The Pixel 8a is still the phone I’ll recommend to friends – despite flaws

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Our Verdict

For the average phone buyer – the target market here – the Pixel 8a ticks most of the boxes and with longevity promised will make for a good value choice over its lifespan. Consider the Pixel 7a and 8 first though and, for tech nerds, there are more powerful rivals out there, often available for less.

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Google is back with another edition of its mid-range A-series smartphones and the Pixel 8a has been under the microscope for many reasons.

For starters, Google pushed the price up by £50 to £499 in the UK (though it says at $499 in the US) meaning it’s positioned closer to the flagship Pixel 8.

It’s one of the four reasons I said I might find it hard to recommend the Pixel 8a when it was announced, also citing the new colours, a storage issue and a lack of innovation in the charging department.

Are these still problems now I’ve been testing the Pixel 8a as my daily driver for a few weeks? Let’s find out.

Design & Build

The design language of the Pixel phones has stayed largely unchanged for a few years now and the 8a is no exception.

It’s a case of small tweaks here and there, with the most obvious being the more rounded corners of the phone and Google’s latest colourway choices. You still get that iconic camera bar across the back, which is a bit divisive, but I like it – even to stop the phone sliding off things.

And it will if you leave it to its own devices. It’s got a glossier finish than most phones which gives a premium feel but also makes it slippery. The official case helps (although I miss Google’s fabric ones of old), depending on what it comes into contact with.

Chris Martin / Foundry

The 8a is a relatively compact phone by modern standards and it’s been on a diet, now just 188g – 5.5g lighter than the Pixel 7a. Build quality is better than many rivals and though there’s a plastic rear cover (made from 76% recycled materials), its matt finish makes it one of the nicest plastic-backed phones I’ve tried.

The 100% recycled aluminium frame is strong but it’s curious that Google still puts Gorilla Glass 3 on the front when that version is over 10 years old now.

My review sample in Bay blue matches the Pixel 7 Pro and alongside the normal Obsidian black and Porcelain white options is Aloe green. I thought this looked horribly garish in stock images but in real life, it’s rather quite nice.

The phone is still IP67 waterproof making it fully dunkable.

Screen & Speakers

Overall, not much has changed about the screen on the Pixel 8a from its predecessor. It’s still a tiny bit smaller than the regular Pixel 8 at 6.1-inch, which these days is pretty compact.

You still get an OLED panel with an FHD+ resolution so that makes the pixel density marginally higher than the flagship, not that you can notice the difference.

One key upgrade is that Google has bumped the refresh rate up to 120Hz making it the first A-series phone to go beyond 90Hz (though the jump isn’t as big as 60- to 90Hz). It’s a welcome change for a smoother experience but there’s no LPTO tech here so the phone can only switch between 60- and 120Hz.

The feature (called Smooth Display) in the settings is switched off by default which feels slightly odd. Google is trying to save battery life, but it feels pointless having premium features like this and not using them.

Chris Martin / Foundry

Overall the screen is high quality once again with punchy colours, good viewing angles, excellent contrast and plenty of brightness. Google rates it at 1400 nits for HDR and 2000 nits peak. I measured it as 812 nits with autobrightness turned off which is impressive and I didn’t have any issues using it indoors or out.

I just wish the screen didn’t have quite such a chunky bezel around it. A 2024 phone bezel shouldn’t be this big, especially at this price. I did get used to it, but every now and then I look at the 8a and think ‘wow, this looks dated’.

Within the screen details is a built-in fingerprint scanner which you would expect, of course. It works well based on my extensive testing, though not flawless and there’s also face unlock if you prefer which also works very well. However, it’s less secure and so can’t be used for the likes of Google Pay.

On the audio side, the 8a has stereo speakers which punch out decent quality audio just like the 7a did. There’s no headphone jack as usual.

Specs & Performance

When it comes to smartphone components and performance you probably fall into one of two categories: you just want the phone to work smoothly and you don’t care how it happens, or you like to dive into the details in what I like to call smartphone Top Trumps.

If you’re in the former camp, then there’s nothing to worry about. During my multiple weeks with the Pixel 8a, the phone has run perfectly smoothly. One or two tiny hiccups were app related and therefore not inherent to the phone.

For those in the latter camp, the Pixel 8a isn’t the fastest or most exciting phone in the mid-range category.

Chris Martin / Foundry

Sure, it has the Tensor G3 chip found in the flagship models, even the Pixel 8 Pro. It’s a solid chip but compared to some rivals and factoring in the basic 8GB of RAM, you can find better elsewhere if you shop around.

Benchmarks show it’s behind some others in CPU and graphics tests so power users might want to consider going elsewhere. However, the target market for the Pixel 8a should have no problems and outpaces big-name competitors like the Samsung Galaxy A55.

Pixel 8a benchmarks

The main thing to point out to anyone is that there is now a 256GB storage capacity rather than just the standard 128GB. However, you can only get this in the Obsidian black colourway.

In terms of other specs, the Pixel 8a has all the things you’d expect from an almost flagship handset in 2024 including Wi-Fi 6E, NFC, GPS, Bluetooth 5.3 and 5G. It’s a dual-SIM phone, albeit with one nano-SIM slot and support for eSIM, rather than two physical cards.

Cameras

Camera tech hasn’t changed from the Pixel 7a, but that’s not inherently a bad thing. That phone got a reworked setup built from the ground up, featuring a higher resolution 64Mp main sensor.

The rear is completed with a 13Mp ultrawide as usual and while there’s no telephoto (to be expected), it’s refreshing to see Google not try and bump the number of cameras up with something like a 2Mp macro.

