I'm used to seeing big phones, so when I first came across the Pixel 4a, my first thought was: this is a pocket phone that is rarely seen now, it's small, moderately wide, and light in weight. It's neat and tidy for a phone of this size. sense. After lighting up and using it, there are not too interesting functions, but after using it for a while, you will find that the experience is comfortable, the program switching is very smooth, the AI assistance that appears from time to time can speed up the efficiency, and the camera with beautiful imaging may make you Forget you're using a midrange machine.

Because the mobile phone is very lightweight, if you want to buy another case, I would suggest buying a lightweight one to enjoy the advantages of its small mobile phone. …

The Pixel 4a has a rather plain and simple look, I personally like the BCX38A for its full screen, no protruding lens, fast and easy fingerprint recognition on the back, and a matte plastic back cover that doesn't slip, doesn't stick to fingerprints, and even It doesn't matter if you don't need a protective case. As for what I don't like, it should be the design of the earphone and the charging hole on one side. When the power bank and the earphone are plugged in to watch movies at the same time, it is quite cumbersome to have a line on one side. But my fault, I should have used a bluetooth headset...

There are some details like...

Unexpectedly, the Pixel 4a has dual speakers, the lower speaker and the earpiece are both speakers, and the volume of the earpiece is not small, not bad~

The Pixel 4a is the kind of dual-card with a single entity SIM+eSIM. The eSIM depends on whether the telecom operator can open it (there is little chance). In addition, it does not support memory cards, but it has a built-in 128GB capacity. As long as the photos and videos are set to be automatically backed up in Google Photos, and the photos in the device are regularly cleaned up, it should be enough.

In addition to 3 months of YouTube Premium qualifications, you also get 3 months of free Google One 100GB space with the purchase of Pixel 4a. Google Photos can back up unlimited photos in high quality (up to 16 million pixels / 1080p). If you want to back up at the original size with higher quality, you need to buy Google One space.

The mobile phone also has a "smart storage space" function, which automatically clears old photos and videos that have been backed up (to Google Photos) when the space is almost full to free up space.

Is the screen size okay?

The Pixel 4a screen is a 5.81-inch OLED, and most mobile phones are now more than 6 inches, so the Pixel 4a can be regarded as a handheld phone. As mentioned earlier, the advantage is that its size is very light and just right, but the disadvantage is of course that the field of vision is not wide enough.

For example, looking at maps, excel spreadsheets, or PDFs, presentation files, and comics that do not change their layout with the screen, I feel that there is not enough space. If you need productivity, you should find a mobile phone with a larger screen.

Or play some games with many elements on the screen, which is not suitable.

In addition, it is recommended to use a browser that can block advertisements, such as Opera, Samsung Browser, etc., otherwise the advertisement blocks that pop up or cut the content of the article will make the small screen appear crowded. There should be a display machine after the Taige gate market. If you are worried, you can find a larger store to have a look.

Aside from the size, the color displayed by the Pixel 4a is also good-looking, and it supports HDR10 model">HDR10 model">HDR10 model">HDR10 model">HDR10 model">HDR10 model">HDR10 model">HDR10 model">HDR10 model"> HDR10/ HLG format, can display HDR videos on YouTube. The resolution can reach FHD+ (1080x2340)/ 443ppi, which is a very good resolution with 5.8 inches.

Is the Pixel 4a single camera OK?

It's easy to sort through the Pixel 4a's camera specs because there's only one lens to check, just kidding.

Now that I see only one lens, I feel that the camera function seems to be weak, but based on Google's ability to write camera software, let's take a look at the performance. (But why do you have to frame a big square when there is only one...)

Pixel 4a is equipped with a 1220 -ic/" title="1220 model">1220-ic/" title="1220 model">1220-ic/" title="1220 model">1220-ic/" title="1220 Model">1220-ic/" title="Model 1220">1220-ic/" title="Model 1220">1220-ic/" title="Model 1220">1220-ic/" title="Model 1220" >1220-ic/" title="1220 model">12.2 million pixel camera, f1.7, supports dual-pixel autofocus which is not weak, also has OIS+EIS anti-shake, night mode, portrait mode, when taking pictures You can also apply the HDR+ algorithm to adjust the sharpness of bright and dark parts, shoot RAW files, and use the composite algorithm to achieve high-resolution zoom.

In terms of video recording, it supports 4K@30fps, anti-shake can be applied, and it also supports shooting 1080p/120fps slow motion and time-lapse. Without the ultra-wide-angle, the native zoom quality of the lens and the professional mode, the mode is not complete, but the mainstream night and portrait modes are missing. The camera interface is also very clean and direct. It’s the kind of simplicity where you only need to manage the composition and press the shutter, and leave the rest to the AI and Mr. Calculator in the back.

