Google Pixel 9a hands-on review

Design

The Pixel 9a follows the strategy of its predecessors in emulating the design blueprint of the more expensive Pixel models of that generation. However, in this generation, there is an added twist that was missing in the previous models.

Starting with the basic shape, the Pixel 9a follows the more expensive Pixel 9 to a T. The front glass, which used to be ever so slightly curved at one point, is now completely flat. The aluminum frame meets the glass at sharp right angles while also being uniformly flat. Similarly, the back panel has been ironed out to complete the look.

The twist comes in the form of the missing visor, which has been a mainstay of the Pixel design since the Pixel 6 generation. While the design was streamlined considerably for the Pixel 9 generation, the Pixel 9a does away with it completely in favor of a nearly flush camera glass that only vaguely resembles the look of the more expensive models.

The result is a design that is somewhat bland and unexciting. The camera glass, in its bid to reference the other Pixel 9 devices, looks awkward without the accompanying frame. The upside to this blandness is that the back of the phone is also almost completely flat. This is rare to see on phones these days as even phones with a single camera on the back tend to have a camera bump for some reason. The tiny lip on the camera glass doesn't register when you place the phone on its back and it lies completely flat with no tilt or wobble.

Going around the design, there is yet another interesting design choice for the Pixel 9a, which is unconventional for Google. The bottom loudspeaker is placed on the right instead of the left, which is how Google usually tends to do things. This means when you hold the phone in landscape mode, you don't cover the speaker with your right hand.

On the other hand, the volume and power buttons are still placed in an inverted fashion compared to almost every other camera brand, which can be annoying if you have just switched over from another phone.

The Pixel 9a's build quality is mixed. On the front, it has Corning Gorilla Glass 3, which is adequate but also over a decade old and has seen multiple successors. The back panel is just straight-up plastic, which is par for the course for an A-series device. However, at this point, you expect Google to perhaps shake some couch cushions and find enough change to cough up for a glass back like every other phone in this price range.

The plastic panel has a smooth matte texture, which might just fool some people into thinking it's glass. However, it's a thin sheet of plastic, which sinks ever so slightly every time you press on it. The back also gets covered in smudges, which were completely invisible on our white unit but painfully apparent on the black unit.

On the upside, the Pixel 9a has an IP68 rating, which is an improvement over the IP67 found on the Pixel 8a.

Pixel 9a (left) next to the OnePlus 13R (right)

In terms of size, the Pixel 9a is slightly larger in every dimension than the wonderfully compact Pixel 9. While we would hesitate to call the Pixel 9a big, we would also hesitate to call it small. It is, however, smaller than most other Android phones on the market today, especially at its price point.

Display

The Pixel 9a has a 6.3-inch, 2424x1080 resolution pOLED display. This panel has nearly identical specs to the one on the Pixel 9 but it's not clear if the two panels are actually the same. Compared to the Pixel 8a, the Pixel 9a display is bigger, brighter, and slightly higher resolution.

Before getting into the display, it's worth addressing the elephant in the room, which is the elephant-sized bezels. This has almost become a meme at this point with the Pixel A-series devices and had it not been for the existence of calipers we might actually think Google just keeps making them thicker every year to keep the gag running. But no, they are the same 4mm thick on the sides as they were last year and instead of the bottom bezel being significantly thicker, it's only about half a millimeter thicker than the sides and the same thickness as the top bezel. This is not a significant difference so it just looks like the phone has uniformly thick bezels on all sides.

But once you peer through the photo-frame-sized bezels and spot the display within, you realize that it's actually a very good panel. The color accuracy is great and the display gets reasonably bright outdoors and while watching HDR content. Too bad there is no Dolby Vision support, as is the case with every Pixel device, which relegates you to the outdated HDR10 standard on most HDR content out there.

The display also has a built-in optical fingerprint scanner. This is neither as fast nor as accurate as the ultrasonic scanner found on the more expensive Pixel 9 models but is still usable. However, it's both easier and faster to use face unlock so it's worth setting that up even if you have fingerprints enrolled.

Charging speed

The Pixel 9a supports up to 23W USB-PD fast charging and up to 7.5W Qi-wireless charging. Since the phone doesn't come with a charger, we had to source one ourselves for testing. We used a mostly overkill 65W unit that we had lying around but you can easily go with a 30W or even a 20W unit and not see much difference in charging speed.

And the reason for that is the rather abysmal rate at which the Pixel 9a charges. The phone takes over an hour and a half to show a 100% charge rate and over two hours for a true complete charge. This is not a phone you charge in a hurry and if you're charging overnight anyway you don't need to be fussy about what type of charger you're using.

The silver lining is that at least the battery life is good. While we didn't do a full battery life test, the phone could easily last a couple of days on a single charge while doing basic calling, messaging, and doom scrolling tasks.

Speakers

The Pixel 9a has a set of stereo speakers on either side. In terms of sheer volume, the speakers get reasonably loud. As usual, Google uses a weirdly exponential volume control, which barely makes a difference in the first 70-odd percent of its length and then suddenly makes massive leaps in volume in the remaining 30 percent. It's the same as the display brightness slider and it's not clear why the company does things this way when everyone else uses a linear slider.

In terms of audio quality, the sound is quite bright, with a focus on the mid and upper frequencies. However, the low-end is mostly absent, which makes the sound somewhat one-dimensional and not especially suitable for music. At the very least, the sound doesn't change noticeably throughout the volume range nor is there any distortion at higher volumes.

As an aside, the phone also offers haptic feedback. However, the response doesn't feel as precise and tactile as on the more expensive Pixel models.