Chris Martin / Foundry

Photos from all three cameras are unsurprisingly excellent. The Pixel 8a is a great phone for point-and-shoot situations, with plenty of different modes to play around with if you wish. It doesn’t have any kind of Pro mode, though.

You should expect decent results from just about any phone this price in daylight, but Google pulls ahead of the pack when conditions get trickier. The main sensor being larger helps but it’s Google’s software which is simply more advanced.

Night Sight is still the best night mode I’ve used and gives you confidence to take shots once it gets dark, rather than leaving your phone in your pocket because you know there’s no point shooting.

You’ll want to stick to the main camera really, but the others are still above average in this respect.

The other advantage of having a Pixel phone is getting Google’s latest editing magic at your fingertips with the likes of Magic Editor, Magic Eraser, Photo Unblur and more. You can get these on other phones – even iPhone – via Google Photos but you’ll need a Premium Google One subscription to access some.

The Pixel 8a also has prowess when you switch to video recording. All three cameras can record up to 4K resolution (with 60fps on the main camera), though I was happy enough with the results at Full HD.

Battery Life & Charging

Sadly, there’s not much improvement or innovation when it comes to the battery side of things. Despite a slightly larger 4492mAh battery and upgrade to the Tensor G3 (with its improved power efficiency), there’s no significant improvement compared to the Pixel 7a.

It will last a day but unless you’re having a particularly light day where it’s mostly sat on a desk or in a pocket not doing much (like most of my workdays), it won’t go further.

Despite this, the 8a lasted an impressive 15 hours and two minutes in our usual PCMark battery test. Based on this test alone, it’d be one of the best battery life phones you can buy, though real-world usage doesn’t reflect that.

Chris Martin / Foundry

Despite affordable phones with 67-, 90- or even 100+W charging being readily available, this appears to be something Google is unwilling to upgrade. You still get basic 18W wired charging and there is, for better or worse, no adapter in the box.

Using a 30W Google charger, I saw the phone charge from dead to 41% in 30-minutes.

Wireless charging is slow at 7.5W but I can live with it since this feature is still rare on mid-range smartphones and paired with a charger like Google’s Pixel Stand 2 makes for a nice desktop or bedside setup.

Software & Apps

Being the maker of Android, the Pixel phones should offer the pinnacle when it comes to software and for many users that is the case.

Of course, some of it is subjective and although, for example, Xiaomi’s HyperOS (formerly MIUI) has grown on me a lot recently, it’s a relief to switch back to stock Android where things are a comparative oasis of calm, free of bloatware and distractions.

Chris Martin / Foundry

The Android 14 interface isn’t hugely different from the previous version so it’s AI features that are causing a buzz this year, of course. And Google has seemingly filled the Pixel 8a with AI tricks, even though a lot of them have been around for a while, such as Magic Eraser (remove objects from the background of any photo) and Live Translate (for real-time conversations in multiple languages).

My favourite new feature is Circle to Search where a long press on the navigation bar allows you to circle any part of the screen to search for whatever it is your highlighting. This could be some food you want a recipe for, a landmark you want to visit or some sneakers you want to buy.

There are plenty more features to discover and some are truly useful like Hold for Me where the phone sits in a phone queue for you and lets you know when you’re up next. There are also security features such as a free VPN as part of a Google One.

In a world where so many products, including phones, launch with half of the main features coming at a ‘later date’ the Pixel 8a bucks the trend with its ready to go AI portfolio and you know you will get updates first.

Chris Martin / Foundry

Speaking of which, one of the best things about buying a Pixel phone is the market-leading software support (which only Samsung flagships can match). You get a whopping seven years of both security and OS updates, so you’ll get all the way to Android 21 in theory.

Whether you want to keep a phone that long, or how well it will run that version in 2031 (or if Google does indeed keep that promise) is not easy to answer but it’s the best out the right now and gives you more flexibility than many rivals.

Price & Availability

The Pixel 8a comes in at £499/$499, meaning it’s the same price as its predecessor in the US but has received a £50 price hike in the UK.

This will get you 128GB of storage but you can now jump to 256GB for £559/$559 if you prefer – as long as you are happy with the Obsidian black colourway that is.

You can buy it from the official store (where you can get good trade-in prices) as well as the likes of Amazon/Amazon US. You can also see the best contract deals for the Pixel 8a in the UK below.

It puts it in competition with lots of great smartphones including the Samsung Galaxy A55, Nothing Phone (2a), Poco X6 Pro, OnePlus Nord 3 and more. Many of which are cheaper options.

Take a look at our best mid-range phones round-up for our top recommendations.

Should you buy the Google Pixel 8a?

Typically, the Pixel phones, particularly the A-series, are a no-brainer recommendation but I’m finding the 8a harder to get my head around.

In isolation, this is another decent phone from Google and I would be pretty happy on the whole to carry on using it as my main phone. It’s got a nice design, a lovely screen (bezel aside), smooth enough performance, above-average cameras, there’s wireless charging and Google’s top-notch software experience – including AI features available out of the box.

However, the phone is stuck in a slightly odd position this year – particularly with the price bump in the UK. It means that you should seriously consider splashing a little extra to get the flagship Pixel 8 now it’s discounted at plenty of retailers or last year’s Pixel 7a which will still be supported up to 2026 for OS updates and 2028 for security.

Then there are lots of great rivals from the likes of Samsung, Xiaomi and Motorola which have things like better raw performance, longer battery life and faster charging.

Note that it’s more of a no-brainer in the US where there is less competition in this price category.

Specs