After taking a photo, there is a very useful "Social Sharing", you can choose the 3 most common photo sharing programs, click the photo immediately after taking the photo, you can share it directly, very good design.

outdoor, indoor

I personally like its hair color. The decoration highlights a bit of translucency, but it does not show craftsmanship. The kind that is balanced between the flattering and the natural is a little cooler than Samsung and iPhone. Clarity isn't terribly sharp, but it's good enough to see some details.

Brightness Contrast, HDR

In fact, the above photos have some traces of Live HDR. There is no HDR switch or prompt on the photo screen, but when shooting a backlit scene, you can see the effect of the brightness adjustment from the viewfinder screen. If you think the subject is still dark, it doesn't matter, it has "Double Exposure Adjustment", just like on the screen, after clicking the protagonist, you can adjust the brightness of the whole and the dark part separately, and brighten the backlight face again, which is also a very practical design. .

You can compare the effect of automatic adjustment and manual adjustment of double exposure. I think that HDR+ suppresses the highlights better than raising the shadows, so maybe it’s a function of double exposure adjustment.

High-resolution zoom and close-ups

The Pixel 4a does not have a telephoto lens, but Google uses combined continuous shooting and enhanced algorithm technology to make directly enlarged digital zoom photos with clearer clarity.

It can be up to 7x, here is a look at the results after 3x and 7x zoom, I can't say it will be the same as the 3x lens, but it must be much better than the general digital zoom, and it seems that it is still usable at 7x. I don't know if it's exclusive in mid-range phones, but....it's rare.

This high-resolution zoom can also be used for close-up shots. The normal focusing distance of the Pixel 4a is really not a close-up shot (the visual inspection exceeds 10 cm), so with the high-resolution zoom, you can still take some close-up shots. nitty gritty. This one is doubled.

night and night vision

Under normal street brightness, the Pixel 4a is adequate with automatic brightness, and noise reduction is clean, but the clarity is mediocre.

The effect of night vision can only be seen in very low light places. First, it increases the brightness, second, the image quality is sharper, and third, the color tone is maintained. However, on the whole, if it is under yellow light, the night vision can be photographed. There will be a slight bluish cast, but the degree is still natural. And I think it's a little bit rare that even though the brightness is up, you can still see that it's a night shot, rather than day or dusk.

Great effect, I expected the photo to be very bright, but the great thing is that the brightness is not overdone, it still retains the "you know this is a low light photo" feature, and even if the metering conditions are very poor, the original color of the thing It didn't run away and crooked, it was quite powerful.

portrait mode

The Pixel 4a also uses Dual-Pixel and machine learning to estimate depth, allowing a single lens to take photos with simulated depth of field, both people and non-people.

If the distance between the front and rear is obvious, the edge of the Pixel 4a is still good, and some minor holes will still be missed, but the overall atmosphere and effect are not bad.

But the built-in photo retouching program is... Google Photos' editing tool, very simple, you can adjust the blur level afterwards, but you can't beautify your face, if you want, download a third-party APP to repair it, I'm used to AirBrush. The program to repair the portrait, the function is complete and the effect is quite fine.

How a single lens can achieve the above functions, we have written a technical decryption of the Pixel camera before. If you are interested, you can refer back to it to understand why its single lens can do so many things.

So you don’t need to worry about its camera practicability and picture performance because the Pixel 4a only has a single lens, but it really can’t be helped if you can’t shoot ultra-wide-angle, and the lack of built-in professional mode for manual control of parameters is also a disadvantage.

Pixel 4a power test

Built-in 3140mAh battery, compared to other 5.8-inch mobile phones with similar resolution (such as iPhone 11 Pro, Galaxy S10e), the capacity is not small, but now many affordable phones will be equipped with large power as a selling point, Pixel 4a's The battery capacity appears to be quite satisfactory, but the actual power consumption is still more important.

Fix the screen brightness at 50%, connect to Wi-Fi (but with SIM inserted), and automatically adjust battery usage is enabled by default. This is reserved. To use these functions, record the power as follows.

The power consumption of daily functions seems to be normal. If you only use functions such as browsing, watching movies, etc., it is more than enough for a whole day.

