At this year’s I/O, Google announced its newest Pixel smartphones, with a focus on bringing the premium experience to more users at affordable price points.
Pixel 3a (Photo: GSMArena)
Both phones are primarily made of plastic, and use Dragon Trail glass to protect the displays as opposed to Gorilla Glass. This is most likely to keep the prices down. Well, the good thing is they’ve decided to put a headphone jack, if that even matters to you. There’s also Active Edge, which allows you to activate the Google Assistant just by squeezing the sides of the phone.
The Pixel 3A and Pixel 3A XL sport 5.6-inch and 6-inch OLED displays respectively, both with FHD+ resolution. Both also run on a Qualcomm Snapdragon 670 octa-core CPU backed by 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage. As always, you don’t get a microSD card slot. The smaller variant packs a 3,000mAh battery, while the bigger one has a slightly larger 3,700mAh power pack. Both are capable of 18W fast charging.
Camera-wise, the Pixel 3A shares the same setup with the more expensive Pixel 3. It boasts a 12.2MP Sony IMX363 sensor at the back, augmented with OIS, while the front camera also has an 8MP sensor. You also get other goodies such as Night Sight, Top Shot, HDR+, and Super Res Zoom, which uses AI to ensure that you get detailed photos even when up close.
The Google Pixel 3a is priced at $399 (around PhP21,000), while the Pixel 3a XL retails for $479 (around PhP25,000).
Emman has been writing technical and feature articles since 2010. Prior to this, he became one of the instructors at Asia Pacific College in 2008, and eventually landed a job as Business Analyst and Technical Writer at Integrated Open Source Solutions for almost 3 years.
