Pixel 3a (64GB) Phone (Unlocked) (NEW)

After several years of growing tired of my Samsung Galaxy work phones getting slower and more bloated with the Samsung UI, I was convinced by coworkers to go to a Pixel. I got the Pixel 3 XL and instantly loved it. Seconds, rather than minutes, to boot. A fast UI experience. Frequent and comprehensive OS updates that aren't lagging months behind the Android updates. A fantastic camera. What's not to love? Even though I refer to my Pixel 3 XL as my work phone, the truth is that I haven't had a personal phone in over a decade... who wants to carry two phones? Then again, there is something to be said about having a healthy work/life balance. With that in mind, I was curious when I heard about the 3a coming to the market... as much as I love the 3 XL, I can't say that I was super excited to spend $900 on a phone. When the 3a XL dropped below $300 (after the deal that gave you a $100 GC), it seemed like a no brainer. As someone that has both a 3XL and a 3a XL, here's what I can tell you: SCREEN Unlike the 3 XL, the 3a XL has no screen "notch". Where there are some parts of the UI that take advantage of the notch, there are just as many applications that leave an annoying color (non-black) artifact in the notch area when watching landscape full-screen video - it's SUPER annoying. The 3a XL's screen is slightly smaller than the 3 XL, and while it's also a little lower resolution, the density (as a result of the smaller diagonal measurement) doesn't drop that much. In general usage I don't notice any difference. The 3a's screen is OLED, but it appears to be a quality tier below the 3 XL's... you can see it if they are side-by-side, but you wouldn't notice it if you were going from memory. CAMERA Pixel phones are renown for their camera performance. While the raw specs tend to be behind other flagship phones' optics and CCDs, the actual picture quality tends to be at or near the top of the heap. The Pixel 3a XL is no different, as the rear camera is the same as the one on the 3 XL. The front camera (which I really don't care as much about) goes with a single, rather than a dual, camera setup. It's not the same as either front-facing camera on the Pixel 3 XL, but the software (which is largely responsible for the picture quality), is the same. Both cameras appear to be excellent. FORM FACTOR The Pixel 3a XL is slightly larger than the Pixel 3 XL. Some of it may be due to the notch-less screen causing the speaker and camera to be mounted above the screen. Some may be due to the larger capacity battery. Perhaps it's also influenced by the case material on the back being made of plastic, rather than glass. Regardless, the phone is about 10% lighter, which is enough to be noticable. An omission that I don't love is that the 3a XL does not support wireless chaging... it's not the end of the world, but it is missed. PERFORMANCE The 3a XL does have a significantly slower CPU than the 3 XL. The layout of both processors is to have 4 high speed cores, and 4 slower cores. The general idea is that the system workloads can be managed by the OS'es thread scheduler, and be placed on to the lowest power consuming core that is still adequate for the job. Both phones are fine with multitasking. I didn't actually notice any performance difference is the UI or in application speeds, but I also am not a mobile gamer... I would expect for the difference to be most obvious there (assuming there is one). I was a little surprised when the 3 XL came out with 4GB of RAM (since I didn't know if that would be enough), but that worked out well. The 3a XL has the same 4GB of RAM and therefore has similar performance. NOTABLE DIFFERENCES NOT ALEADY MENTIONED Oddly, the Pixel 3a XL has a headphone jack. That's noteworthy because the 3 XL does NOT have a headphone jack. I know there are some "purists" that are anti-bluetooth, but I'd say that a phone is not an audiophile platform anyway. Even if you have awesome $1500 headphones, I can still tell you that the DAC in your sub-170 gram phone is junk (comparatively). One of the really nice features of the Pixel 3 XL is that it's waterproof... the 3a XL is not. It's not a dealbreaker for me, but I can see where this would affect some peoples' choices. In conclusion, I thought the deal I got on Amazon when I bought my 3a XL was so good that I bought the phone without even knowing if I'd get a service plan for it. Now that the 3a XL is at its "normal" price I still think it's an incredible deal, and I really question anyone who would buy a different phone at this device's price point. Highly Recommended.