Design and Build

The Google Pixel 3a is a lower-cost smartphone model with a polycarbonate unibody featuring an 8.2mm thickness and 147g weight. Three color options, Just Black, Clearly White, and Purple-ish, make it the 5.6-inch display device of your choice. It does not seem to have water or dust resistance but you can use it with a rear fingerprint sensor. A compact and very light design is greatly liked by the buyers despite it not being as beautiful as the Pixel 3.

• Polycarbonate chassis, 8.2mm thick
• 147g weight
• No water/dust resistance
• Rear fingerprint sensor

Display

The Pixel 3a has a 5.6-inch OLED display and it comes with a resolution of 2220 x 1080 at 441 PPI and brightness of ~400 nits. It is an equipment with Dragontrail Glass which so far has not seen any other protective glass in the phone market. It has a refresh rate of 60Hz. For video and image coloring tasks, the users are deeply excited about this. It would be nice to see the size of the display going up, but perhaps for the 4a model and with more advanced technical features, such as the ones that the Pixel 3 has.

• OLED, 2220 x 1080, 441 PPI
• ~400 nits brightness
• 60Hz refresh rate
• Dragontrail Glass

Performance and Software

Incorporated with the Snapdragon 670 (octa-core, 2.0GHz, 10nm) processor, the Pixel 3a has a 4GB RAM and storage that cannot be expanded. Android 9 Pie is the OS the phone runs on and, fortunately, updates leading to the latest Android 12 are possible. It is business as usual, as the Google Assistant feature and timely updates make the stock Android experience all the more smoother and give the user a fair chance of being able to make use of all the features. The functions of this device are limited to daily tasks whereas the Pixel 3 proved more capable. The benchmark scores vary from the ~300 (Geekbench 5 Single-Core) to the ~1200 (Multi-Core).

• Snapdragon 670, octa-core
• 4GB RAM
• Android 9 (up to Android 12)
• Google Assistant

Pricing and Availability

The Pixel 3a was available with a launch price of $399 (4GB/64GB) that was announced in May 2019 through Google’s online store, forging partnerships with carriers, and going out to retailers. After a long time of serving the users, the phone has reached its end of life and the production was stopped in July 2020. Today is the day for it to be picked up, doesn’t break the bank and is sure not to compromise on both the camera and a secure chip. An indication that the smartphone market might have been stretched too hard in terms of price so as to include different devices tailored for different segments of buyers.