Google Pixel 7a hands-on review

Software and features

The Pixel 7a comes out of the box with Android 13. Being a Pixel device, we don't need to talk about any skins or wonky update schedules. Google says the phone will get 5 years of security updates and they should at the beginning of every month as they always do for Pixel phones.

The software experience is the bread and butter of Pixel phones and that's no different on the Pixel 7a. You are essentially getting the same software and feature set as on the more expensive Pixel phones. However, the experience here is different compared to most other Android phones, even those that have a close to 'stock' Android UI.

With Pixel phones, the focus has always been on a minimal, clean experience. Google is very judicious with how frequently it adds new features and elements to the UI and this can be a double-edged sword. If you are a fan of minimalism, you will appreciate the lack of overwhelming options presented by other manufacturers and also appreciate the sort of clean slate approach where you as the user can choose to manually add as many features as you want through third-party apps without Google forcing anything on you.

This is even seen in things like the apps that come pre-installed. You get a list of Google apps while setting up the device that you can choose to install. If you uncheck all of them, you get a very minimal app drawer with about 24 apps. This is the lowest you can get on an Android device as almost every other manufacturer crams as many apps as they can while also not giving you the option to remove most of them.

The other side of this sword is that some of the niceties we have come to expect from other devices are missing here. You get limited UI customizability so things like custom app icons, fonts, or themes are out of the question. You get split-screen multitasking but features like floating windows and side drawers for quick access to apps found on other phones are not present here. Even basic things like being able to uninstall multiple apps at once or press and hold on an app icon and get the uninstall option aren't present on the Pixel, forcing you to slowly and laboriously uninstall them.

Google Pixel UI

If you are into consuming media (and let's face it, who isn't?) then you won't find popular formats like Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos here. Instead, Google has chosen to go with the far less popular HDR10+ and its own spatial audio feature, the latter of which only really works in the Google TV app at the moment. And if you want to use wireless headphones, you may be disappointed to know that there is still no support for the increasingly popular LHDC codec. The Pixel phones also won't let you use passive audio adapters for using wired headphones, forcing you to invest in more expensive active USB DACs.

Even the fixed monthly software update schedule can be a frustration at times. If there is a particularly annoying bug other manufacturers can just push out an update overnight to fix it. With Google, you have to wait till the beginning of the next month for the earliest fix and even then the fix may not arrive. And let's not pretend that Pixel phones aren't super buggy at times, especially after launch.

This has always been the case with Google smartphones where they have always been behind the curve compared to other Android manufacturers. That was the cost you had to pay for the clean software design. But we now know that doesn't have to be the case. Companies like Motorola and Nothing have shown that you can do a clean, minimal 'stock' Android design while also having custom features and flourishing that neatly integrate within the Android UI/UX while adding additional functionality.

What Google excels at is services. The company is able to leverage its advancements in machine learning and AI to come up with some nifty features. This includes things like Call Screen which uses Google Assistant to answer calls from unknown numbers to filter out spammers, Direct My Call for navigating automated calling systems using a visual UI, Now Playing for identifying songs playing nearby even when offline, Top Shot for recommending a better shot when you take a slightly blurry one, Face Unblur, and more. These features remain exclusive to the Pixel series and Google often adds new ones through its Pixel Feature Drops.

Aside from that, Google also often has a more pragmatic and sensible approach to implementing features. There is a battery optimization feature but it never aggressively kills background apps to save power, the 90Hz refresh rate number isn't just for marketing and is something you can experience in most apps and games, HDR content actually looks like it should without the phone messing with it, and the camera doesn't automatically apply beauty filters to your face or the moon. These may seem like small things individually but they contribute to the overall experience.

So there is certainly a bit of give and take here and it all comes down to what you value the most in your smartphone. With the Pixel, you are getting a clean software experience but only at the cost of losing some built-in functionality that other manufacturers provide. We think there is room for a middle ground here between feature-rich but overly aggressive Android reskins and a clean but barebones Android experience, and companies like Motorola and Nothing seem to be on the right track at the moment. Google can certainly learn from that while maintaining everything that it currently does.

Performance

The Pixel 7a packs the same Tensor G2 chip as the more expensive Pixel 7 phones. It then combines that with an adequate 8GB of LPDDR5 memory and rather limiting 128GB of UFS 3.1 storage. There are no other memory and storage configurations available.

The presence of the Tensor G2 on the Pixel 7a makes a lot more sense than on the Pixel 7 Pro. The G2 isn't quite on the same level as the best that Qualcomm has to offer and was marketed more for its AI and machine learning capabilities rather than brute strength. That said, it is sufficiently powerful for the price class the Pixel 7a is in.

The Pixel 7a performs well for its class in benchmarks with especially strong GPU performance. However, the issues with the G2 lie outside of benchmarks. The G2 suffers from the same optimization issues that non-Qualcomm branded chips face, which is that developers usually don't optimize for this chip as the overwhelming majority of phones use Snapdragons. This results in less than satisfactory performance, where apps on the G2 can often stutter or struggle a bit compared to even slower Qualcomm chips.

