Introduction

Ease of Use

Front of the Google Pixel 4a

As always, our main concern regarding a smartphone is its camera, but we'll take you on a quick tour of the Google Pixel 4a phone unit itself first.

First up, the display. It's a 19.5:9 aspect ratio screen measuring 5.8in on the diagonal, with a 2340x1080 pixel resolution and 100,000:1 contrast ratio. Google says the screen has a 24-bit depth for 16-million-colours and is covered with Corning Gorilla Glass 3, so it should withstand some knocks.

It's not the fancier Corning Gorilla Glass 6 like in the Pixel 5, nor is this a water-resistant phone, plus the body is a polycarbonate unibody - that's fancy wording for plastic. If you demand better materials and water resistance from a Pixel phone, you'll need to splash out on that flagship model.

We have used the Google Pixel 4a in the sun and rain. Yet knowing it's not water-resistant does impact your degree of caution - we've been on the tentative side, aiming to protect the Pixel 4a wherever possible. Still, being out in a fine drizzle has been fine.

For sure, there are better screens out there spec-wise, but it's a lovely display none-the-less. Brightness levels adapt to the ambient light, so you'll get a brighter display when out in the sun. Even in those conditions, you get a reasonably clear view.

Overall, we haven't really experienced any issues with viewing the display, even though it doesn't have the same contrast-ratio as more expensive phones.

The size of the Google Pixel 4a strikes a healthy balance. It's large enough to be viewed easily, but not so big as to render a device ungainly to hold or put away in a pocket. The device is actually smaller than its predecessor while boasting a larger screen with less edging.

You're probably not going to be watching too many movies on the Pixel 4a or doing much gaming. However, for image-making, the moderate size enables single-handed operation. You'll just need both hands when switching between portrait and landscape format in order to position your hand properly for the shutter release, which is either on screen or the volume up key.

Rear of the Google Pixel 4a

That 'Just Black' exterior has an understated matt finish. It is slippy and we would strongly recommend a protective case, not least of which for a more secure grip. There are already plenty of good cases available for the 4a across a variety of budgets including the lower end - surely a main concern for those buying this smartphone.

A fingerprint scanner features on the Google Pixel 4a's rear - we like how it also has the matt black finish and it's positioned sensibly for an index finger unlock.

Battery life is on the slightly modest side for a £350 phone - there are better alternatives. Still, the Pixel 4a has a solid 3,140mAh capacity battery that is better than the Pixel 3a, plus the iPhone SE 2020 for that matter.

Certainly in the early days, the battery lasts a full day of moderate use. We can see battery life becoming an issue once the phone has aged a couple of years.

Like most decent smartphones today, there's a quick charge option via the supplied 18W charger and USB-C port. From some basic tests we have found it's not the best-in-class. A 30 minute charge time will top-up the battery by about 40%.

Wireless charging is absent. We know for some this is a really handy feature and it can even future-proof the camera in the years to come should the USB-C port or charger cable become damaged. But, alas, there is no wireless charging here.

The estimated time that the battery will run out can be displayed in the notification bar. That's a much more useful metric than the usual percentage remaining (although you can see that info, too).

As for power under the hood, Google has never tried to out-muscle the competition. Here you have the Qualcomm Snapdragon 730G processor and 6GB of RAM, whereas you'll get more like 8GB of RAM and a more powerful processor elsewhere at this price point. However, this is an improvement from the Pixel 3a and the Pixel 4a is anything but slow.

Camera Mode

You're unlikely to encounter any performance issues with the Google Pixel 4a for general use and image-making. The only minor lag we experienced was the image processing immediately after capture. For example, if an effect is being applied such as a blur in Portrait mode, it will take a couple of seconds to see it in playback.

As with any Pixel phone, the Pixel 4a is guaranteed with three years of operating system and security updates. Currently on Android 11, you're guaranteed up to Android 13 which essentially future proofs the camera years beyond those three too.

Storage is built-in only, with no option for inserting an additional memory card. As standard, the Pixel 4a provides a decent 128GB of storage - that's double the previous generation model. However, about 20GB is already used up from the offset.

It's straightforward to link up the Pixel 4a to a Google Photos account and use Google's online storage to back up photos and videos, and to offload full size images from the phone to free up space as and when that is needed.

While there is no memory card slot, there is a headphone jack, so you can use wired headphones. Read around and there's a growing re-appreciation for the headphone jack.

