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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Death666Angel - Friday, June 28, 2019 - link
The Pixel 2XL which is highlighted has the S835.Ashinjuka - Thursday, June 27, 2019 - link
Thanks for doing this review! When the 3a was announced you guys said you had no plans to review it, so I was really glad to see you take a look at this phone and SoC. This is by far the most interesting phone of the year for me. I know I'm not everyone, but if a device is not getting regular OS updates, it's dead to me.I love the headphone jack, the camera, the battery life, and the updates. If I could change one thing about it, it would be an SD card slot or at least more on-board storage.
LiverpoolFC5903 - Friday, June 28, 2019 - link
Would have been a smashing buy if it had UFS storage instead of emmc. The importance of storage quality in overall usability and perceived smoothness of the phone is often understated. I have a 3 year old LG v20 that feels faster than my new Note 7 pro (SD 675), because of storage.The SOC is fine and the camera is very good. The only issue is the storage and unfortunately for me, I will only buy phones with UFS storage from now on, having experienced fast storage in my V20 and Galaxy S9..
grant3 - Friday, July 5, 2019 - link
As a typical phone user who has no clue about UFS vs. EMMC, I can assert: the smoothness of the 3a XL is just fine.Obviously some people want more storage, faster memory, etc. and for that, they can choose phones which either trade off other features or cost more.
Jon Tseng - Friday, June 28, 2019 - link
Spot on with the US vs. RoW conclusions.Outside of the US at that price this device is DOA - huge bezels, plastic casing, single cam. We can debate single-cam computational photography vs. brute forcing with triple cam but in the eyes of the average consumer more sensors = better.
grant3 - Friday, July 5, 2019 - link
"in the eyes of the average consumer" they care about image quality; they don't care how it happens.That's even if a purchaser is particularly concerned with taking high quality photos on their phone; a huge amount of people are not.
psnosignaluk - Friday, June 28, 2019 - link
I picked up a standard Pixel 3a because I needed a new phone, and frankly, didn't want to drop £1,000 or near enough on a flagship. I'm glad I saved the money. I use my phone for mail/Slack, on call tools, contactless payments, WhatsApp video calls with the wife overseas, uploading photos to Instagram, browsing the web and listening to music or catching up with YouTube channels on the go. It may not be the fastest or most powerful phone, but damn if you don't get everything you need for a pretty low price. I even like the plastic body. Makes my phone nice and light. Looking forward to the Pixel 4a :)Anirudh2FL - Friday, June 28, 2019 - link
The base 3a costs $550 in IndiaThe regular one, not even the XL
So, unfortunately not at all a good value here
fred666 - Friday, June 28, 2019 - link
Here in Canada I had the choice between the Pixel 3a or 3a XL, both at CAD $210, or the Galaxy S10e for CAD $310 (including galaxy buds).I chose the Samsung, but if I wanted a big screen I would have gotten the 3a XL.
I think the prices listed in this review are too high.
Andrei Frumusanu - Saturday, June 29, 2019 - link
We only list a device's full price, not carrier plan or financed deals.