The G2 is also a less efficient chip, meaning it consumes more power for the same amount of work and turns a lot of that into heat. The relatively small body of the Pixel 7a can't dissipate it fast enough so it throttles much more quickly than the larger Pixel 7 Pro. Even within a short 10-minute stress test, the Pixel 7a drops down to 80% of its performance, a number that's even lower if the ambient temperatures are higher. Compared to, say, the Snapdragon 778G+ on the Nothing Phone (1), a chip that is otherwise slower, the G2 loses more of its performance over time, causing it to get slower during the stress test than the 778G+, which is able to maintain its performance over a much longer period.

Google's AI and machine learning claims for the G2 are also nebulous at best. We can't compare how much better some of the Pixel features work on other phones since they are Pixel exclusive but even using the image editing features like portrait blur in the Google Photos app, the Nothing Phone (1) was able to apply the same effect faster than the Pixel 7a.

And since we are comparing it to the Phone (1), the Nothing phone almost always feels nicer to use than the Pixel 7a due to the 120Hz display and generally smoother scrolling performance. This isn't to say that the Pixel 7a is bad but the combination of 90Hz and occasional stuttering in apps drags down the user experience.

The thermal issues also crop up in gaming, where the Pixel 7a tends to heat up much quicker than its larger siblings, which results in throttling and the game dropping frames. If it gets too warm, the phone will eventually dim its display. This is also something that happens quite regularly while taking photos and videos with the phone for longer than a couple of minutes and makes it hard to see what you are shooting. The quality of image processing is also affected when the phone overheats, especially for digitally zoomed images.

AnTuTu 9

Higher is better

• OnePlus 11R 5G
  953897
• Motorola Edge 30 Fusion
  827929
• Google Pixel 7
  813114
• Xiaomi 12T
  780204
• Google Pixel 7a
  765281
• Google Pixel 6a
  712092
• Google Pixel 6
  676831
• OnePlus Nord 2T
  604467
• Nothing Phone (1)
  592789
• Xiaomi 13 Lite
  534143
• Realme 10 Pro+
  522376
• Galaxy A54
  506678
• Galaxy A52s 5G
  506432
• Galaxy A34
  472126
• Motorola Edge 30 Neo
  380818
• Moto G82
  380812

GeekBench 5 (multi-core)

Higher is better

• Xiaomi 12T
  3756
• OnePlus 11R 5G
  3608
• Motorola Edge 30 Fusion
  3458
• Google Pixel 7
  3288
• Google Pixel 7a
  3191
• Nothing Phone (1)
  3024
• Xiaomi 13 Lite
  2936
• Google Pixel 6
  2899
• Google Pixel 6a
  2876
• Galaxy A52s 5G
  2801
• OnePlus Nord 2T
  2790
• Galaxy A54
  2703
• Realme 10 Pro+
  2371
• Galaxy A34
  2316
• Moto G82
  1977
• Motorola Edge 30 Neo
  1964

GeekBench 5 (single-core)

Higher is better

• Motorola Edge 30 Fusion
  1073
• OnePlus 11R 5G
  1060
• Google Pixel 7a
  1051
• Google Pixel 7
  1051
• Google Pixel 6a
  1047
• Google Pixel 6
  1030
• Xiaomi 12T
  925
• Realme 10 Pro+
  842
• Nothing Phone (1)
  820
• Xiaomi 13 Lite
  795
• Galaxy A34
  781
• Galaxy A52s 5G
  771
• Galaxy A54
  770
• Moto G82
  671
• Motorola Edge 30 Neo
  670
• OnePlus Nord 2T
  491

GFX Aztek ES 3.1 High (onscreen)

Higher is better

• OnePlus 11R 5G
  52
• Google Pixel 7a
  50
• Google Pixel 7
  49
• Google Pixel 6a
  47
• Google Pixel 6
  46
• Motorola Edge 30 Fusion
  43
• OnePlus Nord 2T
  31
• Nothing Phone (1)
  23
• Xiaomi 13 Lite
  23
• Galaxy A52s 5G
  19
• Galaxy A54
  19
• Galaxy A34
  17
• Realme 10 Pro+
  16
• Moto G82
  12
• Motorola Edge 30 Neo
  12

GFX Aztek ES 3.1 High (offscreen 1440p)

Higher is better

• OnePlus 11R 5G
  47
• Google Pixel 7a
  32
• Google Pixel 7
  31
• Google Pixel 6
  30
• Google Pixel 6a
  29
• Motorola Edge 30 Fusion
  26
• OnePlus Nord 2T
  22
• Nothing Phone (1)
  15
• Xiaomi 13 Lite
  15
• Galaxy A52s 5G
  13
• Galaxy A54
  13
• Realme 10 Pro+
  11
• Galaxy A34
  11
• Moto G82
  7.9
• Motorola Edge 30 Neo
  7.8

In the end, the Tensor G2 on the Pixel 7a has good performance on paper for its class but its somewhat poor efficiency, inferior third-party optimization, and the phone's limited thermal headroom makes this phone best suited for non-power users.