I was convinced that I couldn’t live without high-end Android. Until this phone convinced me otherwise

You don’t have to spend a fortune to have a mobile phone that can do it all

I’m a bit of a user strange regarding mobile phone. I edit videos for social networks for professional purposes, blocks of photos in .DNG format, I like to watch TV series on my own phone, I play more retro emulators than on my native console… In short, active user mobile at its best.

This means that historically the mid-range has been something I have systematically avoided. I am categorically against less powerful processors, slow memory and the concept of a phone that starts to slow down after two or three years due to lack of resources.

Looking at the market, there was little or nothing to convince me beyond the highest range. Until I tried the Pixel 8a.

Seven years of updates. A mobile phone that has been updated for more years than the high-end itself. It’s not just that the phone is made by Google: it owes everything to its processor. Low- and mid-range chips typically don’t stand the test of time, and manufacturers can’t commit to upgrades for years to come.

There’s no guarantee that this Pixel, which doesn’t have the fastest memory on the market, will age within 6 or 7 years. However, the company is already telling us that it will pay special attention to its support.

The power that gives me peace of mind, I don’t need more. I don’t need the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3. But I know full well that I can’t live with the Snapdragon 7 Gen 3, at least for the purposes I give the phone. The processor is the heart of a mobile phone, and in the first months everything usually works perfectly.

As months and years pass, upgrades and the system begin to weigh down and components degrade, so the extra power is appreciated. Absolutely no one needs, objectively, a car with a power of 180 hp. When you have one and want to beat it on a hill climb, you thank yourself for buying it.

Nits are starting to go mainstream. I’m tired of the promises of absurd nit peaks that only reach minimal portions of the screen. In fact, this week we saw some terminal launch with a peak brightness of 4000 nits and an HBM (maximum panel brightness with 100% pixels on) of just over 1000 nits.

The Pixel 8a promises 2,000 nits on a 5% panel, but the actual maximum brightness is 1,600 nits, which is nearly double the brightness of its competitors in the mid-high range. You might not know how bad mid-range devices typically look under bright sunlight, but when you compare this phone to the rest (it glows just like the Pixel 8), it’s a before and after.

Cameras do not require additional equipment. Another thing that struck me about the Pixel 8a is that it proves that you don’t need endless megapixels or multiple cameras to achieve an ambitious goal. Featuring a conventional sensor and ultra-wide viewing angle, it delivers better results than the vast majority of its direct competitors.

It’s all about the software: the way Google processes images. This is not the most realistic option, but it is the one that attracts the most attention in the upper range with its look. On a 1000 euro mobile phone I’m quite picky about realism, but at medium distances I want the photo to be (above all) consistent and balanced. This is one of the few devices that succeeded.

Image | Hataka

In Hatak | This is the Google Pixel I’d buy right now: it offers great performance and a compact size for a ridiculous price.