After a two-year hiatus, Google debuted a new Pixel smartphone in India. The Pixel 6a arrives nearly two years after Google launched the Pixel 4a in the country. And considering the Pixel 7 series might not see the light of day in the country, Indian consumers aren’t spoilt for choices.
Google’s Pixel 6a arrives in a single 6GB/128GB configuration and will set you back Rs 43,999. That’s a pretty penny for a budget Pixel. However, the Pixel 6a definitely has some flagship aspects as well as Google’s excellent software. But will it be enough to earn it a recommendation; let’s find out!
Design and Build
In terms of its design, the Pixel 6a certainly looks the part. There’s no mistaking it for anything other than a Pixel. The Pixel 6a’s design is identical to that of the Pixel 6, apart from its size that is. Our model came in the Charcoal Gray colour option. The back panel itself has a dual-tone finish with the top part above the black camera bump featuring a visibly lighter shade of grey as compared to the rest of the back. Speaking of the camera bump, this one extends the entire length of the back panel and houses two camera lenses and a Flash module.
Lastly, there’s a Google logo in the middle of the back panel, while its glossy finish does tend to attract fingerprints. Moving on to the build, which is pretty sturdy thanks to the glass front and aluminium frame, although the polycarbonate back does seem like a let-down at this price. The Pixel 6a does have a central hole-punch cut-out for the camera, while the power and volume buttons sit on the right of the device. There’s a SIM tray on the left, while the USB-C port is situated on the bottom.
Google has decided to ditch the headphone jack on the Pixel 6a, which was expected but still a tad bit disappointing. Nonetheless, the dual speaker setup here sounds pretty good. The speakers are not quite as good as some more expensive phones but get fairly loud with minimal distortion. The Pixel 6a’s form factor makes it incredibly comfortable to use, although the bezels are bigger than usual. The Pixel 6a also offers an IP67 rating for dust and water resistance. Overall, the Pixel 6a boasts a stylish and comfortable design, unique to most of its competitors, while its overall build is pretty solid.
Display
The Pixel 6a sports a 6.1-inch FHD+ OLED flat display with a 60Hz refresh rate. The OLED display means nice levels of contrast with good viewing angles. The Full HD+ resolution on the Pixel 6a’s small screen also makes it sharper than most of its competitors. The Pixel 6a’s panel also supports HDR which makes content on Netflix pop.
The display here also gets quite bright, which makes the phone easy to use even under direct sunlight. The downside of this display is the lack of a high refresh rate, which makes the screen feel less smooth and responsive. Considering high refresh rate panels are a staple in the sub-20K smartphone segment, it is a shame not to have them on the Pixel 6a. However, I have to say that this was far from a deal breaker.
Performance
When it comes from the chipset, Google isn’t messing around. There’s no mid-tier Snapdragon 700-series chip here, instead, Google has opted to use its in-house Tensor chip, the same one used on the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro. The Tensor chip here is paired with 6GB of LPDDR5 RAM and 128GB of UFS 3.1 storage. The Tensor chip did offer solid multitasking performance, offering smooth navigation and no stutters. In Geekbench 5, the Pixel 6a managed a single core score of 1,060 points and a multi-core score of 2,686 points. The Pixel 6a does use a Mali-G78 GPU that does lag slightly behind the Adreno 730 graphics on the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 chipset.
We ran quite a few titles on the Pixel 6a including Diablo Immortal, Apex Legends Mobile, Call of Duty: Mobile, and BGMI. When it came to gaming, each of the titles ran on ‘high to very high’ settings without a lot of stutters, although Diablo Immortal did see frame rate drops after the first 30 minutes of gaming on High settings at 60fps. The phone also started to heat up after the first hour of gaming, but it never got uncomfortably hot to use. I don’t know how optimised this phone is for gaming, but I would much prefer the larger form factor and a VC cooling system while running mobile games. However, rest assured, if you do want to game on the Pixel 6a, it will prove worthy of getting the job done.
Cameras
The Pixel 6a has a dual-camera setup on the back, which includes a 12.2 MP primary sensor with an f/1.7 aperture, dual pixel PDAF, and OIS and a 12 MP ultrawide unit with an f/2.2 aperture and a 114-degree FoV. The phone also comes with an 8 MP selfie shooter with an f/2.0 aperture. The Pixel 6a can capture 4K video at up to 60fps.
In daylight, the Pixel 6a’s main camera is strong as ever. Images don’t contain any noise and have a good level of detail. The images also had good exposure and excellent dynamic range. I did notice that photos did tend to look more contrasty, although this works in the camera's favour more often than not. However, colours were accurately represented with a more vivid look. While most smartphones in the sub-50K space do tend to use higher resolution sensors on the ultrawide to watch the main shooter, Google, once again, goes the software route.
