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00:00Hey what's up, MKBHD here, and this is Google's new budget phone, the Pixel 6a.
00:09We knew this was coming, I've had my hands on this phone for a little over a week now,
00:13and I have my thoughts sort of summarized into one major thought, which is there's a lot
00:20of competition in this budget phone space now, and this phone isn't the obvious hands-down
00:26winner that it might have once been.
00:29But this year, more than ever, I think the primary reason for that comes down to the
00:33display.
00:34And I'll explain what I mean.
00:36So what we're getting with this Google budget phone is, and this may sound familiar, a new
00:40chip, the exact same one that's in the flagship models, the same software experience as the
00:45flagships, but just with some cheaper hardware surrounding it.
00:48You know, kind of like the iPhone SE, but Google's version.
00:52And so the price here is $449.
00:55It really looks just like any other of the Pixel 6 phones.
00:59I mean, that's the one thing I like about the whole lineup.
01:01They're unmistakably Pixel.
01:03You've got the two-tone colors.
01:04The camera bar across the middle is recognizable as a Pixel from a mile away.
01:09The only difference here is, well, it's a slightly new color.
01:12This one is a sage green.
01:14But also the camera bump isn't as tall.
01:17So it's a bit slimmer.
01:18It doesn't protrude out of the phone as much.
01:20So I don't really use the ledge as a grip as much anymore as I used to on the other
01:25Everything else though, on the outside, it's pretty much the same.
01:28It's got the aluminum rails, same power and volume buttons on the right side with a notch
01:32between them, the speakers and the slightly off-center USB-C port at the bottom.
01:38It's all back.
01:39On the inside though, this phone is IP67, not IP68.
01:43And there is no wireless charging.
01:45That to me was kind of a bummer.
01:47I know we're probably saving a couple of dollars here, but this phone still has a glass back.
01:51And I don't know, if you've used wireless charging before, then it's kind of worth noting
01:55that this one won't have it.
01:56And then also the Pixel 5a had a headphone jack.
02:00This Pixel 6a does not have a headphone jack.
02:02So again, if you use that, then that's another thing to note.
02:06But really around the front here is where the Pixel 6a actually most reflects its price.
02:11So we've got a 6.1 inch flat 1080p OLED display at 60 Hertz with a top center hole punch and
02:18an in-display fingerprint reader.
02:21Visually, it's an okay display.
02:23It's decently sharp with good color and it gets bright enough to support HDR and not
02:28totally suck outdoors.
02:29But also it has some pretty serious off-axis rainbowing and the auto brightness is a little
02:35finicky and the fingerprint reader is definitely slow.
02:40It's on the slow side, just like it was on the Pixel 6 and 6 Pro.
02:44Now this may be forgivable stuff in a budget phone.
02:47We've seen stuff like that around this price.
02:48But what really takes it a tier down for me is the 60 Hertz specifically because this
02:54one feels slow.
02:57Actually let me be more specific.
02:58So this is a 60 Hertz display.
03:00There's lots of other 60 Hertz displays in phones out there.
03:03Having a Tensor chip, which is a relatively high-end chip inside should mean that the
03:08phone still feels fast and it still opens apps pretty fast.
03:12And that's still mostly true here.
03:15But for whatever reason, the responsiveness and the actual smoothness of the display,
03:19this is not smooth.
03:21So I think this is absolutely going to be one of those things that you either feel and
03:25notice right away, or you just never notice.
03:29I think there's a lot of people who are going to be looking to get a Pixel 6a that are coming
03:32from an older phone, coming from a budget phone, coming from other 60 Hertz phones,
03:37and this will probably feel right in line.
03:39But even amongst the 60 Hertz phones, I feel like this is one of the choppiest ones.
03:45And now I've also recently come from a world of 120 Hertz and 165 Hertz flagship phones
03:51and gaming phones.
03:53And that's not the normal place a 6a buyer will come from.
03:56But the second you experience 120 Hertz on a phone, you are way more likely to notice
04:02the dropped frames in animations all the time, even at 60 Hertz.
04:06Really just scrolling around, pulling down the notification shade, opening and closing
04:10apps, normal stuff is just constantly slightly choppy.
04:14Now the funny thing is it's hard for me to show you this stuff on camera.
04:18This is a 30 FPS video, and these things are happening somewhere between 30 and 60 FPS.
04:24But yeah, this is one of those things where I bet if you get to see a 6a in a store or
04:29try it out, then you'll feel what I'm talking about.
04:32But it really is a feel thing.
04:33And this is purely coming from my decade of phone testing experience.
04:37This one feels choppy.
