Google Pixel 3A XL

Pixel 3A XL is a classy phone for the high mid-range crowd who does not want to go for the premium Google Pixel 3 XL. Priced at Rs. 44,998, the phone couples camera and performance, making a significant effort to give a Pixel 3 XL experience at a lower price.

The Pixel 3A XL looks cool, but its real magic lies under the hood. With excellent performance and a significant battery, the phone will keep chugging for you and give you a reliable day’s worth of functions. However, the phone holds its spell in its camera, which is brilliant and can click amazing shots in both light and night times, resembling the superior camera of Pixel 3 XL.

Pixel 3A XL comes with a polycarbonate body, which does not hold that amazing original glass design of Pixel 3. On the front, it does not have the on-screen notch either. However, overall, the phone looks similar to the premium model of Pixel 3XL. It is comfortable to hold and is quite lightweight. You can launch Google Assistant or silence a call by squeezing the phone sides. You also have a stereo speaker too as well as the bottom audio speaker which is moved to the bottom edge of the handset.

The 3A XL comes with a 6-inch OLED screen which is of a lower resolution – 1080p. The lack of bezels makes it much more immersive than the Pixel 3a. However, it uses glass as the base of its OLED and not plastic, which adds a punch to the colours. It appears warmer, especially bright colours like yellow, red and orange. It is in contrast to Pixel 3 XL’s bluish tint. With the 3A XL, texts appear much better, and you can immerse yourself in the videos. Plus, there is no colour distortion or shift, which is something that the higher-end Pixel 3 XL is notorious about.

The Pixel 3A XL comes with a Snapdragon 670 processor which is optimized by Google. Hence, despite being a mid-range processor, the chipset does not fail to handle multitasking. You can run multiple apps on this handset and yet, it will not lag or enter into a slow-down mode. However, the processing of the photos is handled by the chipset, and hence, it takes a bit of extra time to process the images. While in gaming, there was no lag and PUBG can run very smoothly, you will still not get the superior ‘speed and smoothness’ that processors like Snapdragon 855 have.

Pixel 3A XL arrives with the same camera that was provided to the Pixel 3 – an excellent camera which was considered one of the best in the market. The images produced by this handset is crystal clear and vibrant, but you have to adjust the focus accurately to get the best shot. It is especially true for bokeh shots if you want the get the perfect blur as the edge detection is not accurate. The camera comes with Night Sight for low-light photos, and it helps in getting you a low-grain, low-noise, low-light shot. The phone also has a feature called Time-lapse video. You can set the frames in a way that it records are various time intervals. It is quite good and captures clear videos, but it appears muddy in comparison to iPhone XR’s quality.

Google has bumped up the battery of Pixel 3a XL and has gone for a massive 3700 mAh battery. With video playback on airplane mode, the battery was able to last for 17 hours and 14 minutes, which is much better than Pixel 3 XL’s 16 hours and 49 minutes. Pls, the battery was able to charge fast and get to full charge within one and a half hour. The battery of the phone is a great USP and a significant improvement over Pixel 3a.

The Pixel 3a XL is a significant improvement over all the 3a and challenges the Pixel 3 XL in certain aspects. Regarding design, it may not have the premium touch as the high-end counterpart, and neither does it fare well with its performance. However, the phone has certain aspects that stand out. It has a wonderful battery and a bezel-free display, which is a significant improvement over the dated-bezeled screen of Pixel 3a. Along with that, the camera remains a significant USP producing clear pictures in daylight and low-light – an attractive feature which made the premium Pixel 3 – a camera king. If you are a photographer who delves in multimedia experience, then Pixel 3a XL is the phone for you.