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.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
94 Comments
View All Comments
MadManMark - Monday, July 1, 2019 - link
Andrei: I, you, and every person in North America could get the 3a for $210 right after it came out, no carrier or financing needed, just by buying directly from Google Store and signing up for a $250 trade-in for an iPhone 6. We just then bought a refurb iPhone 6 from another site for $60 and !voila! you have a Pixel 3a for $210, free and clear. That deal ran for a full month. ***and*** for part of that month, googel aslo threw in a $100 future store credit.UtilityMax - Thursday, August 1, 2019 - link
Why buy a new car at MSRP when you, and every person in America, could go to an Oprah show a couple years ago and get keys to a new VW car. Duh!SonjaTWilliams - Sunday, June 30, 2019 - link
niceRorqual - Monday, July 1, 2019 - link
I bought a Pixel 3a a few days after its availability, in order to replace an aging Nexus 5X, and am very happy with it.- About pricing: there was a promotion and for €400 a Google Home Mini (60 € value) got bundled, so net price for the phone is €340 which is I think not a bad deal for what I get.
- Plastic casing: for me it's a huge plus. I certainly don't want any glass backpanel, so slippery and fragile. And I'm one of those who don't use a protective case (a few scratches here and there aren't a problem to me).
- Design: good enough, classic and functional. No notch is mandatory, I can't stand them.
- Stock Adroid: again, mandatory. I can't stand the Samsung interface, for instance. Some others are more tolerable, but still I prefer stock Android.
- SoC performance: good enough for my usage, that is browsing, GPS and some random apps (very few games). Way faster then the 5X, everything feels so fluid now.
So with such specifications, the 3a is a godsend.
MadManMark - Monday, July 1, 2019 - link
"So with such specifications, the 3a is a godsend."+1
Frankly the main thing its missing is an SD slot. But I guess I've finally given up that fight ... I think this is the first phone I've ever had that doesn't have one.
InvidiousIgnoramus - Tuesday, July 2, 2019 - link
"Mid range"I remember when this term still referred to $200-300 devices. I paid less than this for my last two flagship devices, and neither were even a year old.
grant3 - Friday, July 5, 2019 - link
In those days, nickels had pictures of bumblebees on 'em. Give me five bees for a quarter, you'd say.DontTreadOnMe - Friday, July 5, 2019 - link
Xiaomi Mi9 may be more competetive on price in Europe, but at the time of writing people are complaining that they are still on the April 2019 security update. This is a consideration that severely restricts choices. The question is: what are the real costs of staying un-patched for longer?pika2000 - Wednesday, July 10, 2019 - link
In reality, does updates really mater? I mean in reality, how many Android phones without the most current updates get breached? Considering the marketshare, we would've heard plenty of news about phones on 2018/2017 security patches and/or on Oreo/Nougat and below being breached. But we don't.gronetwork - Wednesday, July 10, 2019 - link
This is a light version of the Google Pixel 3 XL, the processor has also 8 cores, with lower frequencies, it has the same quantity of RAM memory, the camera is similar, the battery capacity is larger, as well as the battery life. It is a good deal even if the performance is 35% less.https://gadgetversus.com/smartphone/google-pixel-3...