04:39Now depending on who you are, even all of this might be acceptable, knowing still that
04:44things are technically launching quickly and you're not lagging out and you're actually
04:48launching apps at a normal speed.
04:51But I'm combining all of this with my knowledge of what I've just seen happen with the last
04:56year of pixels, which is they haven't aged particularly gracefully.
05:01So I've seen what happened to the 6 and the 6 pro.
05:04And I worry about how this phone will age considering how it feels now.
05:08It's guaranteed three years of software updates.
05:10But what does this phone look like in three years?
05:14Now the good thing is everything else about the pixel here is exactly what you'd expect.
05:18The same software experience as the big brothers with material you, Google's widgets and dynamic
05:23colors and stock apps like the calculator and settings and camera, etc.
05:28Google's smartest features are all here like assistant, call screening is awesome, live
05:33translate and the sorcery that is basically instant speech to text everywhere in this
05:38phone.
05:39Thanks to the tensor chip.
05:40They're all so good.
05:41The haptics are also pretty good, which is great to see in a budget phone along with
05:45the stereo speakers here.
05:46Really the only variables that could have come up as a surprise potentially would be
05:50battery or cameras.
05:52So pixel 6A's battery is about 4,400 milliamp hours and it turned out to be fine.
05:57There were some concerns because, oh, it's a tensor chip, it's a higher end chip, uses
06:00more power, maybe in a smaller phone that's bad, but turns out 60 Hertz kind of balances
06:06that out.
06:07So I had pretty good battery life.
06:08I was just mildly annoyed by not having wireless charging.
06:11But then there's the cameras.
06:12So with the camera, unlike the previous pixels, this does not share the same cameras as the
06:18more expensive brothers, the 6 and the 6 Pro.
06:21Instead, it has a downgraded 12 megapixel camera setup for both the standard and the
06:25ultra wide, which might look disappointing on paper.
06:29But this is the old Sony IMX 363 sensor, which some of you nerds will already recognize
06:36is the same exact sensor that was in the pixel 5 and the same that was in the pixel 4 and
06:42the pixel 3 and the pixel 2.
06:45In other words, this is an older, smaller, lower resolution sensor.
06:49But it is also absolutely a tried and true great smartphone camera because of Google's
06:54computational photography chops.
06:56So I really appreciated that even with the lower number, you know, with the tensor chip
07:00processing things happening really fast, the shots that come out of this camera are crisp,
07:05contrasty and confident, just like they were with the older pixels.
07:09The colors are on point too, not too much over processing happening, and there is not
07:13too much fringing at the edges either with close up subjects and the dynamic range and
07:17how it handles highlights is a plus.
07:20I mean, it's easy to see why they stuck with this for so long.
07:23And the fact is, this is still easily a top two budget smartphone camera.
07:28Easy.
07:29It also has the ultra wide that the iPhone SE doesn't have.
07:33And it takes decent looking 4K videos up to 60 FPS.
07:36These cameras are like pizza.
07:38Sure, they're not super new and groundbreaking.
07:41There's nothing that would impress you about them on paper, but they get the job done in
07:46a design that you can dress up like a Ninja Turtle, if you get the right dbrand skins,
07:50you know, the ones linked in the description.
07:52The conversation around the Pixel 6a is probably the most interesting when you consider the
07:57competitors, just the other phones that you could get for $450 and there's some other
08:02really good ones.
08:03So to make it easy, I think you should get the Pixel 6a if you value the Google software
08:09experience, those features and or the camera way over everything else.
08:17But if that's not you, you could get a Samsung Galaxy A53 for a hundred bucks less.
08:22And that's going to have 120 Hertz display that has expandable storage, or you could
08:27get a nothing phone, which I just reviewed, which has all those quirky lights features
08:31on the back.
08:32But that's also got a much bigger, much, much smoother 120 Hertz display and all their features.
08:38You could even get an iPhone SE if you wanted to, which yes, is going to be a 60 Hertz single
08:44camera setup with a smaller battery, but that's also a flagship chipset.
08:49That's also wireless charging.
08:51And that's also, let's be real, it's an iPhone, which is enough of a feature for some people.
08:56And then there's some Nord phones and some Pocophones and some Moto G's all with their
08:59own merits.
09:00So yeah, Pixel 6a turns out is really all about the Google software experience and the
09:06camera for the price.
09:08That's where it excels.
09:09But yeah, if you're shopping around, keep your eyes open because there's a bunch of
09:12good stuff.
09:13And while good phones aren't getting cheap, cheap phones are still very much getting
09:19good.
09:20There you have it.
09:21That's been it.
09:22Thanks for watching.
09:23Catch you guys in the next one.
09:24Peace.