- Excellent cameras
- All-day battery life and then some
- Seven years of software updates
- Thick bezels
- Slow wireless charging
- AI is a mixed bag
Phones are expensive. That’s always been the case, but in recent years, it’s gotten kind of ridiculous. Not everyone wants to (or is able to) spend $1,500 or more on the new flagship. But in the same vein, opting for a mid-range phone often feels like a compromise, sacrificing performance, camera quality, and, more often than not, durability and longevity.
The Google Pixel 9a is the antidote to all those worries.
Google Pixel 9a 5G 128GB Plans
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#1
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Vodafone
$49 Small Plan
$55.63/mth
Min. cost $887.88
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#2
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Optus
$55 Optus Choice Plus Plan
$71.62/mth
Min. cost $903.88
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#3
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Telstra
$65 Basic Upfront Mobile Plan
$81.63/mth
Min. cost $913.88
Link not supplied
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Camera bar begone
It’s official: The camera bar is gone. A controversial decision to some, but I like it. It plays nicely with the ultra-minimalistic, almost iPhone-esque aesthetic Google seems to be going for. It also means the phone actually lies flat even without a case on it. What a concept!
Colour-wise, you can choose between the lovely lavender-hued Iris, the Barbie-pink Peony, and the standard-issue Porcelain and Obsidian. For the first time, the Pixel 9a has been given the same IP68 rating as the flagship lineup, meaning it should be able to withstand being dropped in slightly deeper water than the Pixel 8a, which was rated IP67.
Around the front, the 6.3-inch display is bright, responsive, and smooth with an adaptive refresh rate up to 120Hz and brightness up to 2,700 nits, the same as the Pixel 9. The only downside is the noticeably thicker bezels, however this is the only thing that points to the 9a’s mid-range price tag—the rest of the phone looks and feels surprisingly premium.
Back to the camera, and while it certainly looks different to the wide-spanning camera bar found on the rest of the 9 series (and, in fact, every series going back to the Pixel 6), it still performs just as good as we’ve come to expect from Pixels, and has even had a much-needed refresh since the Pixel 8a simply copy-pasted the 7a’s array.
On paper, the 9a’s 48MP Quad PD Dual Pixel main lens may sound like a downgrade from the Pixel 8a and Pixel 7a’s 64MP behemoth, but the new sensor is the same found on the Pixel 9 Pro Fold and boasts a larger aperture for better low-light photography, a slightly wider field of view, and enhanced autofocus thanks to optical and electronic image stabilisation. The 13MP ultrawide camera remains the same, as does the 13MP selfie camera.
As always, a lot of what makes Pixels such great phones for photography is the software, and the 9a’s Tensor G4 chip unlocks a few AI-powered features previously unseen in the A-series—namely, Macro Focus for crisp, detailed close-up shots, Astrophotography for capturing the night sky, and Add Me, which allows you to add yourself into group photos you weren’t present for (probably because you got stuck taking the photo again).
In practice, all of this essentially means you can rest assured that all of your photos will be fit for the ‘gram. Each shot I took, whether it was a sunset snap by the river or a portrait photo of the best girl in the world, Hazel, was consistently good, with true-to-life colours even in iffy lighting conditions.
Pixel 9a camera samples
Check out these camera samples taken on the Pixel 9a Pro. Click or tap on any photo to see a larger version.
A battery that won't quit
Google claims the Pixel 9a has “the best battery life of any Pixel available today”, rated at over 30 hours of standard use and up to 100 hours with Extreme Battery Saver enabled. Those are some big numbers to live up to, but it’s safe to say that Google was right—possibly, even, a little conservative with their estimates.
After a full day of checking emails, scrolling TikTok, playing Marvel Snap and Pokemon TCG Pocket (can you tell I like turn-based card games?), making phone calls, and taking photos, I still had about 20% remaining. On much lighter-use days, I was even able to swing two days without a juice.
When the battery finally does die, you’re looking at around an hour and a half to fully recharge with 23W wired charging. It’s a decent improvement on the Pixel 8a’s 18W speed, but still slower than the pricier members of the Pixel 9 lineup. Slower still is wireless charging, which is stuck at a measly 7.5W. But hey, at least it’s there, unlike Battery Share (Pixel’s wireless power-sharing feature), which is not.
The bigger battery is just one of the ways Google is attempting to improve the longevity of its Pixel devices. By far the most important step it’s taken is committing to seven years of security updates, feature drops and more, something the company has promised to all phones from Pixel 8 onwards.
The AI-generated elephant in the room
Everyone has their own opinions on generative AI. Some love it, some don’t want a bar of it. I tend to fall in the latter bucket, but as a journalist, I always keep an open mind and I’m always willing to try. And boy, does Google want you to try Gemini.
I admit it, AI is useful for image processing, particularly enhanced zoom, better night photography and the Pixel’s Add Me and Best Take features. Where it gets icky is when it tries to “reimagine” (Google’s words) the background of your photo or generate an image from scratch.
I used AI to “reimagine” my boring bathroom selfie as though I was taking a stroll at the beach. Apart from feeling like a complete lie, it’s also hard to ignore what the AI gets wrong. At first glance, it seems pretty legit, but when you zoom in on the background, things take a left turn. The surfer/bodyboarder looks like an amorphous cryptid, while the telegraph pole briefly turns transparent.
My next experiment was asking the AI to reimagine me at an amusement park and the results were… well, less convincing.
As for the Gemini chatbot, it’s… exactly what you think it is. Kind of like ChatGPT, but a little worse. It can integrate with your Google account, which is good for summarising emails and finding things like confirmation codes without having to sort through hundreds of messages, but beyond that, it’s nothing particularly special.
In the end, my real problem with Gemini is that it’s simply not very useful—at least, not yet.
Google Pixel 9a - Final Thoughts
After spending a week with the Pixel 9a, I honestly don’t know why anyone would opt for the Pixel 9 or even 9 Pro. Hell, or any other Android device, for that matter. The 9a offers some of the best value I’ve ever seen in a mid-range phone. It doesn’t feel like an afterthought or a “cheap” version of the real deal—it’s in a league of its own.
The few issues the Pixel 9a does have, like the thick bezels that betray its price point, slow wireless charging and iffy AI, won’t be deal-breakers for most, especially when weighing up its virtues. The cameras are exceptional, the performance is on par with pricier competitors, the display is lovely, and in the end, you’re left with a phone that punches well above its mid-range label.
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