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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Xex360 - Thursday, June 27, 2019 - link
The weird is this supposedly mid range phone has more features than the more expensive one.beluga - Thursday, June 27, 2019 - link
A series don't have wireless charging and not waterproof, both of which are important to me. Otherwise great phone.melgross - Thursday, June 27, 2019 - link
Water resistant. Nothing is waterproof.philehidiot - Friday, June 28, 2019 - link
I am water proof.Threska - Sunday, June 30, 2019 - link
Toilet:"Then why are you leaking?"philehidiot - Saturday, July 6, 2019 - link
I can say only this.Boom.
Namisecond - Sunday, July 7, 2019 - link
Would like to see you try and pass any of the IP ratings for water resistance...drowning = failure.Doku253 - Thursday, June 27, 2019 - link
It has a headphone jack but the 3a's lack a 2nd front facing camera, IP rated water resistance, UFS storage specification, wireless charging, Pixel Visual Core, Spectral/Flicker sensor and free unlimted original quality photo backup that the higher priced Pixel 3's have.yacoub35 - Thursday, July 4, 2019 - link
I would gladly trade Google no longer having a copy of all my personal photos for the addition of a headphone jack.edwpang - Friday, June 28, 2019 - link
Yeah, I replaced my oneplus 3 with a Xiaomi Mix 2s a while back. The oneplus 3 was working except for broken display when I bought the new one. I kept going back to oneplus for the convenience of 3.5mm plug. With the new Mix 2s, I have to either use bluetooth or converter which I always have to look for when I need it. Bluetooth has the obvious drawback of battery life and also latency in 10s of milliseconds. I noticed this when I practise singing, I am seeing quarter note even half note delay when using bluetooth. Now the oneplus 3 is dead! Next time, I'll definitely keep this in mind.