Google Pixel 8a hands-on review

Software

The Pixel 8a ships with the latest Android 14 out of the box. As with other recent Pixel launches, the Pixel 8a is claimed to get 7 years of software updates from the day of its release.

The software experience here is par for the course for a Google smartphone. You get by far the cleanest version of Android out of the box with no third-party bloatware pre-installed (just Google's own). There's also no UI customization done nor are there any built-in options for the user to do so. If that's your jam then you may be served better by a different brand.

Of course, not everyone is interested in that and there has always been a set of users who are fans of Android's stock appearance, so much so that it became a selling point of select other manufacturers. However, even though brands like Nothing or Motorola may offer near-stock UI, they have their own customizations with additional options for the users, something Google does not do.

What Google does is offer a suite of software features exclusive to Pixel devices that enhance usability. Features like Call Screen, Direct My Call, and Hold For Me can vastly improve your phone call experience by screening spammers and making interacting with automated systems easier. The new Circle to Search makes it easy to search for something on the screen by simply drawing a circle around it. Then there are camera features like Best Take, Magic Editor, and Audio Magic Eraser, along with Top Shot and Astrophotography mode. All of these help the Pixel phones stand out among other Android devices.

But perhaps the best feature of Pixel phones is the monthly software updates. This is something only Google does as every month, like clockwork, there is a new update for your phone. And while it may vary in terms of the changes it brings (most are just security updates), every now and then the company will do a Pixel feature drop, which adds a bunch of new stuff for the device.

This, along with the seven-year promise, make the Pixel devices some of the best-supported smartphones on the market. And none of this changes with the Pixel 8a, as despite it being the cheapest of the series, gets the same level of support as the more expensive models.

Performance

The Pixel 8a runs on the new Google Tensor G3 chip. It comes with 8GB of LPDDR4X memory and either 128GB or 256GB of UFS 3.1 storage. These specs are identical to what you get on the more expensive Pixel 8, with only the Pro model getting 12GB of memory.

In terms of performance, the Pixel 8a feels adequate most of the time. That may not seem like high praise and truth be told, it isn't. That's because the performance tends to vary a bit and isn't uniformly good or bad.

Take scrolling, for example. At times, the phone scrolls very smoothly and is a pleasure to use. Other times, there is a persistent stutter every time you scroll due to frame drops every second or so, which can be distracting. The same goes for UI responsiveness; sometimes things open very quickly and other times there is a noticeable delay when you do something.

A lot of this comes down to optimization. At times you could be scrolling in the Google Play Store and find it to be noticeably choppy. It's odd to think that the app, the OS, the chip, and the phone are made by the same company because we have had better experiences on other devices where all of those aforementioned things are made by different companies.

This can also be true of third-party apps where the developer hasn't fully tuned the performance for Tensor chips as Snapdragon devices are far and away the most popular option on the market. And, as mentioned in the Display section, most games also don't support high refresh rate gaming on the Pixel phones, even though the devices themselves don't set any limits.

There's also the issue of thermal management. The Tensor chips tend to run warm and this isn't ideal for those living in warmer climates. In a country like India with persistent 40°+ Celsius summers, the Pixel 8a just runs perpetually warm even when doing basic tasks. The phone doesn't have a lot of thermal headroom, which affects performance when used outdoors. While this may seem like a harsh test environment, it's not a problem shared by all devices.

Gaming performance on the Pixel 8a is decent. Most games we tested ran fine but they were also often running at just 30fps, which the device is perfectly capable of handling.