It’s been a sizzling minute since Google introduced one among its beloved Pixel telephones to Indian shores. The final Pixel cellphone followers loved in the Indian market was the Pixel 4a – the firm’s then mid-range providing. Now, a few years since, we lastly have a glistening new Pixel cellphone in our midst – the Google Pixel 6a. Whether or not it was Indian followers verbalising their disappointment about Google skipping out on bringing the Pixel 5a to India, or just Google’s resolution it was an opportune time to set its mark in the Indian smartphone market as soon as once more – we’re glad the Pixel 6a has arrived. Boy, has it arrived to rife competitors although.
The Pixel 6a is priced at ₹43,999, and whereas it’s Google’s mid-range providing, the cellphone’s price ticket evidently competes with the higher-end telephones in India. The competitors contains formidable choices comparable to the Samsung Galaxy S21 FE, Nothing Cellphone (1), and iPhone SE 2022. So, will the Pixel 6a make a strong mark in the high-end smartphone section in India or will it fade into customers’ peripheral imaginative and prescient? Let’s discover out that and extra in our evaluate.
Google Pixel 6a Assessment: Construct and design
The Pixel 6a carries over the identical design language as the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Professional, so in case you had been a fan of their aesthetic, you’ll be happy with the Pixel 6a’s minimalist look as nicely. The black digital camera bar on the again of the cellphone breaks up the colored space of the Pixel 6a’s rear panel offering a reasonably clear look total. There’s a minimalist G or Google brand on the rear PMMA (plastic) panel that appears deceptively like glass.
The again end, nevertheless, is a infamous fingerprint and smudge magnet and we continuously discovered ourselves wiping off the smears. The digital camera bar protrudes from the body barely which stops the cellphone from mendacity flat on a floor. The Charcoal colored variant we acquired for evaluate seems to be a bit uninteresting; we’re larger followers of the Chalk variant that has a bit extra distinction. The attractive Sage Inexperienced color that’s obtainable in international markets, sadly, hasn’t made its approach to Indian shores.
The cellphone carries an IP67 mud and water resistance score which suggests it will possibly resist mud ingress and face up to short-term submersion in water as much as 1 meter for half-hour. A SIM tray sits on the left facet with help for one nano SIM whereas the quantity and energy buttons are positioned on the proper. All buttons are simply reachable one-handed and fairly tactile however don’t really feel fairly as buttery clean as high-end or flagship telephones. The cellphone additionally homes stereo audio system and a USB C port however no 3.5mm jack or microSD card slot. The audio system are significantly loud however we’ve heard louder at this value and decrease. Nonetheless, they don’t crackle even at most quantity, which is a plus. Sadly, the lack of a microSD card slot means that you would be able to’t develop the reminiscence previous the 128 GB inside storage capability you get, which is a disgrace. 128 GB storage can really feel inadequate to many and we might have most popular no less than an choice for a 256 GB variant.
The Pixel 6a is a compact cellphone with a display screen measuring 6.1-inches; placing it towards the likes of different compact units comparable to the iPhone 13 Mini, iPhone SE 2022 and Samsung Galaxy S22. The entrance has a small punch gap cutout for the selfie digital camera and pretty thick bezels with a thicker chin bezel. The show is flat with no curves, which we fairly appreciated, however the chunky bezels do diminish the glamour quotient. The show is topped with Corning Gorilla Glass 3 for cover, which is a bit dated for a 2022 cellphone costing above ₹40K. The cellphone comes with an in-display optical fingerprint sensor which was reasonably speedy as nicely. Total, we’re followers of the Pixel 6a’s clear and stylish aesthetic in a sea of fairly garish telephones, particularly in the mid-range market.
Google Pixel 6a Assessment: Show
As for the show, the cellphone sports activities a 6.1-inch OLED panel with Full HD+ decision. You additionally get HDR help and a Excessive Brightness Mode on the machine. The show has a reasonably commonplace 20:9 facet ratio with help for 24-bit color. The panel offers Widevine L1 help as nicely for HD viewing on streaming platforms. The show’s efficiency impressed us with true blacks, vivid colors, glorious viewing angles, and good daylight legibility. It’s undoubtedly not the brightest show, even at this value, however in most circumstances, you received’t have a difficulty with the display screen being too dim. We recorded a most brightness of 502 nits, which is fairly respectable and the show is able to going increased on Excessive Brightness Mode.
All is sweet in the show division thus far, however the place the show stumbles compared to the competitors is the refresh fee. The Pixel 6a helps solely 60 Hz refresh fee which appears downright comical for a cellphone pushing ₹40K. Particularly since competitors offers panels with 90 Hz, 120 Hz and even a whopping 144 Hz refresh fee help. Scrolling and navigation are visibly and painfully slower than what most individuals would anticipate on this value bracket. Total, it is a show that provides a reasonably good film and video watching expertise however the lack of a excessive refresh fee does harm how responsive the cellphone feels.
