Google Pixel 9a preview: the best candidate for your $500?
Pixel 9a Intro
Google's "a" series phones are quite exciting to wait for each year. They launch about halfway into the flagship Pixel phone lifecycle and they offer a pretty good package — a Pixel "a" will have the same processor as the most current Google flagship phone as well as, at the very least, a comparable main camera. All of that is packaged in a more economical build, so the phone is at a reduced, very competitive price.
Sounds kind of familiar, right? It almost feels like Apple wanted to capture the same form of magic with the iPhone 16e. If so, Google may be on to something. Well, it is, and the new Google Pixel 9a had the community guessing, speculating, and anxiously waiting for a full reveal. Which is now here! Google has finally announced the new midranger and most of it meets the expectations that were set by rumors and guesses. The good news is that includes the big battery!
The even better news is that there's no price hike. The Pixel 9a starts at $499, expect slight price drops during various sales events. It will be launching in early April, as per Google, but an exact date has not yet been revealed. The pre-orders are also yet to open.
Table of Contents:
Pixel 9a Specs
What matters, where it matters
Here's what you will be getting for your $499 for a Pixel 9a, and how it differs from the main line Pixel 9:
| Google Pixel 9a | Google Pixel 9 |
|---|---|
| Size and Weight 6.1 x 2.9 x 0.4 in (154.7 x 73.3 x 8.9 mm) 185.9 g | Size and Weight 6.02 x 2.83 x 0.33 in (152.8 x 72.0 x 8.5 mm) 198 g |
| Display 6.3-inch OLED (Actua) 60-120 Hz, 2,700 nits peak Gorilla Glass 3 | Display 6.3-inch OLED (Actua) 60-120 Hz, 2,700 nits peak Gorilla Glass Victus 2 |
| Processor Google Tensor G4, 4 nm | Processor Google Tensor G4, 4 nm |
| Software Android 15, 7 years of updates (2032) | Software Android 15, 7 years of updates (2031) |
| Cameras 48 MP wide, F1.7 13 MP ultra-wide, F2.2 Super Res Zoom up to 8x 13 MP selfie, F2.2 | Cameras 50 MP wide, F1.7 48 MP ultra-wide, F1.7 Super Res Zoom up to 8x 10.5 MP selfie, F2.2 |
| Battery Size 5,100 mAh | Battery Size 4,700 mAh |
| Charging Speeds 23 W wired 7.5 W wireless | Charging Speeds 27 W wired 15 W wireless |
| Prices 8 GB / 128 GB - $499 8 GB / 256 GB - $599 | Prices 12 GB / 128 GB - $799 12 GB / 256 GB - $899 |
Technically, the Pixel 9a is not more expensive at the entry level. However, the 256 GB tier used to cost $559 before, now it's a full $100 above the base price. That's more in line with how the other Pixel phones treat storage upgrades. So, if you always buy more storage, the Pixel 9a will be more expensive for you this time around, by $40.
Pixel 9a Design and Display
Metal frame, faux glass back
Just like in previous iterations of the "a" series, the Pixel 9a has a plastic composite back that will try really hard to convince you that it's glass with some clever etching. The frame itself is metal, and this is the combination we prefer in a budget phone that tries to "imitate" a more premium build. A metal frame will be cool to the touch and much more noticeable. the alternative is to have real glass on the back and a plastic frame — the latter is instantly warm and recognizable. And the real glass on the back is viewed as a negative by some, as it's more prone to shattering, of course.
Speaking of which, the front panel is covered by Gorilla Glass 3, instead of the latest-and-greatest Victus 2. When going to older generations of Gorilla Glass, manufacturers opt for 3. Opinions on the Gorilla Glass 3 are that it is slightly (emphasise slightly) more prone to scratches than its successors like Glass 4 or Glass 5, but has better shatter-resistance. No official data on the matter, so it could just be a budgeting choice.
