I would not waste my money on Pixel 3a
Google has announced new Pixel phones, the Pixel 3A and Pixel 3A XL at Google IO 2019. In India, Pixel 3A is priced at Rs.39,999/- and the XL will cost 5k more. Are they truly value for money? I do not think so and I do not think that one should pay 40k bucks for these phones. Read on to know why!
Pixel’s hardware
comes with lot of bugs. Right from the first pixel phone, Google Pixel devices had some or other hardware issues. Pixel 3 series had a lot of hardware bugs (call quality, camera bugs, display issues, camera failing to save photos, memory management issues, battery life). With so many issues and nothing other than camera to root for this phone, Google decided to go the Nexus way this year. Affordable phone with lower specs. Given the number of issues that plagues all Pixel phones, I would rather go with phones from ‘set’ OEMs than Google. Phones like Poco F1, Oneplus 6T, Note 8 are good options and they are all pretty solid phones.
Not really ‘affordable’
OnePlus 6T is available for 32k and comes with vastly superior battery life, display, build, super fast charging, blazing fast processor, graphics, twice the amount of RAM and storage, newer under display fingerprint reader. OnePlus is also aggressive on OS updates.
Poco F1 costs full 20k less and is better than Pixel 3A in every area except camera. Same is the case with many other phones that are priced under 40k in India. Phones like Vivo V15 Pro come with next generation display and are powerful too.
The only advantage that Pixel 3A has is the camera. I have a simple logic when it comes to buying smartphones. You should get a phone that excels that you use most. In a year, you would use a phone’s camera for maximum of 24 hours (if you add up all those clicks) but throughout the year, you will use display, battery etc. And Pixel phones are average at best in these areas.
Those bezels are
Ugly! If you think Pixel 3 had fat bezels, take a look at 3A. You cannot ask users to pay 40k for a phone that has big fat ugly bezels. Even a phone that costs 7k rupees comes with edge to edge display. Also, the phone has Dragontrail glass protection instead of Gorilla Glass.
That polycarbonate body is
Ordinary at best. The poco F1, for 20k too has a polycarbonate body and it looks better. But Poco F1 costs 20k and Pixel 3A costs 40k. Most other phones look lot more better. Few phones from Vivo, Oppo, Samsung make the 3A look ancient.
That processor
should not be on a 40k rupee phone. Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 670 is a pure higher midrange chip for phones between 15k-30k. Qualcomm 8 series chips are the best, followed by 7 series and then comes the 6 series. Google should’ve gone with 845 atleast. But no, they went with a chip that would soon find its way to sub-25k phones in India.
Pure Android is only for
Google fans. Variants of Android like Samsung’s OneUI, MIUI, OnePlus OxygenOS come with features that are very helpful for day to day use. Pixel’s pure Android OS is meant only for those who like Android in its purest form. Back in early 2010s when overlay UIs used go be buggy and slow, pure Android was better. But now, these overlay UIs have improved so much that there is no point in having pure Android on your phone.