Google Pixel 6a Efficiency Assessment
The Pixel 6a homes Google’s in-house developed Tensor chipset paired with 128 GB UFS 3.1 storage and 6 GB LPDDR5 RAM. The cellphone performs nicely as a day by day driver with barely any hitches when finishing up duties comparable to calling, texting, social media browsing, net looking, and extra. Whereas the efficiency was strong for the most half, there have been cases the place the cellphone did warmth up significantly (touching 45 levels Celsius) when clicking images, capturing movies, and updating apps. This induced some minor lags and stutters which did take away from an in any other case close-to-flagship expertise.
In benchmarks, the Pixel 6a does decently with the cellphone persistently clocking in increased scores than the Nothing Cellphone (1) in most assessments but it surely did lose out, in a number of benchmarks, to the Samsung Galaxy S21 FE, Motorola Moto Edge 30 Professional, and iPhone SE 2022. The cellphone clocked in a rating of 691272 in AnTuTu which was significantly decrease than the iPhone, Samsung and Motorola units we talked about above.
The cellphone additionally lagged behind the competitors in GeekBench with it scoring 1015 in the Single Core check and 2689 in Multi Core. In PCMark Work, the development continues with the Pixel 6a even dropping out to the cheaper Nothing Cellphone (1) with a rating of 9758. Furthermore, in the CPU Throttling Take a look at, we discovered that after quarter-hour, the cellphone throttled to 66 per cent of its peak sustained, which exhibits that the Pixel 6a has points with sustaining sustained efficiency throughout intensive duties.
The cellphone, nevertheless, does do barely higher in GPU benchmarks with it beating out the Nothing Cellphone (1) and the Samsung Galaxy S21 FE in 3D Mark Wild Life but it surely continues to lag behind the iPhone SE 2022 and the Moto Edge 30 Professional. You possibly can see the sample repeat in most GFX Bench assessments as nicely. This does harm the Pixel 6a’s worth proposition a bit since these telephones are all virtually equally priced.
Nonetheless, in gaming assessments utilizing GameBench Professional, the Pixel 6a did shine fairly a bit. In Name of Responsibility Cellular, the cellphone performed at common fps of 60 with a whopping 100 per cent stability and in Asphalt 9, we received 59 fps at 98 per cent stability. The gameplay was principally clean and jitter-free barring the cases when the cellphone heated up after longer intervals gameplay, which is once we skilled a sliver of stutter. Total, the Pixel 6a presents strong day-to-day efficiency however does lag behind some opponents by way of warmth administration and smoothness.
The Pixel 6a additionally comes geared up with Google’s Titan M2 safety chip that shops your delicate knowledge comparable to passwords and keys inside the machine. So, you don’t have to retailer such knowledge on any server, thereby decreasing the danger of a safety breach. It additionally handles processes comparable to encryption and safe transactions inside apps. After all, we couldn’t absolutely put this chipset to the check throughout our temporary testing interval, so we are able to’t make any claims about how nicely it really works. However, it’s good to see Google placing in the work to attempt to guarantee person safety and privateness.
Google Pixel 6a Assessment: Software program
That is the bread and butter of a Pixel machine – inventory Android Pixel expertise. Any Android purist will bounce with glee experiencing the bloatware-free, clear Android 12 UI that the Pixel so unabashedly offers. And that is the place the cellphone races forward of most competitors. Whereas different units from OnePlus, Xiaomi, and Oppo are rife with third-party apps and even adverts, the Pixel 6a offers a pure Android 12 expertise devoid of any of those deterrents.
The person interface is clear and fully hassle-free and Google’s Materials You theming choices look unbelievable. Apps barely ask for pointless permissions and it was a real pleasure experiencing Inventory Android after the barrage of customized UI skins OEMs slap onto their Android units. After all, another telephones from corporations comparable to Motorola do present a near-stock expertise however the Pixel offers a lot extra. You get a completely unlocked Google Pictures enhancing app, quite a few Google Assistant options, distinctive options comparable to Magic Eraser, Reside Translate, and far more.
The cellphone additionally offers customers with three years of assured software program updates and 5 years of safety updates. Nonetheless, three years is barely low for a Pixel cellphone, particularly, since many Samsung telephones now present 4 years of OS updates, so it’s beating Google at its personal sport, in a approach.
Additionally notice, when testing the cellphone, we unusually discovered that our evaluate machine was nonetheless on the April safety patch, which is simply odd. We spoke to Google about this and so they assured us that the machine will get an replace in August with the newest safety patch. We hope this doesn’t translate to retail models and is simply a difficulty with the evaluate one.
Google Pixel 6a Assessment: Battery life
Some international evaluations of the Pixel 6 and 6 Professional have complained about mediocre battery life. Fortunately, this didn’t translate to the Pixel 6a, in our expertise. We received fairly unbelievable battery life throughout our testing interval of over per week. The cellphone routinely lasted a day with ease with regular utilization consisting of occasional gaming, clicking images, social media, net looking, and enhancing images. We received a screen-on time of about 5 hours which is fairly good for a 4,410 mAh battery. In our video loop check, the cellphone lasted about 14 hours from 100 per cent to empty, which is fairly good.
