Wow, thanks for sharing! It looks like a strong candidate to be the successor of my Pixel 4a. Small size and the presence of a headphone jack is a must for me, the 120Hz OLED screen is a very nice cherry on top.
Thanks! I'm still using an old iPhone SE (2016) as my daily driver, but sooner or later iOS support is going to drop and I'll have to find a decent upgrade path. Considering my size, headphone jack, and fingerprint reader preferences, I think the Pixel 4a is the only device that seems viable to me on the market today... hopefully I'll still be able to pick one up in a year or two and slap GrapheneOS on it.
Looks amazing, honestly. The big draw of the Pixel a-series for me was midrange phones with normal features, headphone jacks, and stock Android. I don't think that's an unreasonable ask.
I just gave up a few weeks ago and bought a pixel 6, but this phone might make me rethink that decision. It's smallish and has a 3,5mm jack? That's as close to my ideal phone as it's going to get in 2022!
The screen size/device size ratio looks great. Seems like it will be more durable. I thought it had a headphone jack but I guess not. Has 128gb of storage at the price point where the Pixel 2 only had 64gb (at the original price).
I agree. I'm going to be very sad when my Pixel 4a dies. Perfect size, plus the headphone jack, and flashable to the various ROMS if I need to. My ideal phone/messaging/audio device, and that's really all I want in a phone these days.
I upgraded to the 4a on Fi with the pre-order. The interesting part is that the tear-down doesn't go into the audio design, or perhaps I missed it. The pixel 4a is by far the loudest phone I've owned from the G1 on - I run calls with the volume turned most of the way down, most of the time, whether on speaker or not. I can't quite figure out how they generated that much volume from such a small enclosure, but it's a revelation for someone with hearing damage and mirrors the near-perfect execution of the rest of the hardware/software stack, like bluetooth, wifi, and the display. I can read smaller text on a smaller screen than I could with my previous pixels. The design team really deserves all the kudos they receive. I'm happy Google took the extra time to nail it.
I also picked up a 4a a couple of weeks ago, and really like it.
This replaced my Pixel (1) XL. Screen size is effectively the same while the overall size is much smaller. Better performance, keeps the 3.5mm audio, and cheap enough (even here in AU) to not engender much hand-wringing before or after purchase.
I don't drop my phones, or throw them into bags of sharp things - and always have a soft rubber case anyway - so screen scratches aren't my problem. Most of my calls are via a bluetooth headset. I don't care about 1 or 2mm delta on thickness. While Australia will embrace 5G in urban areas quickly, I spend most of my time 20km away from the nearest 3G antenna, so that feature's mostly irrelevant for me.
Using the Pixel 4a. Basically the perfect form factor and size. I'd upgrade every 2-3 years to a new version of the same phone with minor updates like the chipset etc.
Dreading the day I'll have to start searching for a replacement :(
I went through a similar process. I ended up getting a Pixel 5, they are still being sold new-in-box on Amazon. I really liked the size and weight of the 4a but wanted something that had 5G support. The 5 is actually smaller and lighter than both the 4a 5G and 5a 5G. Very thankful to the folks who run gsmarena.com, it's extremely helpful for this sort of thing.
Pixel 5 is everything Pixel 4 should've been, this is essentially a last year's phone with processor that's also as fast as last year's flagship processor. And none of it is bad in any way, $699 of asking price is appropriate.
What's sad is that Pixel phones even after 5 generations have had at least one tragic flaw which would be a deal breaker for many;
- Pixel 1 - Giant bezels
- Pixel 2 - OLED burn-in and color issues
- Pixel 3 - Gigantic notch
- Pixel 4 - Radar which still isn't proven to be useful, no ultrawide camera.
This is first time that Google made a flagship phone (3a and 4a are still midrange) that doesn't have any obvious flaws, so I hope it changes fate of Pixel line for good.
That phone is amazing. Headphone jack + Notification Led + great size + good photos + good battery + nice design. I used it until a few months ago. Unfortunately, it was getting somewhat sluggish for normal use.
I got the Google pixel 4a 5g and tbh couldn't be happier. Still, if the S7 was faster I would keep using it.
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