But if you play games with more effects, it will consume power. When playing the game Real Racing 3, the track screen will keep changing with the progress. The brightness of the car body surface will also change when the car turns into a curve and receives light. It is a game with a busy screen. It will consume more power. In addition, when playing this game, the screen occasionally has a feeling of drawing in a small time, and maybe the Pixel 4a is not suitable for playing such games for a long time.

However, the mobile phone has a built-in "automatic adjustment of battery usage" function, which will learn your usage habits and turn off some background programs to save power. Usually, it will also prompt which APP is abnormally consuming power.

The Pixel 4a supports 18W fast charging, and the charger included in the package is also capable of such fast charging. I tried it, and it can be charged from 0 to 44% in half an hour, and it can be fully charged in 1 hour and 40 minutes.

Can the S730G perform well?

AnTuTu scored more than 270,000 points, which is higher than the average of this model.

In fact, the Snapdragon 730G is also an 8nm process/eight core/2.2GHz+1.8GHz chip. The numbers are not too bad. With 6GB RAM (LPDDR4x), there is no problem in daily use without closing the program. Since the trial, I have only encountered the problem that the screen is drawn after playing a racing game for an hour.

Generally, browsing, watching videos, editing pictures, and opening multiple APPs have no obvious impact, and it will be a little more difficult to play games with many screen changes. I think the Pixel 4a's concern isn't about performance, but about whether the app's screen layout fits its screen size.

Pixel 4a features

One of the advantages of Google mobile phones is that the same Google program or the functions provided are rarely different because they are mid-level or high-end, which is very different from other brands. So the Pixel 4a is still a phone that can fully enjoy Google services. For example, Google Assistant, Duo voice and video calls, privacy design, the latest version of OS and security updates will be provided for at least three years...etc.

There is a relatively new Google service called "Live Caption", which should be built-in in newer Android phones. Press the volume button to see the startup menu. This is very powerful. It will listen to and recognize the speech audio played by the mobile phone, such as videos, podcasts, audio files, etc., and convert them into subtitles for display. This currently only supports the recognition of English. Many YT videos will automatically recognize English subtitles. At present, I think this can be used for some "watching" English recordings, or Podcasts.

It can also be used to identify calls, including mobile phone calls, APP calls, video calls, etc. It can identify the content in real time during one-to-one calls, but it is currently limited to English.

Songs will not recognize subtitles, but in Settings - Sound Effects, there is a built-in "Listen to Voice Debate" function. After you turn it on, the phone will automatically recognize the music and display the song name and lead singer on the locked screen. But most of them can only recognize European and American songs, Chinese songs are still not very good... It seems to be like this for a few years... Orz... is it native?

It may be a kind of interface that people love and hate, but after all, native Android has absorbed the advantages of other manufacturers’ ROMs from generation to generation, and imported AI that gets smarter and smarter. You feel that it is much worse than the custom ROM, and it is really smooth to click to open or switch.

But one thing I don't like is that there is no built-in game launcher and other functions. The integration of functions such as do not disturb, performance acceleration, recording commentary, hanging up... is not very friendly when playing games.

In addition, it does not provide long screenshots, batch sorting procedures, fast transfer between devices, etc. other common ROM utilities.

Epilogue

The selling point of the Pixel 4a is that it is affordable (11,990 yuan) and powerful.

It is true that the price is affordable, and if it is powerful, it is not comprehensive. I think it is better to say that it has a camera that is beyond the imagination of a mid-range machine and has a smooth operation. The Pixle 4a is highly focused on Google services, and if you're heavily using Google programs on other phones, it's pretty powerful for you.

In the past, when Android users wanted a small mobile phone, they just waited for SONY. Now, SONY does not produce Compact mobile phones anymore, which makes Pixel 4a one of the few Compact works in Android. (but not waterproof...Orz)

Although everyone compares it with the iPhone SE2, the major premise of the operating system determines which one you will choose. I don't think that consumers will have a hard time choosing between the two, but it is mostly the price. Similar, but compared with Realme, which offers a variety of specifications and combinations, you may not know which one to choose.

I personally think, first consider whether you have brand and processor preferences. If not, then look at which screen size you prefer. If the screen size is not the point, then think about your photography needs, game needs, and whether you attach great importance to it. Vendor update frequency...etc.

The Pixel 4a’s camera suffers from the lack of an ultra-wide-angle, but the portrait and night shooting are not inferior, and the video anti-shake performance is also good, and it is practical for filming.

In addition, the Pixel 4a supports 3CA and has dual speakers, which should be relatively rare in realme models. It is guaranteed to be updated for three years, and the durability and stability feel more guaranteed.

But Pixel 4a also has physical dual card dual standby, fast charging is not very fast... and so on.