Pixel 9a arrives with a larger screen, a newer chipset, a larger battery and hopefully, better cameras.
Check out our post review about the phone’s top features, build, screen quality, battery life, performance, and camera image quality.
Google Pixel 9a design and build quality
That’s especially considering the upgrades it brings over last year, a larger screen and battery, faster charging, and upgraded cameras. The cameras are flush, lending to a flat, uniform design. The back is again plastic with a matte finish, and it meets the aluminum frame at a sharp angle. One of the differences from the flagship models has been addressed this year. The Pixel 9a has IP68 rated wrist protection just like the other Pixels.
The 9S somehow doesn’t feel like a Pixel phone. Whereas the 8a gets this metallic frames, there’s a plastic back. And other than that, when you hold both the Pixels in hand, the 8a feels heavier than the Pixel 9a, but in reality, the difference between the two is just 2 to 3 g. You also get an IP67 rating, so it can handle all those water abuses. Pixel 8 still gets that wireless charging. It’s slow at 7.5 watt, but it’s there.
Google Pixel 9a Display
A larger screen and battery, faster charging, and upgraded cameras. Instead, the cameras are flush, lending to a flat, uniform design. The back is again plastic with a matte finish, and it meets the aluminum frame at a sharp angle. The design is still unique and relevant in 2025 as well. But the moment you flip the phone front side, it feels as disappointing as Tala’s performance in the IP. The Pixel 8a has this huge bezels and it is no different than the latest Pixel 9a. The display’s bezels are noticeably thicker than the more expensive Pixels, betraying the phone’s mid-range nature, but otherwise it looks good. The screen is plenty sharp here. display is 6.3 in this year like you see on the Pixel 9. It’s an OLED with a 1080p resolution and Gorilla Glass 3 protection.
This is one of the brightest phone displays around. The displays in the Pixel 8 and 9a are not much different other than Pixel 9a being brighter and bigger. If you see the home screen on both the phones, the Pixel 9 looks brighter. But here’s a weird thing. The same movie on Netflix is playing on both the phones. The brightness is set to full, but there’s no difference at all.
The Pixel 8 display is bright enough. It’s very compact, handy. So, in display, there’s not much difference between both the Pixels. But here’s where it differs a bit software. The Pixel 8A was launched with Android 14. And currently, it is running on the latest Android 15. And just like iPhone
Google Pixel 9a Updates and Performance
The 120 Hz refresh rate and is able to dial down to a minimum of 60 Hz when the screen is idling to save energy. The software features and experience same as their elder flagship brothers. Now, we compare the software in all smartphones, flagship versus budget phone. If you go into Google Photos, both phones have magic editor with the same features. Next, in Gemini, you get Gemini Live on both the phones. For audio, the Pixel 9a has a pair of stereo speakers. They earned a loudness score of good in our testing, and the quality of the sound is decent with clean mids, but nothing standing out for bass or highs. You can listen for yourself through our comparison tool linked below. For biometric input, there’s an underd display optical fingerprint reader.
People bought Pixel phones for the Pixel experience or Pixel features. But currently with AI and everything rolling out, these Gemini or Google photos feature are not just unique to the Pixel. You get it on Motorola, Xiaomi, CMF. Heck, they come first on Samsung now. It’s fast and reliable, and the phone can come with 128 or 256 gigs of storage on board, and that isn’t expandable through micro SD. The Pixel 9a comes with Android 15 pre-installed, and like on other Pixel phones, it’s a clean Android experience with a few Pixel exclusive tweaks.
Now when it comes to the Pixel phones also, Pixel 8 comes with 7 years of security updates and 7 years of software updates. That’s quite a lot. So just put it into perspective. This Pixel 8 has already got one update. So you should get Android updates up until Android 21 or Android 22.
Google Pixel 9a Battery and connectivity
You might not be on Android until then. Another segment where I feel the Pixel 8 is average is battery. It’s a lot better than what we saw from the Pixel 8a or even the other Pixel 9 models. The Pixel 9a has a larger 5100 mAh battery this year, and the battery life here is improved.
You remember last time the only major issue Pixel had was the network connectivity because of the modem. The 5G connectivity was not good. The range reception was lesser. The speeds were unstable. There were a lot of call drops. And they have used the same modem in this. And yes, even though it has improved a little bit, you still get to face those kind of network issues like the lower range reception, switching from 4G to 5G, random call drops in between calls, network speed variations, those kind of things are still there. But yes, you have a lot more antenna bands right now. But if you are in a place which has a very good reception, you don’t feel anything. you might feel a little bit network issues. But other than that, this gets the Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.3 version. You get an NFC support, 18 pans of 5G, and yes, AC.
Google Pixel 9a Camera and Photos Quality
I had a lot of expectations from a Pixel phone on camera because, you know, that’s what they have been known for. But you know what? I’ve been testing a lot of phones these days. This phone’s photo feels bland. Say in bright sun if you take a photo, this looks absolutely gorgeous. There is no issue in that. Even in crazy dark nights, you get these kind of amazing photos. But the kind of versatality, the clarity, the colors, etc.
Pixel phones do take good portraits, but this time I don’t know. The skin tones are a little bit off. it’s not like the best camera performance that you can get out there. And yes, you are going to miss a telephoto camera. You have a 2x crop in this, but it’s not up to the mark compared to other 50K smartphones. It supports 4K 60fps videos. The videos is fine.
The ultra wide photos is not that great. So, overall, the camera experience might not be a bigger strong point for this smartphone. If you interested in other google smartphones, here you can see google pixel 9 pro fold smartphone. The phone takes good selfies in bright light, but really struggles when the light is down. One highlighting thing that I liked is this add me feature wherein if you are going in a group and you want to take a group photo and you don’t have to ask anyone, just tell one person from the group, let them go stand there and click a photo and then the person who have clicked this photo can go and stand there.