Pixel 9a: What Google Sacrificed to Keep Costs Down

The Google Pixel 9a was announced earlier this month. I wanted to wait until the dust settled before writing up an editorial about the phone, but my initial thoughts did not change much. The more I found out about the details of the device, the less I was impressed.

I’m of the opinion that Google did some cuts in order to keep the costs of the Pixel 9a down, some of these tradeoffs are...



questionable. Some of them are more difficult to swallow than others, though. I’ll go over the major ones, and will leave the two biggest offenders (in my mind) for last.

I’ll list five tradeoffs that stood out to me, after closely looking what exactly the phone offers. It is worth noting that, despite these, the Pixel 9a still does seem like a solid choice at its price tag. It may not be the best choice, but that’s up for you to decide.

While making trade-offs is kind of a requirement to meet that $499 price tag, I’m of the opinion not all of these had to be made, especially the last entry. Please also note that this editorial comes prior to our review. It’s based solely on what the phone offers on paper, what we can see it offers.

In any case, let’s get down to it.Thick-ish bezelsThis may trigger some of you, as thicker bezels are not really a big thing, especially when it comes to cheaper phones. I agree, completely.

However, the Pixel 9a’s really stood out to me when I laid my eyes on the device, very much so. Those bezels were the first thing that popped out, and I can’t unsee them since then. They are uniform, so that’s great, but they also seem to be quite thick, even though they’re not that thicker than the Pixel 9’s.

Granted, the Pixel 9 doesn’t have the thinnest bezels around, but these are obviously thicker. Compared to something like the Xiaomi 15, or some other phone with extremely thin bezels, these sure pop out. Those bezels do not affect your usage of the device, or anything of the sort.

They could have been thinner, sure. There are a number of other budget phones that have thinner bezels than that. Still, the bezels are the least notable offender on this list.

The RAM deficitThat brings me to the second item on the list: RAM. This is also a rather minor thing, and it is to be expected, though. The Google Pixel 9a comes with 8GB of RAM, which is the lowest level in the series.

It offers 8GB of RAM, compared to 12GB of RAM inside all other Pixel 9 series devices. The good news is that Google used LPDDR5X RAM here, just like in all the other Pixel 9 series phones. We’re glad to see that LPDDR5 RAM wasn’t used.

This should not affect the general performance that much, as the extra RAM is mostly for AI processes. So, it shouldn’t worry you all that much, in the general scheme of things. I’m still a bit irked that Google is using UFS 3.

1 flash storage, but the company did the same in other Pixel 9 series phones, so...

expecting UFS 4.0 or UFS 4.1 was unrealistic, in all honesty.

This is a budget phone after all.The slow charging saga continuesThe charging situation inside Pixel phones is frustrating in general, especially if you’re used to something a lot faster. Coming from phones that charge at 120W via a wire and 50W+ wirelessly, even cheaper phones, this is kind of embarrassing.

The Pixel 9a supports 23W wired and 15W wireless charging. Needless to say, it’ll take you quite some time to charge it, well over an hour and a half. The Pixel 9 takes about an hour and 25 minutes to charge, and it has slightly faster charging and a smaller battery, so.

.. there you go.

The wireless charging is also a rather noticeable pain point. Samsung, Apple, and Google kind of insist on slow charging in general. Apple, at the very least, upgraded its wireless charging to 25W via MagSafe.

Samsung and Google are still stuck at 15W when it comes to wireless charging, unfortunately. It is also worth noting that a charger is not included in the Pixel 9a’s retail box.Smaller camera sensorsThe Google Pixel 9a includes two cameras on the back.

On paper, they don’t even look that bad for a $499 phone, not at all. The thing is, Google opted to use a smaller camera sensor for the main camera compared to both the Pixel 9 and Pixel 8a. We’re not sure what lies behind this decision, but there you go.

It includes a 48-megapixel main camera with a 1/2.0-inch camera sensor.The Pixel 9 has a 50-megapixel main camera with a 1/1.

31-inch sensor, while the Pixel 8a includes a 64-megapixel camera with a 1/1.73-inch camera sensor. That doesn’t have to mean much, quite honestly, it’s possible the Pixel 9a will provide great pictures.

Still, it’s odd to see a smaller sensor being used here. That 13-megapixel ultrawide camera with a 1/3.1-inch camera sensor also doesn’t seem particularly impressive.

Reverting back to a questionable modemThat leads me to the last item on the list, the phone’s modem. Google opted to backtrack to the Samsung Exynos 5300 modem here. That’s the company has been using leading up to the Pixel 9 series, and there’s a reason why it’s important to note.

In fact, this seems to be the most important item on this list, at least in my eyes. Previous Pixel phones had various issues, ranging from overheating and connectivity issues to not-so-great battery life. Many of those issues have been attributed to this modem.

Why that modem, though? Well, the Pixel 9 series does not have such issues. Google upgraded those phones to the Exynos 5400 modem, and the boost in reliability when it comes to connectivity and battery life has been..

. well, major. We really do hope this modem won’t stand in the way of the Pixel 9a in some way.

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