I have been contemplating getting a Google Pixel device since I have a Google ecosystem installed throughout my house. After using it for a while, I can confidently say that it's a fantastic device that offers a great balance of features and performance for the price and it easily fits in with all that I have going on from the google Chromebook to google home and all the smart devices connected. It feels right at home!First thing, set up was a breeze with just signing in with my google account and installing all my apps and settings seamlessly. The easiest transfer of apps and files I’ve ever had with a new phone. The phone is beautiful and feels good in hand. Not too big to overwhelm your hand holding for awhile but large enough with the 6.1 display to ... MoreI have been contemplating getting a Google Pixel device since I have a Google ecosystem installed throughout my house. After using it for a while, I can confidently say that it's a fantastic device that offers a great balance of features and performance for the price and it easily fits in with all that I have going on from the google Chromebook to google home and all the smart devices connected. It feels right at home!First thing, set up was a breeze with just signing in with my google account and installing all my apps and settings seamlessly. The easiest transfer of apps and files I’ve ever had with a new phone. The phone is beautiful and feels good in hand. Not too big to overwhelm your hand holding for awhile but large enough with the 6.1 display to comfortably view any photo, video or app. The screen is also made with scratch proof gorilla glass which seems pretty durable from me testing with light scratching as I didn’t want to go full out and ruin my new phone. The display is also upgraded to the 90Hz screen which looks beautiful. It's a subtle but noticeable improvement over the standard 60Hz screens found on most smartphones, making everything feel smoother and more fluid. Combined with the Google Tensor G2 sensor which is found on all the other higher end Google phones, this phone excels in photos, speed, and security provided with Google’s ever improving AI “Hey Google”. The phone security is pretty intuitive with an added duo biometric sign in (face recognition and fingerprint sensor). You can also use a pin if you choose. To tie up the security, Google offers their free VPN which is a nice touch.The front and rear cameras are both dynamic with a ton of features and settings that make every photo pop. Google Ai also does some automatic photo adjustments taking the guess work out of it. The low light or night sight feature is pretty decent once you get the hang of it for taking extremely low light photos. I do enjoy the super zoom which I will get a full test of at my daughter’s dance performance soon, however, some photos taken with the super zoom were a little grainy for my taste. But as I said, there are a ton of features and settings with the Google photos platform that may take some time to master.Moving on to battery life, battery easily lasts a full day of use with moderate to heavy usage. There is an Extreme Battery Saver setting that can extend life up to over a day or two. I used it pretty heavily the first day and still had battery left to spare. But in a pinch the phone allows for rapid charging, and I got a full charge with only 10% remaining battery in about 1 ½ hours. That is impressive for the size battery. In addition to fast charging, this phone has been upgraded with wireless charging.This is a convenient feature that's becoming more and more common on high-end smartphones, and the Pixel 7a is no exception. I found that it's fast and efficient, and it works seamlessly with compatible wireless charging pads. It's a small touch, but one that makes a big difference in day-to-day usage.The call quality is very good with clear voice, but I usually use some type of ear buds to make calls which I think negates the call feature built into the phone. Otherwise the phone does make clear calls.There are a ton more features that I am having fun exploring and learning with Google assistant.. All in all, I would highly recommend the Google Pixel 7a to anyone looking for a solid mid-range smartphone with excellent camera quality, wireless charging, good battery life, a smooth 90Hz screen, and more than adequate processing power. It's a well-rounded device that's definitely worth considering and is priced just right.