The bezel around the 6.3-inch screen veers slightly towards the thick side. That's a crazy statement to make with these all-screen phones that we are getting nowadays, but just looking at side-by-sides with the Pixel 9, the 9a does have just a bit more of a frame, if that matters to you at all.
You will also notice that the camera bar on the back is now gone, instead there's just the dual-lens camera module plopped there in a horizontal pill shape. It kind of feels like the Pixel 9a has shed a bit of that signature Pixel look with that move, and it also means that the phone will wobble when placed flat on a table. We are mentioning this because Pixel fans do like how a full horizontal camera bar on the back made the phones lie stable when placed on a desk.
The Pixel 9a also gets an upgrade in the resistance department, now rated IP68, vs the IP67 rating of the Pixel 8a. Both ratings do promise dust-tightness and ingress protection, it's just that IP67 is for shallower bodies of water and for a very limited amount of time, whereas IP68 can stand for up to 3 meters depth, up to 30 minutes of immersion time.
The Google Pixel 9a will come in four colors, as its predecessor, those being Obsidian, Porcelain, Iris, and Peony. In normal speak, those are Black, White(ish), Blue, and Pink.
The 6.3-inch panel on the front seems to be the same one we get with the Pixel 9. It's rated to hit 2,700 nits peak brightness, it has the same 60-120 Hz dynamic refresh rate, and the Actua branding. Google's Actua branding means the screens were tuned to be able to hit high brightness levels without skewing the colors, which is a pretty hard thing to do. The real hitters are the Pixel 8 Pro and Pixel 9 Pro, which have Super Actua screens and that's where this tech is better observed, but it's also appreciated in the "base-level" Pixel phones.
The Pixel 9a will have an optical fingerprint scanner under the glass, no surprise there, but also face unlock with the selfie camera. A reminder here that ever since Google boosted the AI chops of the Pixel phones, its face unlock is considered incredibly secure — to the point where banking apps accept it as a biometric lock. So, it's not a simple 2D selfie picture unlocker.
Pixel 9a Camera
Promising value
Looking at the specs sheet, it's clear that the Pixel 9a will use different sensors for its cameras to the mainline Pixel 9. But they are also not a re-use of old materials — they are different to the Pixel 8a and Pixel 8. So, care and development was clearly invested in.
The specs themselves — the Pixel 9a will come with a 48 MP main camera under an F1.7 aperture lens. Google says it will support Super Res up to 8x, which is the same level the mainline Pixel 9 can hit. Nice, but we very notable did not spot a promise of a "2x optical-grade zoom", something that the Pixel 9 does do with sensor crop-in and post-processing trickery.
Then, there's a 13 MP sensor under an ultra-wide camera with F2.2 aperture and a 120-degree field of view (felt we needed to point that out, because older Pixels had less ultra- in their ultra-wide lenses). That is, of course, in contrast to the latest Pixel 9 series, which upgraded the ultra-wide cameras with a high-res 48 MP sensor, to keep in line with the rest of the industry that has been doing the same.
And, on the front, there's a 13 MP selfie camera. On paper, it sounds better than the 10.5 MP selfie snapper of a mainline Pixel 9, but it's not all about the megapixels. Sensor size, lens quality, and post-processing do matter.
Speaking of which, we have no doubt that the Pixel 9a will have an excellent image processing pipeline. It comes with the same Tensor G4 chips as the Pixel 9 series, and Google has made it a point to make the camera to be the standout feature of its budget "a" series. Still, expect a full analysis and our full camera benchmark score on the Pixel 9a when the phones actually start shipping!
Pixel 9a Performance & Benchmarks
It's not about the horsepower at Google
By this point, it's no secret that Google's Tensor chips are not extreme powerhouses. Putting them through benchmarks that are meant to strain their CPUs and GPUs show us as much, consistantly lagging behind the competition in raw power. However, Tensor chips are designed with custom NPU cores and image processing that Google has engineered for its own phones. That point where software and hardware go hand in hand is a valuable intersection that can alleviate the lack of horsepower for your real-life day-to-day use.