Other controls include the on-off button - its pale blue in colour, standing out from the otherwise entirely matt-black finish. You've also got the volume control key, which as mentioned before doubles up as a camera shutter button.

Special mention has to go to the stereo speakers that omit a healthy volume, being positioned on the phone's underside and top.

When it comes to a smartphone's camera, there's much clambering to the spec-sheet-summit. Even at this Pixel 4a price point you can get a triple-lens/ high resolution rear camera with depth sensor.

Camera Settings

Not with Google. The company stays true to its different approach, with a 'simple' single 12.2MP dual-pixel rear camera with f/1.7 lens, offering a 84° field of view. A side note - design is curious with the single lens being housed in a raised camera block that looks like it could contain three lenses.

That 24mm effective focal length cannot go any wider - it's a single lens. It also lacks a macro photography mode, though you can still get very close to subjects given the small sensor format. While the lens is fixed, it does offer a digital zoom, up to 7x.

The 8MP front-facing 'selfie' camera with fixed focus f/2.0 lens and 84° field of view is built within the screen display. Again the camera spec is modest and videos are restricted to Full HD at 30fps.

Does not being strong on paper mean that the Pixel 4a images pale in comparison? Far from it. The magic happens in Google's intelligent software processing. There's less to navigate in the camera app, less controls to take manual control of. This is a simple camera but with very effective results. You pick the desired shooting mode and the camera takes care of the rest.

As standard, full-size pictures are 4:3 aspect ratio, although you can shoot in 16:9. At full-size, there is a reasonable bookend on the display outside the image area where app controls are displayed.

By default you have a choice between the regular camera, the portrait camera, Night Sight, Video and the 'More option where you find Panorama, Photo Sphere, Slow Motion, Time Lapse and Google's 'Lens' .

Within each option you can tap the down arrow at the top of the display to reveal a basic degree of customisation.

The regular camera offers the most customisation, where you can select the flash on or off, add RAW image capture alongside JPEG, activate 'Motion' (that capture a short video around the photo capture to increase your chances of capturing the best moment), Self Timer and lastly aspect ratio.

Camera Module

There is also a sub menu with options that are applied to any shooting mode, such as Save Location, Grid display and Framing Hints. Here it is also possible to switch to a Medium resolution for the camera, but the file sizes are already modest so it doesn't really seem worth it.

The portrait mode crops in tighter to your subject than the standard camera setting and produces a background blur effect. There is no depth sensor though, so the results are obtained purely using AI. Given this fact, the final images look pretty darn good, but we'll comment more on that in the image quality section.

Video wise, you get 4K up to 30fps or Full HD up to 60fps. The slow motion is a 1/4x speed in Full HD (120fps) or 1/8x speed in 720p (240fps).

Stabilisation is both optical and electronic. Video stabilisation (electronic) can be turned on/ off in the sub menu. We've found the stabilisation to be very effective indeed - running alongside a biker getting an action video and the end results were totally viewable.

With dual-pixel phase detection autofocus, the rear camera can focus sharply in almost any scenario. Add the fast f/1.7 aperture lens with image stabilisation and pictures in low contrast light are usually sharply focused and blur-free.

With time-lapse there are five speed options, with 120x being the fastest and ideal for scenarios such as cloud movement during the golden hour. Each time-lapse option makes a suggestion for what type of action the speed rate is ideal for.

The panorama app works seemlessly - not once did we encounter error messages while taking reasonable care panning for a single capture.

Night Sight takes prime place in the camera app and is a very effective shooting mode once things get dark. We've taken the same shot at dusk with the standard camera and then with Night Sight and the latter packs more tonal detail, contrast and clarity.

Front of the Google Pixel 4a

For Night Sight the camera needs to be held steady during capture, but you'll usually get sharp pictures even handheld in low contrast light, which is very impressive.

Should you be in a rural area pointing the camera at clear dark skies, Night Sight may prompt the astrophotography mode. If the night scene is too bright then you won't get the prompt - it has to be really dark to activate the prompt.

Unlike the regular Night Sight setting, you will need to fix the camera completely still during astrophotography capture to avoid blur. Typically the capture time is a minimum of one minute, hence the need for camera support such as a tripod.

Overall, the Google Pixel 4a is a breeze to use across a wide range of scenarios. There are enough shooting modes to sink your teeth into and by and large Google's Intelligent Software processing gives you great end results with minimal fuss.

We particularly want to big up the Live HDR+ feature. Available in most photography shooting modes, tap the image area and highlight and shadow sliders appear.