With the price of phones ever skyrocketing as the features and specs included continue to plateau, mid-range phones are an increasingly attractive prospect for all but the most extravagant of spenders.Keeping that in mind, the Google Pixel 7a is an excellent value proposition. Though it is, of course, a step down from the Pixel 7, the discounted price may be enough to offset the compromises buyers would be making and for those in the market for a mid-range versus high-end phone, the 7a is a no-brainer.Upon unboxing the phone, my first impressions are great. The packaging is minimal and there is no plastic, which is fantastic. Google seems to have leaned hard into angling towards sustainability in its approach with the 7a, as the 7a is also made of recycled ... MoreWith the price of phones ever skyrocketing as the features and specs included continue to plateau, mid-range phones are an increasingly attractive prospect for all but the most extravagant of spenders.Keeping that in mind, the Google Pixel 7a is an excellent value proposition. Though it is, of course, a step down from the Pixel 7, the discounted price may be enough to offset the compromises buyers would be making and for those in the market for a mid-range versus high-end phone, the 7a is a no-brainer.Upon unboxing the phone, my first impressions are great. The packaging is minimal and there is no plastic, which is fantastic. Google seems to have leaned hard into angling towards sustainability in its approach with the 7a, as the 7a is also made of recycled materials. There is no power brick, which is unfortunate but not unexpected at this point, and there is very little in the box — a SIM card removal tool, USB-C to USB-A adapter, and a USB-C to USB-C cable sit under the Pixel 7a itself.The color I received was the charcoal color, an understated black that there is little to say about. The back is made of plastic instead of the glass seen in higher-end flagships, but to my delight, the phone doesn't feel cheap or plastic-y. Clean, sleek, and even stylish: the 7a manages to look quite sophisticated, lacking the speckled look that recycled tech products often seem to have. Other colorways include snow (white), sea (light blue), and coral (a vivid orangey pink, the same hue as seen in Google's Nest devices).Using the phone is, generally, quite pleasant. I tested it for over a week and was happy to see that there were few bugs or issues in day-to-day use, which was not my experience with older Pixel devices (my last one being with a Pixel 3). When I did experience bugs, they were relatively minor ones like the phone freezing while switching between apps. I had no issues with Wi-Fi or Bluetooth connectivity either and Google's VPN worked surprisingly well, even with apps and sites that I fully expected to run into issues with, such as Netflix or banking sites. That said, I would like to see more functionality added to the VPN service, such as options for changing server location, but having a VPN so readily available is surprisingly useful when on the go and connecting to public networks. Battery life is great and aided further by the Adaptive Battery feature. For power-hungry users, the Extreme Battery Saver mode will likely be a life-saver but I found that I got through the day safely without needing to top up and with juice to spare.The phone itself feels snappy and the OLED screen is vivid and does an incredible job of pushing the colors. The Smooth Display setting enables a 90Hz refresh rate which is a neat option to have in helping animations and scrolling feel more fluid and smooth, but it comes at the cost of battery drain and I found the 60Hz default more than adequate for everyday use. Vanilla Android is smooth and the lack of bloatware is a breath of fresh air. Pixel phones also are in a fortunate position when it comes to security and software updates, being poised to receive security updates for a guaranteed five years and likely to receive software updates for a longer period than other Android flagships might. Speaking of security, the biometric security on the 7a is also a little more expansive than on other mid-range devices; offering both face unlock and fingerprint unlock is a great boon, and both unlock the phone quickly when activated.One area where this phone is truly unique is Google's AI features. Note that some of the photo editing tools are rolled out to Google Photos, which means that they can be used on any device, including non-Google and even non-Android devices. Still, I found that the photo editing tools were largely hit or miss for me; magic eraser and camouflage were neat in theory but I couldn't see myself using them to do things like remove entire people from a landscape like in the example photos used online. What I found far more interesting were the Pixel-exclusive AI features like the call features, live translation, and live caption, which I truly do think could be game-changers for how people use their phones (with a bit of polishing). Other AI features seemed to range wildly in real-world applications; At A Glance, for example, was pretty practically useful, but I found the AI-suggested apps to be a miss.Another area where Pixel phones shine is in photography. The Pixel 7a is great at photos and videos, especially in daylight. The 7a does lack a telephoto lens, meaning it relies on digital zoom for magnification. This does unfortunately have an impact on photo quality, especially past the 2x and 4x magnification point, but beyond that, the 7a does generally live up to the Pixel reputation of fantastic cameras.Sadly, however, the 7a is not a perfect phone. Some issues are fairly minor and easy to overlook. The plastic back, while sleek and pretty to look at, is a fingerprint magnet. Within minutes of handling it, it already looked greasy and was coated in fingerprints. The phone itself is large and heavy, especially as a woman with smaller hands, being larger and heavier than even some flagships. I also found it slightly annoying that occasionally, for whatever reason, biometric unlock wouldn't work and I would still be required to input my pin, which I haven't experienced with other devices. The placement of the fingerprint scanner on the screen also seemed suboptimal for my preferences; having it on the power button makes it more natural to use, though with face unlock as an option it becomes less of an issue.Some issues might be enough to make a person in the market for a new phone look to the Pixel 7 instead. For instance, while the speakers are decent and, being stereo, have a good amount of balance, they have mediocre audio quality at best and come off as