The Google Pixel 3a XL Review: Does Mid-Range Make Sense?
by Andrei Frumusanu on June 27, 2019 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Mobile
- Smartphones
- Snapdragon 670
- Pixel 3a
- Pixel 3a XL
GPU Performance
Graphics performance of the Snapdragon 670 is something I admittedly didn’t have too much expectations for. The Adreno 615 of the chipset is a very cut-down version of last year’s Adreno 630 in the Snapdragon 845. In fact you shouldn’t be expecting much of an experience beyond light gaming. However as we’ll see there’s one interesting aspect of mid- to low-end GPUs: Their power consumption and sustained performance.
Starting off with the CPU-bound physics test of 3DMark, we see the Pixel 3a XL again largely fall in the performance category of Snapdragon 835 devices.
Switching over to 3D stressing workloads, we see some pretty mediocre results from the Pixel 3a XL and the Snapdragon 670. Here the phone and SoC is several generations behind even the S835.
Over the rest of the GFXBench benchmarks we continue to see quite lower-end performance. In general the Snapdragon 670’s GPU performance is around ½ to 2/3rd of that of a Snapdragon 835 which puts it about 4 generations behind the top of the line right now.
The interesting aspect of the results is the fact that sustained and peak performance of the phone is essentially identical. There’s a very easy explanation for this: The power consumption of the Snapdragon 670 is so low, that it’s essentially impossible for the device to throttle. In fact, the active system power (load minus idle) of the platform was a meagre 1.5W, a far cry from the 5W+ flagship phones out there. The Pixel 3a merely got luke-warm near the SoC location but otherwise just felt the same as the ambient temperature.
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Threska - Sunday, June 30, 2019 - link
"Besides, it wears off on devices that are constantly being fondled by their owners."Alright everybody, stop "fondling" your phones. People are starting to talk. :-D
PeachNCream - Thursday, June 27, 2019 - link
The lack of microSD is a huge pain in the arse for people that use their phones as primary compute devices. That's been a brain dead move on Google's part for a long time now so it isn't a surprise. Also, mid-range and $400-500? Someone is on some good drugs if they're positioning a device with that kind of price in the middle as it falls in on the lower end of insanity, a fair bit above high priced.UtilityMax - Thursday, August 1, 2019 - link
So your phone is the primary storage for all your data, documents, music, tax returns, games, etc? Interesting choice..sing_electric - Thursday, June 27, 2019 - link
Even in North America, the value proposition of the Pixels kind of falls apart when you look at actual "street" pricing - Samsung's and LG phones often go on sale for significantly less than their MSRP (even at or near launch), and carriers (and the OEM) tend to fofer more generous trade-ins than Google seems to be willing to do.I've seen the S10e - S855, more RAM and more (and faster) storage, wireless charging, multiple cameras - go on sale for $500, just $20 more than the 3a XL, and its screen size slots it directly between the smaller and larger Pixels.
Not that any of it matters, though, because Google's done such a terrible job marketing the Pixel line that I don't think they'd be a sales hit no matter what...
melgross - Thursday, June 27, 2019 - link
Almost nobody buys Pixel labeled products, just as they didn’t buy Nexus labeled products before them,I understand that Google is trying to, at least partly, move away from being an advertising company, needing more user data in order to survive. But their hardware is a waste of time. It’s never going anywhere, just like Microsoft’s hardware, other than the XBox, which they’re still losing money on.
Speedfriend - Friday, June 28, 2019 - link
"Almost nobody buys Pixel labeled products" that is why they were the third best selling phone type in the US and 5th best in western Europe in Q4 2018MadManMark - Monday, July 1, 2019 - link
All you just did here was demonstrate to knoweldgable readers that we should ignore all the other posts you made to this thread because you simply don't know what you are talking about.darkswordsman17 - Thursday, June 27, 2019 - link
Er, that's a weird argument considering the sales that happened immediately on the Pixel3A. Especially for older Pixel owners (1 or 2) where they were effectively getting it for free after trading in their older Pixel. There's sales on all sorts of phones, so unless its an official MSRP change, then reviewers need to based their value propositions on that. Many people do not quality for some of those sales as it requires new activation or adding a line and good enough credit (or the ability to pay MSRP+tax and then get it back via bill credits). Or various other loops you have to jump through.What other marketing do you want them to do? I watch as little content that includes commercials as possible but I saw as many Pixel ads as I saw iPhone ads when I did. Not only that, but its not like they need the marketing, anytime they bring out a new phone the entire tech media discusses it just like they do iPhones and Samsung's phones. They don't sell like either of those, but I don't think that was ever Google's actual intent with the Pixel stuff.
UtilityMax - Thursday, August 1, 2019 - link
All the "cheap" new phones require activation of new line, or contract, or some kind of monthly payment plan. Moreover, the carrier branded LG phones are probably the worst garbage I have seen among android phones.3DoubleD - Thursday, June 27, 2019 - link
The article says the Pixel 3a XL compares well to the S835, but the charts show it comparing well to the S845, which is found in the Samsung Galaxy S9+. In fact, the S8/S8+ that would have the S835 SoC isn't even in the chart.