Shift either slider and the effect on the image is seen on screen immediately. Live HDR is particularly useful in scenes of high contrast where the camera might not know what exposure effect you want.

For example, on a white cloudy day you can reign in the highlight brightness to reveal more cloud detail while maintaining shadow brightness. Conversely, you may wish to darken the shadows for a low-key image and help the highlight areas stand out more.

Think of Live HDR as HDR with full manual control. It's a great feature that brings the final manual exposure tweak needed when the camera doesn't read your mind.

Image Quality

Google Pixel has never been one for 'numbers' in smartphone spec sheets, rather making great looking pictures with minimal fuss.

As mentioned, the same single-lens camera with maximum 12.2MP resolution remains, with an average JPEG file size of around 6MB depending on the shooting mode with a print size of around 13.5x10in at 300ppi.

There's also the option to record in RAW DNG format with an average file size of around 11MB although this does vary.

There's a huge difference between the same picture in RAW and JPEG format when viewed side by side. It is clear the extent of intelligent processing going on to create a JPEG image, squeezing the most amount of tonal detail out of the RAW image as possible.

In this case, the main benefit to shoot in RAW format is to apply your own exposure edits when the JPEG processing gets it wrong. Overall, there is little benefit shooting in RAW format with the Google Pixel 4a.

Detail in JPEG pictures viewed on a phone or tablet from the standard camera looks crisp (that's the 24mm f/1.7 lens). Sharpness is consistent from centre all the way to the edges and corners. Normally we'd expect more of a fall-off in the corners, but not so here.

We'd happily apply a 2x digital zoom where needed too, because we're pressed to tell the difference in the quality of detail - there's no over sharpening as to appear artificial. This of course then means that detail in your 'in-focus' subject in the Portrait mode is also crisp (you're effectively using a 2x digital zoom for this mode).

Go beyond the 2x zoom and understandably image quality goes downhill.

Overall the Google Pixel 4a's lens has a firm control over flare and ghosting. We've seen a little ghosting in very particular circumstances, but in general we have happily shot towards the sun without being concerned about unwanted lens flare.

Colours look pretty good. Overall, colours stay true to the ambient light. If it's a cloudy day, your pictures will look like they have been taken on a cloudy - there's no ugly overkill of increased saturation. In sunny conditions, pictures look vibrant, but again without being too saturated.

We think Google has been smart here - rather than processing images to be completely 'ready to go' from the start, they form a great starting place from which to apply those bright colour edits afterwards for sharing. It's harder to recapture natural and faithful colours from an overly saturated JPEG rather than generating extra saturation.

The effectiveness of Live HDR+ cannot be overstated. Like any phone, the dynamic range of the Google Pixel 4a is limited, meaning that without intervention tonal detail in highlight and shadow areas will be lost.

That's where Live HDR comes in. With independently working highlight and shadow sliders, you can affect the brightness independently. Want more detail in the sky? Bring down the highlight slider. Think the shadows look to bright? Darken them without affecting highlights.

With the highlight slider at its lowest setting and the shadow slider at its highest, you get a strong HDR look. The fact that you have independent manual control over the effect is brilliant - you'll probably want to override the camera's default setting.

Like any camera and especially true of small-sensor smartphones, the adverse effect of noise in image quality increases as you go up the ISO settings. There is no manual control over ISO and we have made observations over hundreds of different images in different scenarios and light levels (and therefore random ISO settings).

Yet with a fast f/1.7 lens and effective image stabilisation, the Pixel 4a is usually set below ISO 500 and there is not really any noise to speak of, meaning detail is sharp.

We've even enjoyed crisp detail in pictures on a cloudy day shot at around ISO 1000. Of course at higher ISO settings in low contrast light, detail is mushy because of noise.

If you are able to use the Night Sight mode, then detail in low light appears crisper. Provided you don't having moving subjects in your low light picture (and therefore unwanted blur from a long exposure), it's still possible to enjoy the benefit of Google's effective image processing for great low light images.

We've already (briefly) mentioned about the responsive and reliable phase detection autofocus and optical and electronic stabilisation, both of which positively impact image quality.

Thanks to good AF and stabilisation, the only real scenario that you are likely to see unwanted blur in your pictures is when panning too quickly using the Panorama mode or moving subjects in low light without flash.

The Google Pixel 4a's camera may not offer the best specification around, but it quietly and effectively makes lovely pictures. We've rarely binned photos on account of the camera's shortcomings.

