The Google Pixel 7a is the direct successor to last year's Pixel 6a. As expected, the internet giant's mid-range smartphone has inherited both of its older siblings' SoC - a genuine high-end chipset. Aside from this, Google have improved on a whole lot more: The phone's OLED screen now has a higher refresh rate which will lead to a smoother picture, wireless charging capabilities - and the USB port has been given a makeover, too. This all means the phone isn't too far behind the Pixel 7 now.
The Pixel 7a can be had in a storage variant with 8 GB RAM and 128 GB internal storage, which has an MRSP of $499. This makes it exactly $50 more expensive than its predecessor.
The Google Pixel 7a borrows its design from its predecessor, the Pixel 6a - but it is now available in the colors Sea (light blue), Charcoal (black), Snow (white) and Coral. The latter is our test device's color. It has a decent display to surface area ratio of 81 per cent - its bezels, however, are definitely thicker than both of the more expensive models. Even so, the Pixel 7a is a comparatively compact smartphone.
The back of the Google smartphone is now made of a 3D thermally formed plastic, which looks and feels similar to glass. Only when you compare them closely do you notice this material being a little more dull. The front is protected by Corning Gorilla Glass 3 and the aluminum used in the case is 100 per cent recycled.
The phone's build is nice. If you try to twist it, it only creaks a little and there are no visible gaps on the device. Only the back of the case has a slightly bigger gab between the top of the camera module and the frame. The SIM card slot is almost seamlessly connected to the frame and the cover only differs slightly in color from the rest of the case.
The Pixel 7a's battery is firmly integrated into the case and cannot be switched out yourself. The smartphone is IP67 certified - meaning it is dust proof and protected against the occasional submersion in fresh water.
The spec sheet shows the Google Pixel 7a to have a USB 3.2 Gen. 2 connection, meaning it should support transfer rates of up to 10 GBit/s. In our copying test, however, we measured only 228.27 MB/s, which is about on the same level as slower USB 3.2 (Gen. 1) ports. In comparison: The ROG Phone 7 manages rates of almost 860 MB/s. Although OTG is supported, the phone neither supports NTFS nor exFAT for external storage media. Wired image output is just as difficult using this USB port.
Aside from this, the Pixel 7a continues to only features the bare necessities, including Bluetooth 5.3 and NFC.
The Google Pixel 7a comes with Android 13 installed and only with Google's own apps. Many features will already be well-known from the Pixel 7. Safety patches will be rolled out on a monthly basis for five years in total. Furthermore, the Pixel 7a will receive three big system updates, meaning it will still see Android 16.
The Google Pixel 7a supports a wide range of mobile frequency bands as well as all the usual standards, including 5G Sub6. In bigger cities, its reception should be fine.
Thanks to its Wi-Fi 6E support, the phone can make use of 2.4, 5.0 and 6.0 GHz WLAN connections. Especially it supporting the comparatively young 6 GHz network is something which is not found in many phones within this price range - usually, only high-end smartphones can do this. However, the Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro still have an advantage over the 7a, as they operate almost twice as fast in this frequency area.
The Pixel 7a may only support Single Band GNSS, however, it supports all the well-known satellite networks: GPS, Glonass, Galileo, BeiDou and QZSS. Satellite locating is even quite fast inside buildings and the Google phone retains a great signal outside despite its technical limitation.
We compared the Pixel 7a with a Garmin Venu 2 during a bike trip. Surprisingly, the smartphone showed a few weaknesses when it came to tracing our journey and was oftentimes a bit off-course. At the end of the day, this should still prove to be sufficient for everyday navigating.
The Google Pixel 7a supports basic features such as VoLTE and WLAN calls - additionally, it supports a feature called "Clear Calling" which supposedly filters out background noises reliably even in loud surroundings.
The Pixel 7a does, in fact, deliver good call quality in practice and it manages to filter out quite a few background noises - even in busy streets. The phone's loudspeaker mode does sound quite good, but its microphone doesn't have the widest reach.
The smartphone has space for one Nano SIM and you can additionally (or alternatively) set up an eSIM.