The 12 MP ultrawide camera does an excellent job of keeping pace with the main sensor. Colour and contrast in images shot on the ultrawide maintained consistency with that of the main camera. However, detail and dynamic range weren’t as great but were still better than most. There’s no telephoto unit here, instead, shots are cropped from the main sensor for the 2x zoom with the aid of HDR+ and Google's Super Res Zoom.
Portrait shots on the Pixel 6a also look great with a nice bokeh effect, although there’s no ability to adjust the level of blur. In low light, the Pixel 6a’s Night Sight kicks in to get you solid results but you will need a fair bit of ambient light. Shots taken at night are well exposed with good colour reproduction and great dynamic range. However, the older sensor does tend to leave you with some noise if you zoom in on an image.
Additionally, Night Sight does take a bit of time to capture an image and any movement can leave you with a blurry mess. The ultrawide camera does a good job as well at night, although you’ll require a fair bit of ambient light to get good results. Darker parts of the image weren’t well exposed and you lose a fair bit of detail when taking shots without good ambient light. The Pixel 6a’s camera also features a ‘Magic Eraser’ that allows you to remove unwanted objects or people from a photo, it does require a bit of patience but is an excellent feature nonetheless.
The Pixel 6a’s selfie camera doesn’t seem like much but takes pretty good photos with good detail and dynamic range. The 8 MP selfie shooter also takes excellent portrait shots with accurate edge detection and good background blur. The Pixel 6a captures excellent videos in daylight and can record 4K video at up to 60fps. Colours and dynamic range are pretty consistent across the main and ultrawide cameras, but the footage on the latter tends to look noisier and softer. However, on balance, the video footage was good across the board but shines during the day.
While Google is using the same old camera 12.2 MP camera on the Pixel 2, there are some noticeable upgrades thanks to the Tensor chip and numerous software refinements over time. The result of which is some of the best photography results in the segment. However, it would have been nice to see just how well the software couples with a newer camera sensor.
Battery
Another impressive aspect of the Pixel 6a is its battery life. And that is primarily down to the fact that Google has managed to fit a large 4,410 mAh battery on a device this small. I was able to get a full day of heavy usage with the Pixel 6a and managed to save 5 percent to take into the next day. Despite being similarly sized to the vanilla Galaxy S22 (Review), the Pixel 6a offered much better battery life.
However, like the Galaxy S22, the Pixel 6a also doesn’t include an adapter in the box, which makes charging the device quite slow. Additionally, the 18W charging support is underwhelming considering charging speeds max out at 150W in India’s sub-50K smartphone segment. Overall, I think the Pixel 6a offers excellent battery life, particularly considering its size, but incredibly slow charging.
Software
The Pixel 6a runs stock Android 12. Google also promises three years of OS updates and five years of security updates with the Pixel 6a. The stock version of Android 12 doesn’t have any bloat but it lacks some of the customizability of Android skins like MIUI and One UI. You do however have the option to change the grid size and tweak accent colours.
It also gives you the ability to match the colour of your icons to your wallpaper and Live Translation now allows you to converse in 11 languages. The Always-on display shows the time, date, notification banners, and more. Another great part of the Pixel 6a is timely Android OS updates. There’s also a new quick-action settings menu that feels like a swing and a miss.
Verdict
With a price tag of Rs 43,999, the Pixel 6a finds itself in a particularly competitive market, where monstrous specifications appear to be the recurring theme. The 60Hz display, dated dual 12 MP cameras, 18W charging, and polycarbonate back panel are all underwhelming for a smartphone with this price tag. However, it isn’t all gloom. On the contrary, the Pixel 6a doesn’t need to be a beast on paper to deliver an excellent smartphone experience. Despite older camera hardware, the Pixel 6a has the best cameras for photography in the segment, primarily driven by the software and Tensor chip. The screen may not offer a high refresh rate but gets plenty bright and is very sharp.
The battery life is quite impressive given the phone’s size, while the aluminium frame and unique design were enough to give the Pixel 6a a polished look. Google even threw in an IP68 rating for good measure. To top it all off, the phone also offers a very reliable gaming experience. And tying it all in is this clean and tidy interface. The Pixel 6a is a shining example of the crucial role software plays in offering an excellent smartphone. There’s no doubt that there are still things that can be improved with the hardware, but as things stand, the overall experience here doesn’t feel lacking in the least bit, earning the Pixel 6a an easy recommendation in our book.
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