The Pixel 9a Is Arguably the Best Google Phone Yet
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The Good
- No camera bar
- Long battery life
- Gemini is actually usable
- Brighter screen
- Lightweight
The Bad- Tensor chip is still weak
- Camera is just OK
- Promised battery update might weaken battery life with age
Table of Contents
The Pixel 9a is Google’s latest budget phone, and yet, it’s a pretty significant departure from both the Pixel 8a and the Pixel 9. While the Pixel 8a was essentially the Pixel 8, but a little weaker and a little cheaper, the 9a feels more like a prototype of what we’re likely to see in the Pixel 10. There are a few reasons for that, from a larger battery to a lighter weight, but the first you’re likely to notice is that there’s no camera bar here. And if you’re like me, that alone might be enough to make this the Pixel to get.
The Pixel 9a is the best looking and feeling Google phone
I hate the Pixel line’s camera bar. Debuting in 2021 on the Pixel 6, this little horizontal home for the rear camera array literally sticks out like a sore thumb from the back of your phone. The eyesore, though small, makes it impossible to put your phone down flat on a table, harder to hold horizontally, and a little thicker in your pocket. Now, you can finally get a modern Google phone without one.
Yes, the Pixel 9a omits the camera bar, and it immediately became my favorite thing about this phone. Is it a more boring design? Sure. But it’s much more usable.
Rather than having your camera jut out from the back of your phone, the 9a's is instead much more like a Samsung Galaxy or even an iPhone here. The cameras sit in a small, nearly flush pill in the corner of your device. It’s out of the way when you don’t need it, so unlike prior devices, it never got in the way when placing the phone on my charging stand or when putting it in my pocket. It even made for an easier grip while gaming horizontally on my touchscreen, since I didn’t need to maneuver my fingers around it.
But as much as there are practical reasons to like this change, I do think it looks better, too. I like a unique phone design, but I prefer eccentricities to come from additional features, like foldability. Given that the rest of the smartphone landscape has gotten along fine without copying Google’s camera bar approach, it never felt necessary, instead making the Pixel look more like an odd one out than a glimpse into the future. That went double when you put a case on old Pixels, as they had to stretch the plastic around the camera bar in some pretty unappealing ways.
This one change is enough to make the 9a the best aesthetic Pixel experience to me, but luckily for Google, my praise doesn’t stop there. The Pixel 9a also carries on the wins from the Pixel 8a, like a matte back that rejects dust and doesn’t reflect light, and even a callback to the Pixel 8a’s beautiful blue “bay” color. I’m continually frustrated that Google swaps out color availability from generation to generation, since I really liked the blue on the Pixel 8a and was sad to see it go on the 9, but the 9a has a purple “Iris” option that’s close enough to the old blue for me, and perhaps even a bit better if you ask my husband. (You can also go with white, black, or the also intermittently used hot pink).
I’m not usually someone who puts a lot of stock into a phone’s aesthetics, but it’s easily the most noticeable thing about this phone, and it’s a great first impression. Considering that ditching the camera bar also makes this phone a little thinner and easier to handle, too, the new look makes a compelling case for the 9a on its own—potentially worth downgrading for, even, especially if the 10 doesn’t follow suit. It’s even lighter, too, at 6.6 oz as opposed to 7 oz.
Unexciting but reliable AI
With the camera bar gone, there’s not a lot immediately marking this phone as a Pixel. But aside from quirky aesthetics, Google’s phones also set themselves apart from the competition with a number of unique software features, many of which have started to be powered by AI.
That includes Live Transcribe, which can jot down a conversation as it happens, or the much vaunted Circle to Search, which lets you circle an object anywhere on your screen to immediately search for it, whether you’re in a browser or not.
The Pixel 9a continues to feature these software perks, but unlike prior phone launches, it doesn’t introduce any new ones, even any firsts for the budget line like the Pixel 8a did. What you can do here, you can also do on existing Pixel phones (and even some Samsung ones). These existing features work well—Circle to Search was a convenient way to grab some info about a flower in my local garden, and I didn’t see any slowdown with it—but the back-of-the-box features Google is flaunting here, like Magic Eraser, aren’t anything earth shattering.
And yet, I’d still have to give this phone a pretty strong grade when it comes to software. That’s because this is my first time using Gemini over Google Assistant where I didn’t greatly miss the latter.
Early last year, Google started teasing it would eventually replace Google Assistant with Gemini, and I’ve been dreading that moment ever since. In prior reviews, Assistant has been consistently better at the basics, like setting reminders and alarms, than Gemini. I don’t need to be able to say “Hey Google” to have AI give me a full Deep Research report (although it certainly can do that), but I do need it for kitchen timers and the like. It felt like Google’s priorities were fully out of whack with this threat of an “upgrade.”