That is to say, Pixel phones do feel snappy and responsive, and very clearly tailored to do what Google wants them to do. Currently, that's being chock-full of exclusive Google Assistant features and AI apps and tricks. An enhanced Magic Editor in Photos that can generate or replace background, move and edit subjects in photos long after they are taken, generate images in the Pixel Studio, hold calls for you or take you through automated calls easier, and so on. A very specific type of user that is invested in Google's vision for a "smart" phone values those features, and it's pretty cool that they are all accessible via a $500 price of entry.
Having said all that, if you want to push this phone, edit and export videos on it, play the latest GPU-demanding games on it — you will see it stumble and cough more often than phones with more powerful chips. The competing iPhone 16e, for example, will do better here.
Pixel 9a Software
We already touched upon the software, but yes — the Pixel 9a will come with Android 15 with the full Google experience. Any Feature Drops and upgrades to AI will also apply to the "a" phones, though they may not arrive as quickly as on a Pro, for example. Google promised that will be going for 7 years after the Pixel 9a releases. We have a hard time imagining it getting all of the new feature that Google will come up over the span of the next 7 years. But it will surely be getting... some? In a timely manner, too, since you know — Google software and Google hardware.
Here's a refresher of the mainline AI features you get with Android 15:
- Gemini AI Assistant - much more conversational now with Gemini Live
- Circle to Search - tap to do an image search for anything you see on screen
- Magic Eraser & Magic Editor - erase, move, resize any object in a photo and have the background behind it regenerated
- Photomoji - create custom emoji from photos
- Magic Compose - rewrite, rephrase, change the tone of messages
- Theft Detection Lock - if the phone detects it's been pulled out of your hands, it auto-locks
- Expressive Captions - AI-upgraded live captions, where the transcribed text emphasises emotions and describes non-speech elements, too (laughter, fireworks, etc.)
- Enhanced Lookout App - uses Gemini Nano (on-device) to help visually-impaired users identify items
- Circle to Search for Music - basically a faster way to identify music, with a dedicated button for it in Circle to Search
These are in addition to older AI or Machine Learning features that have been around for a couple of years now:
- Direct My Call - tells you what number to press on automated support lines without having to wait
- Call Screen - picks up unknown calls and relays a message for you
- Hold for Me - holds on a support line and notifies when an operator has picked up
- Recorder with Transcription - transcribes meetings to text
- Live Translate - translates conversations in real time
- Adaptive Battery - adjusts and freezes app operations based on usage prediction
- Adaptive Brightness - learns your preferred brightness levels for various ambiances
- Now Playing - always shows you what music is playing around you on the lockscreen
Pixel 9a Battery
Slightly bigger? Yes, please!
The Pixel 9a battery is now 5,100 mAh, which is quite big for a 6.3-inch phone. For comparison, the Pixel 9 before it had a 4,700 mah cell, the Pixel 8a — 4,492 mAh. So, by all means, that's a pretty good upgrade.
In fact, Google is proud of it, saying its the biggest battery in an a-series Pixel to date and stated 30 hours of power time. Of course, we will have to run it through our gauntlet of battery tests to see how it compares to its contemporaries, but we are optimistic to say the least. The Tensor isn't a huge power draw and a 5,100 mAh cell could potentially hit a casual 2-day battery life.
Should you buy it?
By all means, the Pixel 9a seems like it will be another no-frills, core experience phone at a very reasonable price. The only thing that would keep me from recommending it hands-down is the fact that mainline Pixel 9 phones often drop in price by $200, bringing it down to a 9a price tag, but giving you just a little bit extra.
Of course, we reserve final judgement until all our tests are done. The camera performance needs to be examined and compared to the Pixel 9 series and other contemporary competitors. We'll see how it goes after that, but for now — the Pixel 9a looks like a solid pick for your $500.
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