For years now, smartphone makers have made the camera bump on devices bigger in order to chase camera improvements. Even if that kind of design makes cameras better, at times it creates usability issues. With the Pixel 10a, Google took a new approach of entirely removing the camera bump and making a flat phone that lies completely on surfaces.
While this is a delightful change in the world of big camera bumps, Google hasn’t otherwise made major design changes with its newest budget smartphone. The Pixel 9a looked mostly the same, with a very small camera bump.
I have the plain old black unit, but Google offers the phone in Lavender (a mix of bright blue and purple), Berry (coral), and Fog (a gray-green tone) colors.
The screen size of 6.3 inches is the same as last year’s device, but the display is now brighter at 3,000 nits. Google is using the Actua display series of screens that it used with the other Pixel 10 devices to make it more usable in bright conditions. The display is capable of reaching a 120Hz refresh rate, but the unit ships with it set to 60Hz, so you will need to manually change that through the phone’s settings.
Build and specification-wise, the Pixel 10a goes toe-to-toe with the Pixel 10, with a few differences. For instance, the Pixel 10 has Corning Gorilla Glass Victus 2 on the front and the back, while the cheaper 10a has a plastic back and Corning Gorilla Glass 7i protection on the front. The budget device also has a bigger battery of 5,100 mAh, as compared to 4,970 mAh on the base Pixel 10. The Pixel 10 Pro XL has a battery of 5,200 mAh.
There are only small differences between the Pixel 9a, the Pixel 10a, and the Pixel 10, most of them having to do with performance and compute power. The obvious hardware difference is that the budget phones use the Google Tensor G4 chip, as compared to the Tensor G5 in the Pixel 10. The Pixel 10 charges at 30W through USB-C, up from the 23W charging capacity of the Pixel 9a. Wireless charging is supported at 7.5W for the Pixel 9a, 10W for the Pixel 10a, and 15W (magnetic) for the Pixel 10.
The battery capacity and faster charging speed are helpful as the battery lasts easily throughout the day, including for regular apps, a few hours of video watching, and light gaming. Plus, the brighter display makes the device better for all-around experience in different lighting conditions. Yes, the 10a has chunkier bezels than its more costly cousins, but they don’t make too much of a difference in daily use. After all, you’re getting the device for a much lower price than a flagship.
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The Pixel 10a uses the Tensor G4 chip, which was also used in the Pixel 9a. That means there are no performance gains this year, which you might notice if you switch between a lot of apps. Because of the older chip and its 8GB RAM combo, the Pixel 10a can’t run the updated Gemini Nano AI model, which means it has fewer on-device AI features than the Pixel 10a series.
The feature list not available on the Pixel 10a includes notification summaries, the Pixel screenshot app, Magic Cue (a feature that offers contextual suggestions across apps like Gmail, Messages, and Maps), call notes, and on-device call translation.
The phone features a 48-megapixel main camera and a 13-megapixel wide-angle camera, which is the same as last year’s device. The main camera performs fine for most conditions, even in low light. But given the older and smaller sensor on the the wide-angle lens, it tends to lose some details, and it doesn’t have autofocus.
The Pixel 10a has a camera coach AI feature that can guide you in taking a shot of an object by helping frame it better in the viewfinder. There is also Auto Best Take, which merges photos to create the best composite from a bunch of shots — useful when photographing a group. The phone also has support for up to 8x super-res zoom, but the processing and quality aren’t as good as the Pixel 10, which offers up to 100x zoom through this feature.
Notably, some AI features might make it to the Pixel 10a through a Pixel Drop, Google’s periodic software updates that** often bring new capabilities to older models.
Google offers seven years of software updates with this device, which is crucial for receiving both operating system updates, along with feature drops and security updates. While this is not Pixel 10a exclusive, the phone has a quick share feature that now works with Apple’s AirDrop. This means I could simply transfer photos, just like I did for this story, to my MacBook within a few taps. Previously, I had to connect the Pixel 10a to my MacBook with a USB-C cable.
At $499, good battery life, a bright display, and faster charging are the main things going in favor of the Pixel 10a. For this price, the phone offers good value for money in a light and flat design. However, if you already have last year’s Pixel 9a, there is no reason to change. Also worth considering: the Nothing phone 4a Pro, also at $499, poses tough with better specifications, such as a bigger and brighter screen, a more capable Qualcomm processor, a dedicated telephoto lens, and faster charging speeds of 50W.