Luckily, as of an update in late February, Gemini can now access your phone’s utilities, and while that’s not unique to the 9a, the 9a was my first time trying it. The AI assistant now had no issues setting timers or alarms for me, and for any tasks it couldn’t do directly, it helpfully gave me a button to take me to the settings menu to accomplish them myself (useful for turning on features like Live Transcribe, or even adjusting display or battery settings). Suddenly, it didn’t feel like a hindrance anymore, even if I'm still skeptical about actually using the AI bot for its intended purpose. At least this version runs locally for the small stuff.
While I still had Google Assistant as an option here, the company recently clarified that it’s going to remove your ability to use it later this year on most of its devices. Still not ideal—I did think Gemini’s responses to my basic queries were a little slower and a lot less personable than the Google Assistant—but my time with the Pixel 9a at least proved to me that I don’t have to dread the looming deadline as much as I once did.
We have to talk about Tensor
Unfortunately, here is where the other shoe drops for Google. I’ve been kinder about Tensor in the past, but without significant upgrades a few generations later, it’s time to say it: The Pixel 9a is, generally, a weak phone, even for a budget model. While it does use the same semi-custom Tensor G4 chip as the standard Pixel 9, that chip already failed to keep up, and it does even worse on the 9a, which is limited by having just 8GB of memory.
Let’s start off with some numbers. Running Geekbench 6’s CPU test, which synthetically assesses a number of scenarios like file compression and rendering PDFs, I got a single-core score of 1,682 and a multi-core score of 4,207. On the GPU test, which does the same for tasks like photo editing and gaming, I got a score of 7,772. Synthetic tests aren’t everything, but these results are telling.
The brand-new 9a is in the same ballpark as phones from around late 2022 or early 2023, with the 9a’s results putting it a little ahead of the Samsung Galaxy S22 but a little below the Galaxy S23. For iPhone users out there, it’s roughly comparable to the iPhone 11, although a little ahead of it in multi-core tasks and well behind it on the GPU.
In short, this new phone doesn’t exactly run like it’s new. That also extends to my results on 3DMark’s Wild Life Extreme benchmark, which tests how well the phone renders a virtual scene. I scored 2,648 here, which correlated to a paltry 15.86 fps that 3DMark said was better than only about 52% of results from other devices overall, and greatly behind flagships like the iPhone 15 Pro or OnePlus 12.
Granted, this is a budget phone, but it is running an identical chip to Google’s flagship, so one would hope it could hold up outside of Google’s own software experiences or light tasks like browsing, which I’ll admit do generally work fine.
At this point, some real world hands-on time is necessary. To stress test the Pixel 9a, I booted up the graphically demanding game Genshin Impact, running a couple of boss fights and doing some exploration across a number of settings. How well this worked out depends on how toasty you want your phone to get.
Technically, the Pixel 9a could run Genshin at its highest settings with a nearly solid 60 fps frame rate, but within the course of one boss fight, it was essentially too hot to touch. Dropping the settings to Low/60 fps didn’t sacrifice much on the graphics end, but only mildly helped out the heat, pushing me to try Lowest/60 fps. Here, the phone was finally mostly cool to the touch, but the game looked flat out ugly, with heavy pixelation. Low/45 ended up being a decent middle ground for me, still putting out enough heat for me to notice, but not quite enough to hurt my hands. Still, a gaming phone this is not.
None of this is so bad that it’s a dealbreaker, especially if you only do light work on your phone, or if you stick to Google’s own unique Pixel software, but know that if you don’t frequently use features like Magic Eraser, you’re paying more for less than what you’d get with a used phone that’s a few years old.
Now, Tensor is supposed to make up with its general weakness with AI prowess. Here, it stands better, but not great. I got a quantized score of 3,052 (CPU)/845 (GPU)/8,200 (NPU) on the Geekbench AI benchmark, which tests AI accuracy. That’s well below the iPhone 12, but only somewhat below the Galaxy S24, so at least Google holds up against fellow Androids.
With that, it’s clear that Google still has some work to do on its in-house chips, so Pixels might be best to avoid for now if you’re a power user. Other folks should get by just fine, so I’ll admit I might sound like a snob to people who only browse or use popular social media apps. But here’s hoping the reports that Google is building a fully custom chip for the Pixel 10 pay off, and that the company can shore up its issues with performance by then. It’s starting to feel a little unacceptable for what you’re paying when buying refurbished gets you more.
A beautiful screen and acceptable audio
Google proudly displays on its marketing material that the Pixel 9a is the brightest A-Series Pixel yet, and at 2,700 nits, that holds up. I was easily able to see the screen outdoors in the afternoon sun at less than 60% brightness, but there’s a bit more to like here.