GPS navigation for an hour dropped the battery by 5 per cent from 85 to 80 per cent and quarter-hour of COD: Cellular drained the battery by 6 per cent from 79 to 73 per cent. In case you’re an influence person, it’s possible you’ll have to cost the cellphone in the direction of the night however in case you’re a lightweight to reasonable person, it is best to finish the day with about 15-20 per cent battery.
Now, whereas the battery life expertise was fairly nice on the Pixel 6a, the 18 W quick charging speeds is nothing to put in writing residence about. In the age of 67 W, 80 W and 120 W quick charging in mid-range telephones, 18 W charging simply feels awfully gradual and dated. The cellphone took a whopping 1 hour and 49 minutes to go from zero to full. Additionally, there’s no wi-fi charging on the cellphone, if that’s one thing you like to have in your cellphone. The corporate additionally hasn’t packaged a charging adapter in the field, so you’ll have to fish in your personal USB PD 3.0 appropriate charger.
Google Pixel 6a Digital camera Assessment
Two issues virtually all the time appear to face out on a Pixel machine. First, the software program expertise, which we’ve already spoken (raved) about, and second, the digital camera expertise. So, naturally, our expectations had been excessive and the Pixel 6a did not disappoint. The machine homes two rear digital camera sensors – a 12.2 MP major sensor – which has been tried and examined since the Pixel 2 days – and a 12 MP ultrawide shooter. The Pixel 6 and 6 Professional received 50 MP sensors, however actually, there’s not a lot to complain about even with the older sensor we have now received right here. Primarily due to Google’s tuning and distinctive computational pictures.
Pictures in daylight look nothing wanting unbelievable with crisp particulars and sensible colors. The dynamic vary can be glorious. In tough lighting circumstances, whereas the viewfinder confirmed blown-out highlights generally, the finish outcome achieved after some computational pictures magic was good. Shadows had been hardly ever crushed and highlights remained completely uncovered in most photographs. The ultrawide digital camera additionally shone similarly however the foremost sensor undoubtedly had extra element, particularly at the edges of the photograph.
In low gentle, Google’s distinctive Night time Mode labored wonders – clicking images that you might barely inform aside from well-lit ones. In case you pixel-peep, you will notice some cases of grain but it surely’s minimal in comparison with the night time mode efficiency supplied by different mid-rangers and even some high-end telephones. Human tones are true to life with nice color copy, one thing that we battle to see on even high-end telephones.
Taken in Low Gentle with Night time Mode energetic
The 8 MP selfie digital camera additionally clicks some good footage with true-to-life colors and respectable element however they seem softer than the major sensor. Portrait mode on each the selfie and rear digital camera supplied nice images with strong edge detection, though at occasions, in harsh lighting, the blurring and edge detection did look a bit aggressive.
Add to this stellar efficiency Google’s enhancing options comparable to Face Unblur, Magic Eraser and extra, and also you get a dependable and well-rounded digital camera efficiency matched by virtually no cellphone at this value. The closest competitor with reference to pictures at this value is the iPhone SE 2022 however the Pixel 6a nonetheless clicks barely extra detailed and crisp footage. Video recording can be fairly good on the Pixel 6a with the cellphone supporting as much as 4K at 60 fps. You even get OIS to maintain movies trying clean. To see all the full decision digital camera samples, go to this Drive hyperlink.
Google Pixel 6a Assessment: Verdict
The Google Pixel 6a offers nothing wanting stellar efficiency in two areas – software program and digital camera. For the value, that is just about the greatest software program and digital camera expertise you may get. Add to {that a} clear and stylish design, reasonably highly effective {hardware} with Google’s Tensor chip, and nice battery life, and also you get a cellphone that proves to be a strong contender in the Indian smartphone market. Nonetheless, the cellphone does have some downfalls – what cellphone doesn’t? You may have a dated 60 Hz refresh fee panel, barely chunky bezels, some heating points, and meagre 18 W charging. Owing to this, the ₹43,999 price ticket could begin to really feel lower than affordable.
Google has marketed this cellphone as a mid-ranger, however its pricing makes it extra of a high-end machine in the Indian market, and at this value, the competitors is ferocious. You may have fast-charging monsters comparable to the OnePlus 10R, uniquely designed telephones comparable to the Nothing Cellphone (1), and energy beasts comparable to the iPhone SE 2022 or the Motorola Moto Edge 30 Professional. That’s when the Pixel 6a’s worth begins to crumble a tad bit. Nonetheless, this cellphone isn’t meant for an influence person or a function seeker – it’s meant for individuals who really take pleasure in the Pixel expertise and need a set of dependable shooters for each event. And for these people, it’s really a Pixel Good smartphone.
