Google Pixel 9a hands-on review

Software

The Pixel 9a runs on Android 15 out of the box. Being a Google smartphone, you will always be first in line when it comes to Android updates. Also, the good thing about Pixel devices is that you don't get updates any slower than the more expensive phones in the series, as you do on phones from other Android manufacturers. So even the Pixel 9a will get every update at the same time as the flagship Pixel 9 Pro Fold. And yes, the Pixel 9a will also get seven years of software updates from launch.

The software experience on the Pixel 9a is pretty much what you expect from a Google smartphone. The UI is clean and what one would ostensibly refer to as 'stock Android'. Google just adds its own apps into the mixture, many of which are optional while setting up the phone so you can have a relatively lean app list at launch, should you choose to skip all of them. There is some AI stuff here in the form of Gemini and the Pixel Studio app but the phone doesn't try to stuff it down your throat and even the Gemini app needs to be installed manually.

While it has come a long way, Google's software is still relatively light on features and customizability. If you like tweaking every aspect of your phone, you are not getting that here like you would on a OnePlus or Samsung phone. But this is still Android, so it's still a lot more customizable and flexible than an iPhone.

The software experience on our Pixel 9a running the latest April patch wasn't the most stable. There were some bugs and visual glitches along the way and some apps behaved oddly, such as the Camera app, which would just randomly start the self-timer even when there were no faces in the frame. Some other apps also misbehaved, such as WhatsApp not showing a background while viewing stories.

Still, it's not uncommon for a new Pixel smartphone to have a buggy software experience at launch. At least this time around there aren't any hardware issues to be found.

Performance

The Pixel 9a runs on the same Tensor G4 chip as all the other Pixel smartphones. It's paired with 8GB LPDDR5X memory and a choice of either 128GB or 256GB UFS 3.1 storage, although not every market gets both storage options. It's a shame that there isn't a higher 12GB memory option available, even on the 256GB variant.

The performance on the Pixel 9a is very good. The phone always feels sprightly and responsive with smooth animations. The only time you can feel a drop in performance is when you start skirting the limits of that 8GB memory, which is why it would have been nice to have at least an option to get more memory as standard.

Gaming performance is decent. The Tensor G4 has enough GPU grunt to power the 1080p resolution display on the Pixel 9a so most games are reasonably playable. There is support for high refresh rate gaming up to 120Hz but ultimately it's on the game to enable this, which most games don't.

The good thing about the Pixel 9a is that there aren't severe performance losses from thermal throttling after sustained use. This is a big improvement over the Pixel 9 and 9 Pro devices that we tested at launch, all of which exhibited severe throttling. Considering the Pixel 9a is using the same chipset, it seems Google has made significant changes to the throttling behavior without affecting performance.

Throttling tests