The Pixel 7a's front-facing camera has been upgraded to 13 MPix - however, with an aperture of f/2.2, it is nominally less light-sensitive than the Pixel 6a. You can record video in Full HD at 60 FPS or Ultra HD at 30 FPS using this lens. Selfies look good thanks to the camera's even lighting and Portrait Mode delivers nice bokeh levels which identify subject and background clearly.
The 64-MPix main camera - featuring optical image stabilization (OIS) - takes great photos too. Unfortunately, they have a slightly different color tint than the Pixel 7 Pro - but in low-light conditions, the difference remains surprisingly small. The phone only features a digital zoom which is capable of 8x enlarging, but unfortunately, the quality starts to deteriorate from the 2x-zoom mark. Its ultra-wide angle lens is also lacking a little: The image edges tend to be a little blurry, and distortions and grain become quite visible.
Using the main camera, videos can be recorded in Ultra HD at up to 60 FPS and in practice, they looked quite good. Although, you can only choose between 30 and 60 FPS - 24 FPS isn't even an option.
In controlled lighting conditions, the 7a has quite a natural color depiction - none of its DeltaE values reached 10.
Our test chart was depicted nicely - only the corners were a little blurry. The only disappointing thing is that Google don't even make the 64-MPix mode accessible for users - instead, every photo uses pixel binning technology to achieve a total of 16.1 MPix. The same can even be said for optional RAW data.
In the US, people who purchase the Pixel 7a are entitled to a standard one-year warranty, which cannot be extended. Its scope of delivery remains to be quite slimmed-down. This only includes a USB-C cable, an OTG adapter as well as a SIM tool.
Optional accessories for the 7a include a range of plastic cases in varying colors, a leather case, a transparent case, a matching 30-watt power supply and the Pixel Stand 2.
The Google Pixel 7a has nice and smooth captive touchscreen protected by Corning Gorilla Glas 3. Inputs are registered quickly and precisely at all times.
Biometric security is taken care of by an optical fingerprint sensor situated within the screen which works reliably and unlocks the phone in no time. Now, you can also switch to using facial recognition through the phone's camera, however, this option is a little less secure.
The device also masters well-known features such as Now Playing, one-handed mode and a limited always-on display, which can give you information on the time and date as well as the weather. The fingerprint sensor's positioning can also be accentuated using AoD, but this uses up more power.
Its linear vibration motor (z-axis) gives solid and precise feedback.
The Pixel 7a's display is 6.1 inches in size and has a resolution of 2,400 x 1,080 pixels. Finally, Google have given their mid-range device a higher refresh rate: 90 Hz. Although, this first hast to be activated within the device's settings (Smooth Display). The phone also supports the HDR standards HLG, HDR10 and HDR10+.
In terms of screen brightness, the 7a even managed to overtake the Pixel 7 (947 cd/m²) - with activated ambient light sensor, the phone achieved an average of 1,010 cd/m² when depicting a pure white screen. With an even distribution of light and dark areas (APL18), the phone achieved values of up to 1,383 cd/m². If you would rather set the brightness manually, then you have access to 486 cd/m².
OLED flickering is quite noticeable on the Pixel 7a - at minimum brightness levels, the phone fluctuates between a restless 177 and 364 Hz, meaning photosensitive users may well have some issues using the phone.
The phone's color depiction and white balance are best tuned using the setting "Natural" and show no reason for critique - the colors show no notable outliers. Using the "Adaptive" mode, the white balance remains similar, but the colors are a little more saturated.
Outdoors, the Pixel 7a delivers good readability - even in sunlight. Only its glossy surface can occasionally be a bit annoying.
The ambient light sensor works very reliably and adjusts the brightness quickly.
The OLED panel's viewing angle stability is very good - as expected. Reflections become most annoying at very flat viewing angles. Contents are then depicted marginally cooler and the brightness decreases slightly.
The ARM Mali-G710 MP7 delivers good graphics acceleration and leaves its mid-range competitors in the dust. Only the iPhone 14 and iPhone SE's A15-GPU is a little faster.
Browsing the web proves to be very fast using the preinstalled Chrome browser. The Pixel 7a also outperformed all Android rivals in our benchmarks.