The display is actually a little larger than the Pixel 8a, for one, coming in at 6.3-inches as opposed to 6.1-inches. It still has great contrast, thanks to its OLED “Actua” display, and it can hit a 120Hz refresh rate for a more responsive feel—quite a perk for a budget phone. That setting isn’t new and isn’t on by default—you’ll need to turn it on under Settings > Display > Smooth Display—but it’s still a generous deal compared to other budget devices like the iPhone 16e.
Sound, meanwhile, is just acceptable. You only have one speaker at the bottom of the phone here, so everything comes across a little muddled, although I’m not sure if it’s proper mono (it seems to still have a few channels active). Bass, then, was surprisingly not tinny, with thumps being properly audible in songs like "Blinding Lights" by The Weeknd. I could even feel them in the back of the phone.
No camera bar, but a good camera
Despite having much less space to work with, the Pixel 9a’s camera “pill” makes few compromises on the 8a’s camera bar, boasting a 48MP main sensor and 13MP ultrawide sensor that, thanks to slightly larger image sensors, end up looking at least on par with the 64MP/13MP loadout on the 8a (while not being quite up to the level of the Pixel 9’s 50MP/48MP setup). Colors did look a little different in the photos I took with each phone, but note that they were taken on different days.
Here are a few distant shots taken across both phones.
And here are a few shots that are a bit more mid-range.
Note that zooming to the 8x max isn’t great here, thanks to the lack of a telephoto lens, and selfies are only serviceable, given the 13MP front camera.
Close up shots, though, are pretty decent. That’s thanks to the inclusion of “macro focus,” a longtime Pixel feature that nonetheless skipped the 8a. This uses your ultrawide sensor to automatically adjust focus to help emphasize details on subjects less than five centimeters away. You’ll know it’s working if a flower icon shows up while you’re shooting (drag the flower to adjust the focus, or tap it to turn macro focus off for that shot). Here are a few examples.
There’s also “night sight,” which is essentially Google’s name for the post-processing it applies to brighten up photos taken in dark conditions. You can disable it by tapping the cog in the bottom left corner of the camera app, although I think it does make photos a bit more readable, even if the sky can wind up an uncanny shade of blue.
All in all, this isn’t a camera phone, but you won’t have to worry about casual Instagram or even work-related shots you take with it. Models, maybe look elsewhere.
Battery life that's so good I haven't finished testing it yet
Battery life on the Pixel 9a is promised at over 30 hours, which is a bump from the Pixel 8a and Pixel 9's 24 hours or more. In practice, I believe it. A bit of honesty: I actually haven’t drained this phone to 0% yet. The night before I started writing this review, I set it up to stream constant video at 50% brightness with no battery saving settings enabled until morning. The phone ran from 8:30 p.m. to 9:30 a.m. without dropping below 50%, and since I kinda needed it before it would finish the test, I called it there.
I’ll update with more complete numbers later, but that’s a great sign. Even under heavier stress like gaming and benchmarks, I only dropped about 15% in roughly 90 minutes of work.
There’s also fast charge, too, which the 8a lacked. The only caveat here: Google is actually apparently planning an update that will reduce your 9a’s battery life over time as it degrades, to try to help maintain its health. That’s not a terrible tradeoff, but the kicker is you won’t be able to turn it off if you’d rather risk it. But hey, at least the update isn’t exclusive to the Pixel 9a; it’s just starting with it.
Should you buy a Google Pixel 9a?
In a lot of ways, the Pixel 9a is the same story as other A-series Pixel phones. If you can put up with a slightly weaker camera, less brightness, and the typical Tensor-related performance deficit, it’s a good pick. It also beats what was a meager proposition at the 8a’s launch, since at $500, it’s much cheaper than the $650 that the Pixel 9 is currently running for at both Amazon and Best Buy. The 8a just didn’t offer that kind of deal compared to what the 8 went for back then.
But outside of being a good A-series phone, I also think it’s just a plain good phone, and an even better sign for the future. If the Pixel 10 borrows its sleeker, camera bar-less design, carries forward its improved battery life, and finally presents a Tensor chip that’s on par with the processors in iPhones and Galaxy phones, it might be the Android phone to get. In the meantime, the Pixel 9a at least makes a strong case for being the best Pixel, budget or not. It’s a little weaker, but so are all Pixels, and this one really stands out where Pixels already shine.
Michelle Ehrhardt is Lifehacker's Associate Tech Editor. She has been writing about tech and pop culture since 2014 and has edited for outlets including Gizmodo and Tom's Hardware.