Portrait Mode

In Portrait mode a blur is applied to the background using Google's AI to help your subject stand out. By default the image is saved twice - with and without blur applied. This enables us to compare the two versions and see how effective image processing is at applying blur.

Again, when viewed on a smart device, the blur effect looks good. There's even a creative and usually lovely-looking bokeh effect applied that is not always directly 'bokeh-ing' the original detail that it covers.

The effectiveness of blur application in the Portrait mode is of course impacted by the subject and their surroundings. The 'cleaner' the background and the 'simpler' the subject, the better the overall blur quality around the subject.

Certainly if the background is densely packed with detail, or the subject does not have a clear silhouette (or even when they do), blur application can miss the mark.

Once viewed on a larger desktop screen at 100% - in our case a 25in monitor - it is possible to locate clumps of detail around your subject without blur applied. Those bothering to view images in such a way are more likely to have the capacity to apply blur themselves to those missed areas.

In the grand scheme of things, we're impressed by the Portrait mode - it will take your candid portraits up a level compared to the standard camera and looks great on a smart device. Given this is all achieved entirely using image processing the results are really impressive.

What's more, Google has opened up the effect to any image taken on any camera using Portrait Blur in Google Photos.

Off

On

Off

On

Off

On

Off

On

Off

On

Focal Range

The Google Pixel 4a has a single lens with an equivalent focal length of 24mm approximately - that's a 84° field of view. The digital zoom extends that focal length by up to 7x.

No Zoom

2x Digital Zoom

4x Digital Zoom

7x Digital Zoom

Macro

As with any small-sensor smartphone, the Google Pixel 4a has decent macro capabilities although it does not have a specific macro setting. The image below was captured with the phone's minimum focus distance - any closer in this scenario and the camera wasn't able to focus.

HDR

There is no specific HDR mode although pictures are by default processed HDR-like to bring out a wide range of tones. The degree to which this effect is applied can be manually tweaked using the 'Live HDR' highlight and shadow sliders, where the brightness in highlights and shadows can be independently adjusted.

Default

Good Manual Balance

Highlights Low

Good Balance

Strong Effect

Lowkey Effect

Night Sight Mode

Without manual exposure control you can't select shutter speed or ISO. However, the Pixel 4a is a very capable low-light shooter, with its champion Night Sight mode.

It's possible to get a sharp handheld shot in Night Sight with shutter speeds in the matter of seconds. For astrophotography though, you'll need a tripod for a sharp shot because exposure times are longer.

Panorama

Sample Images

This is a selection of sample images from the Google Pixel 4a camera, which were all taken using the 12 megapixel JPEG setting. The thumbnails below link to the full-sized versions, which have not been altered in any way.

Sample RAW Images

The Google Pixel 4a enables users to capture RAW and JPEG format files. We've provided some Google RAW (DNG) samples for you to download (thumbnail images shown below are not 100% representative).

Sample Movies & Video

Product Images

Conclusion

The Google Pixel 4a represents a solid upgrade from the Pixel 3a, at a lower RRP.

There's a quicker processor, more RAM, more storage, higher capacity battery and the clear-view display is a fraction larger in a phone unit that is physically smaller (again by a fraction).

Look outside the Pixel range and the numbers are less impressive. You can get more power and features from rivals such as the OnePlus Nord. However, its processor is fast enough for what the camera is capable of.

Regarding the camera, the only real lag we experienced was viewing image effects such as Portrait blur, taking a couple of seconds. That doesn't stop you making more pictures though.

On the surface, a single-lens rear 12.2MP camera makes no sense considering you can get a triple-lens rear camera with depth sensor for the same money. Yet sometimes we need to look beyond the spec sheet, certainly for image-making.

The Google Pixel camera has always impressed on a real world basis in most scenarios, with special mention for portraits, low light and Live HDR.

You've got a mainly automated camera app that is simple to use, paired with a highly effective image processor that gets you the best images possible with the least amount of fuss.

Taking pictures with the Google Pixel 4a is a great experience. Enjoying the results follows.

Considering the whole picture, the Google Pixel 4a doesn't do quite enough to be best-in-class, but if you are after an easy-to-use phone sub £400 that will get you great looking pictures, you won't be disappointed.

Ratings (out of 5)
Design	4
Features	3.5
Ease-of-use	4.5
Image quality	4
Value for money	4.5

Main Rivals

Listed below are some of the rivals of the Google Pixel 4a.

Review Roundup

Reviews of the Google Pixel 4a from around the web.

Specifications

Your Comments