The Pixel 7a utilizes quick UFS 3.1 storage, which is considerably faster than the one in the Pixel 7. Of the devices we compared, only the Motorola Edge 40 delivered better speeds.
You are unable to expand the phone's storage using a microSD card.
At this stage, we are unfortunately unable to show the usual FPS recordings which we usually do, as every time we tried to do this, the Pixel 7a heated up considerably and crashed.
Even so, we still want to try to describe our impressions. Casual gaming shows to be no problem for the Google smartphone, whereas more complex games such as PUBG or Genshin Impact don't run as easily. While the shooter PUBG was only a little jerky using the highest graphics setting (Ultra HD), the phone struggled a lot more with Genshin Impact. We would suggest limiting the frame rate to 30 FPS, as the game will start to lag during fights if you don't.
Aside from this, the Pixel 7a does a good job at running games in landscape mode - but sometimes, your hand covers the ambient light sensor and the screen suddenly becomes very dark.
In idle mode, the Google Pixel 7a's surface temperatures remained inconspicuous, but under load, they started to rise quite a bit. Although, it must be noted that we have started to switch to using the intensive Burnout benchmark to simulate high loads, meaning these values can only partly be compared. But still, these temperatures can even be reached in everyday use. This is quite warm, but nothing too out of the ordinary.
One thing became apparent during the 3DMark stress test, which we already began to see during the benchmarks: The Pixel 7a's SoC suffers from poor heat dissipation, meaning its long-term performance was considerably worse than more expensive models.
The two speakers on the Google Pixel 7a sound quite decent. Of course, bass and precise trebles are lacking, but the performance we observed is good for a smartphone.
Wired headphones can be connected via the USB-C port. Bluetooth 5.3 is available wirelessly, which features some positive surprises in terms of audio codec support. Besides the common codecs SBC, AAC, aptX, aptX HD and LDAC, LC3 and Opus are also supported.
The Google Pixel 7a's power consumption was already very low with 90 Hz activated. It only became higher under load - presumably due to the more power-intensive Burnout benchmark.
The Pixel 7a supports fast charging at up to 18 watts, although "fast" is relative, as the Google smartphone needed over two hours for a full charge in our test. The 25 per cent mark was cracked after 20 minutes, the 50 per cent mark after 49 minutes, the 80 per cent mark after 84 minutes and the 90 per cent mark after 94 minutes.
A new feature is that the Pixel 7a now also supports wireless charging.
At 4,385 mAh, the phone's battery is slightly smaller than that of the Pixel 6a, but its runtimes were better in our practical WLAN test with adjusted display brightness (150 cd/m²). Unfortunately, the same can't be said for the other tests. Google will certainly improve on this at some point, as our power consumption measurements showed that there is still a lot of unused potential.
However, the Pixel 7a already delivered very good results in its current state.
The Pixel 7a's competitors have a lot to live up to, as the Google smartphone has done a lot right. It features a bright OLED screen with accurate color reproduction - and it finally has a 90-Hz refresh rate. The phone's main camera takes great pictures and its battery runtimes are great too - although they do leave a little room for further improvement. Its features are completed by an IP67 certification, wireless charging and long update supply.
The Google Pixel 7a is a strong mid-range smartphone, making competition out of both its friends and foes within higher price ranges.
But even the Pixel 7a cannot escape criticism entirely: On its spec sheet, Google have named the phone's USB port as being 3.2 Gen. 2, however, it is missing a wired image output option and its transfer rates lie more within the range of a slower USB 3.2 (Gen. 1) connection. Furthermore, its OLED flickering is quite noticeable and the phone doesn't utilize any dimming technology to mitigate this. If you were looking forward to the Pixel 7a's fast SoC, you do have to take into consideration a slight limitation due to the phone's weak cooling performance. Its locating properties leave room for improvement, too.
At launch, the Pixel 7 proves to be a good alternative - the Xiaomi 13 Lite and Galaxy A54 both have some advantages which the Pixel 7a is lacking in.
The Google Pixel 7a can be bought directly from the Google Store for $499. Be careful using their trade-in option, as the prices they offer for old devices are sometimes very low. We would recommend comparing prices online first.
Alternatively, the device can be found on Amazon for $489.33
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June 18, 2023 at 11:47PM
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