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
Battery Life
Battery life on the Pixel 3a XL should be good: The Snapdragon 670 SoC is manufactured on a 10LPP process node and the microarchitecture should be in line with the Snapdragon 845. In effect, I expect the unit to have similar efficiency as the S845 generation of flagships.
The battery capacity of the 3a XL is also relatively large: 3700mAh. It’s to be noted that Google here is advertising the rated capacity, whilst some other vendors in the last few years have started to advertise the typical battery capacity, which can be 100-150mAh higher than the rated one. Props to Google to remaining honest in their marketing numbers here.
In the our web-browsing test, we indeed see the Pixel 3a XL perform extremely well with a result of 11.3h. As I mentioned, the phone falls very closely to the efficiency of S845 devices with similar battery capacity: the OnePlus 6T being the closest comparison point to the 3a XL.
The phone is able to showcase much better battery life over the Pixel 2 XL and the Pixel 3 in the charts because these two phones suffer from inefficient LG panels and DDICs. Unfortunately we don’t have a Pixel 3 XL to compare to.
In PCMark we again see equality with S845 devices of similar capacity: Again the 3a XL falls in almost the same range as the OnePlus 6T here.
Overall, the battery life of the Pixel 3a XL is excellent. Google did well with opting not to go with LG for this line-up as I fear it would have resulted notably worse battery life results, and I hope the company does the same for the Pixel 4 phones.
Whilst we don’t have a review unit at hand to test, we expect the regular Pixel 3a to perform 15-20% worse, in line with the 23% smaller battery capacity of 3000mAh.
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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.