around 9pm, I remarked that the battery was still, impressively, at 61%.

Obviously, these tales are anecdotal. I don't run battery tests because I can't tell you if a battery will last for two days based on a benchmark, or streaming video for hours on end. These things don't represent how phones are actually used. Instead, I like to talk about battery life based on how I actually used it in my day-to-day, and it's super-impressive.

And here's something that's bound to be an unpopular opinion, but I don't miss wireless charging. For me, wireless charging is an easy way to set a phone down and have it charge while I'm not using it, usually at my desk. Indeed, that does help in having a device that's just always charged. Wired Android Auto is another thing that makes me not worry about battery life. But seriously, the battery life is so good on the Pixel 5a that it wasn't something I had to think about.

Now, let's talk about performance. Anecdotally, performance was solid most of the time. Let's be clear. When you get a Snapdragon 765G, it's obvious that you're not using a Snapdragon 888, or even a Snapdragon 870/865. A lot of the flagship capabilities are there; in fact, this might be your lowest-priced option if you're looking for a smartphone that can record 4K 60fps video. It just kind of chokes up once in a while. Sometimes it's just a minor annoyance, and sometimes it's the weird overheating issues I had when using the camera.

Here are some AnTuTu benchmark scores. While I came from using a Pixel 5, obviously the target market for this is coming from something a little bit older.

Device

OS

Processor and RAM

Total AnTuTu score

CPU

GPU

MEM

UX

Pixel 5a

Android 11

Snapdragon 765G, 6GB

380,038

109,951

101,183

73,022

95,882

Pixel 5

Android 12

Snapdragon 765G, 8GB

392,438

112,901

101,796

73,750

103,991

Pixel 4 XL

Android 12

Snapdragon 855, 6GB

536,036

141,725

183,083

84,720

126,508

Pixel 4

Android 11

Snapdragon 855, 6GB

503,595

139,009

185,602

65,743

113,511

Pixel 4a

Android 11

Snapdragon 730G, 6GB

339,903

102,692

87,543

59,248

90,420

I actually wasn't able to run AnTuTu on the Pixel 3 XL or Pixel 3a XL, although I had intended to. AnTuTu requires two apps to work, and something about those two devices prevented those two apps from working with each other, despite being installed. Google does weird stuff like that. For example, with the Pixel 5a, Geekbench and GFXBench don't show up in the Play Store.

Overall, the performance is satisfactory. I'd have loved to have seen the newer Snapdragon 778G chipset, but then the Pixel 5a would have outshined the already-nerfed Pixel 5.

Google Pixel 5 and Pixel 5a side by side

In fact, between the Pixel 5a, Pixel 5, and Pixel 4a, there really aren't a lot of differences, a stark difference from when the Pixel 3a came out. All three phones use a Snapdragon 765G processor and the same dual-lens camera. The Pixel 5 has a 90Hz display while the rest are 60Hz, and it has wireless charging while the rest don't.

But since the battery life is so good, like I said earlier, I really haven't missed wireless charging. When you take that away, it's just the 90Hz screen that's the main thing you're missing with the Pixel 5a, and suddenly, it's easy to give that up when the device is $250 less expensive.

If you read the first part of this review, you saw my thoughts mostly on the design and the display of the Google Pixel 5a. I lost the 'Mostly Black' color, which is actually green. The OLED display is nice, although obviously the omission of the 90Hz refresh rate is a bit disappointing, yet it's acceptable at this price point. That was day one, and now it's time to look at some of the things that actually take time with the device to figure out.

We're going to start with the camera, since this is really a day two thing. The fact is that there's really not a lot that's new with the Pixel 5a when compared with the Pixel 5, or even when compared with the Pixel 4a. There's a 12MP f/1.7 main sensor and a 16MP f/2.2 ultra-wide sensor on the back, so they're the same as you'd find on either of those handsets. There's still no telephoto lens, ever since Google backtracked from the Pixel 4, which notably had a telephoto lens and no ultra-wide sensor.

Let's take a look at some samples from the main, ultra-wide, and front-facing cameras.

Obviously, there are no surprises here. Google's camera lives up to its name, as always. There are a lot of tricky lighting situations that the Pixel 5a handles well, such as the bright lights that line the edge of Yankee Stadium, or taking pictures of the bright field from the dim indoor area. You'll notice that the lights are a little bit more blown out in the ultra-wide shots, but it's not particularly noticeable.

I also took a bunch of pictures at up to 7x zoom, which is the highest that it goes.

For the most part, the pictures didn't come out very good. It's a real shame when lossless zoom is becoming a trend across the industry. I realize that this is a mid-range smartphone, but I expected more from Google. It really made me think back to the Pixel 4 era, when Google talked up its lossless zoom using a combination of the telephoto lens and computational photography to get the best shot possible. That device only went up to 8x zoom, but even at max, it still did a pretty decent job. That doesn't seem to be the case anymore.

While I was there, I recorded some 4K 60fps video. You might have heard by now that when recording 4K 60fps video, the Pixel 5a gets hot and shuts off your video recording. I ran a test indoors in the air conditioning and it got to nine minutes and 32 seconds. That's not great.

But what you might not have heard is that it's even worse than that. In my day at Yankee Stadium, I was just shooting pictures and got hit with multiple overheating warnings. When taking pictures, it just tells you that it's going to turn the flash off, even if you're not using it. Naturally though, when the device gets hot, performance starts to degrade on the entire device. I started to try and take a picture, and there would be seconds between when I pressed the shutter button and when the device captured what it was looking at, if it did at all.

While I can wish for better lossless zoom, overheating is a more serious issue. Look at it this way. There are different levels of a product. One is base level stuff, like the basics that you need to make it what it is. The second is the features that you'd expect, and the third is extras. The camera would be in that second level, so it's something that has to work when you need it to work. If it doesn't work when you need it to, then all of the computational photography in the world won't save your picture.

Google Pixel 5a with grassy background

It's still worth noting that this is the same camera as the Pixel 5, except that it's missing the spectral and flicker sensor, which helps banding. That's a bit surprising, since that was on the Pixel 5 and Pixel 4a 5G. There are no surprises with this camera though. I do hope that Google can manage a firmware update that helps with overheating issues.

Google Pixel 5a Forums

The Pixel 5a (5G) is the successor to the Pixel 4a 5G from last year with some minor changes that make it a great mid-range offering.
Google Pixel 5a

The Pixel 5a with 5G is Google's latest mid-range Pixel phone, and it packs the biggest battery ever in a Google phone.

For the next part of this review, we'll be talking about performance and battery life.

After what seems like an eternity of rumors, the Google Pixel 5a is official. There really aren't any surprises here. It packs a Snapdragon 765G chipset, 6GB RAM, 128GB of storage, 12MP and 16MP cameras (f/1.7 + f/2.2 ultra-wide), and it comes with an 18W USB Type-C charger. Aside from a lack of wireless charging and a bit less RAM, it's pretty much like a larger Pixel 5.

Google Pixel 5 and Pixel 5a side by side

Indeed, that might be exactly what you're looking for though. Last year with the Pixel 5, Google caught some criticism for not offering an XL model, something it had never done before. And since it used the Snapdragon 765G in the Pixel 5, Pixel 4a 5G, and the Pixel 5a, this device is kind of the Pixel 5 XL you might have wanted. Again, with the exception of wireless charging.

While the lack of wireless charging is a disappointing compromise, as is the lack of a 90Hz refresh rate, it's worth remembering that this is a $449 smartphone. The smaller Pixel 5 retails for $699. The Pixel a-series is always all about value, and this device delivers.

Google Pixel 5 and Pixel 5a side by side

The color is called Mostly Black, which put simply, is not black. It's green, sort of like a forest green. I quite like it, and I'm really pleased to see Google deviate from the standard Just Black and Clearly White. The Sorta Sage color on the Pixel 5 was a hit, and let's face it. Regular black and white phones are boring.

Google Pixel 5 and Pixel 5a side by side

I'm not entirely sure why it's called Mostly Black when it's clearly a deep green, but it can look more black depending on the lighting. It's really a nice look. It's subtle but not boring.

On a side note, I really wish Google would drop the names that it seems to think are quirky and cute. Just call a black phone black, and call this device green.

Google Pixel 5 on top of Pixel 5a

The design is mostly the same that we saw on the Pixel 5. It's got the same camera housing, the fingerprint sensor, and the unibody design. It's still made out of metal, although you wouldn't know it by holding it. The power button and the Google logo are matte, rather than mirrored like we saw on the Pixel 5. It's the kind of changes that you'd expect from the Pixel 5a.

One other thing to note is that the battery is larger on the Pixel 5a at 4,680mAh, rather than 4,080. Combined with the lower refresh rate on the screen, that should lead to much better battery life.

Closeup of hole-punch camera on Pixel 5a

The screen still has a hole-punch cut-out for the 8MP f/2.0 front-facing camera. Indeed, if you just look at the front of the Pixel 5a and its higher-end predecessor, it's pretty easy to tell that they're related to each other. The same goes for if you look at the back.

Close up of headphone jack on Google Pixel 5a

The Google Pixel 5a once again has a headphone jack, something that continues to be pushed in the mid-range. Indeed. if you've got a flagship Pixel 5, the Mountain View firm expects that you'll invest in some Pixel Buds. Of course, to go along with the a-series, the company does offer the less expensive Pixel Buds A.

I still find it bothersome when a company puts the headphone jack on the opposite side from the charging port, although Google has always done this. To me, it just makes more sense to put all exposed areas on one side, minimizing the risk of damage. Take it from someone who used to work in a lot of pizzerias in his youth, coming home covered in flour.

Hand holding Mostly Black Google Pixel 5a

It probably goes without saying, but the Pixel 5a does come with 5G support, although only sub-6GHz bands. Most people wouldn't even notice if it had mmWave support anyway, except for how the device would cost more. Anything in this price range these days is going to come with 5G support though. Google did make a 4G version of the Pixel 4a, and I wouldn't expect that to happen again.

The first Pixel handset from the a-series was the Pixel 3a, and it came in regular and XL sizes. The selling point from Google was that it was an affordable phone that had flagship features. With features like Now Playing - when the device automatically displays what song is playing on the radio at any time - and the camera single-lens camera as the Pixel 3 proper, the company delivered on that promise. Then came the Pixel 4a and the Pixel 4a 5G.

With the Google Pixel 5a, the company continues to deliver on that promise of offering the Pixel features that we all know and love, but in a more affordable package. The main compromises to get there this time, instead of a lower-end chipset, are wireless charging, the display refresh rate, and including 6GB RAM instead of 8GB. It's pretty solid, and if you're spending $449 on a phone, the Pixel 5a seems like a good place to start.

Google Pixel 5a Forums

You can check it out on the Google Store here.

The Pixel 5a (5G) is the successor to the Pixel 4a 5G from last year with some minor changes that make it a great mid-range offering.
Google Pixel 5a

The Pixel 5a with 5G is Google's latest mid-range Pixel phone, and it packs the biggest battery ever in a Google phone.