tinny, particularly when listening to music. This can be almost painfully tinny when the volume is maxed out. The screen also gets fairly bright indoors and accordingly, I found that adaptive brightness worked brilliantly in indoor settings, but outdoors the brightness was middling, and I wished that there was just a bit more brightness to make using the phone outdoors easier. Charging is also abysmally slow, taking around 2 hours to reach a full charge from 0%; this is mitigated in part by having such a decent battery life that you likely won't need fast charging anyways, but it is still worth noting.Other issues are not exactly pressing enough to make one turn away from the Pixel 7a nor easy to overlook. One such issue is the "Real Tone" feature, which purports to help capture the skin tones of people of color "beautifully and accurately." I am Asian with medium-tanned skin and found that the camera sometimes struggled to do so with my skin tone, especially in low light conditions and most notably when using the front-facing/selfie camera, where it lightened my skin. The selfie camera also seemed to make selfies come out "soft" despite turning off face retouching. After fiddling with settings for a half hour, I couldn't seem to figure out how to make it stop lightening my skin or softening my photos taken with the front camera. The frustration and irony in the well-intentioned Real Tone feature not being able to manage not lightening a person of color's skin were not lost on me and although I loved the photos taken with the back camera, I can't help but feel some bitterness that I cannot for the life of me get the front-facing camera to take a photo of me that looks like me on a device that's supposed to "beautifully and authentically" reflect people of color's skin tones.Another issue is that the 7a runs noticeably hot with even light to moderate use, like browsing the web or taking photos, which does make me worry about its overall health and the battery's longevity. It never gets scalding and I haven't seen a notification that the phone is overheating yet, but I do worry that with more intense use such as video calls this will become a more pressing concern.Ultimately, the 7a performs well as a mid-range contender. There is nothing it does horribly at, and even areas where it excels. When compared to a Pixel 7, there are few reasons to shell out more for the 7 when the 7a holds its own so well. The issues the 7a does have aren't dealbreakers and are acceptable compromises in this category, or can be addressed through software updates in the future. It is also significant to note that in daily usage, there were more positives than drawbacks and that using the 7a was a largely enjoyable experience. I highly recommend giving the 7a a try, especially for the more casually oriented shutterbugs among ye.

Clean, sleek, and even stylish: the 7a manages to look quite sophisticated, lacking the speckled look that recycled tech products often seem to have. Other colorways include snow (white), sea (light blue), and coral (a vivid orangey pink, the same hue as seen in Google's Nest devices).Using the phone is, generally, quite pleasant. I tested it for over a week and was happy to see that there were few bugs or issues in day-to-day use, which was not my experience with older Pixel devices (my last one being with a Pixel 3). When I did experience bugs, they were relatively minor ones like the phone freezing while switching between apps. I had no issues with Wi-Fi or Bluetooth connectivity either and Google's VPN worked surprisingly well, even with apps and sites that I ... MoreClean, sleek, and even stylish: the 7a manages to look quite sophisticated, lacking the speckled look that recycled tech products often seem to have. Other colorways include snow (white), sea (light blue), and coral (a vivid orangey pink, the same hue as seen in Google's Nest devices).Using the phone is, generally, quite pleasant. I tested it for over a week and was happy to see that there were few bugs or issues in day-to-day use, which was not my experience with older Pixel devices (my last one being with a Pixel 3). When I did experience bugs, they were relatively minor ones like the phone freezing while switching between apps. I had no issues with Wi-Fi or Bluetooth connectivity either and Google's VPN worked surprisingly well, even with apps and sites that I fully expected to run into issues with, such as Netflix or banking sites. That said, I would like to see more functionality added to the VPN service, such as options for changing server location, but having a VPN so readily available is surprisingly useful when on the go and connecting to public networks. Battery life is great and aided further by the Adaptive Battery feature. For power-hungry users, the Extreme Battery Saver mode will likely be a life-saver but I found that I got through the day safely without needing to top up and with juice to spare.The phone itself feels snappy and the OLED screen is vivid and does an incredible job of pushing the colors. The Smooth Display setting enables a 90Hz refresh rate which is a neat option to have in helping animations and scrolling feel more fluid and smooth, but it comes at the cost of battery drain and I found the 60Hz default more than adequate for everyday use. Vanilla Android is smooth and the lack of bloatware is a breath of fresh air. Pixel phones also are in a fortunate position when it comes to security and software updates, being poised to receive security updates for a guaranteed five years and likely to receive software updates for a longer period than other Android flagships might. Speaking of security, the biometric security on the 7a is also a little more expansive than on other mid-range devices; offering both face unlock and fingerprint unlock is a great boon, and both unlock the phone quickly when activated.One area where this phone is truly unique is Google's AI features. Note that some of the photo editing tools are rolled out to Google Photos, which means that they can be used on any device, including non-Google and even non-Android devices. Still, I found that the photo editing tools were largely hit or miss for me; magic eraser and camouflage were neat in theory but I couldn't see myself using them to do things like remove entire people from a landscape like in the example photos used online. What I found far more interesting were the Pixel-exclusive AI features like the call features, live translation, and live caption, which I truly do think could be game-changers for how people use their phones (with a bit of polishing). Other AI features seemed to range wildly in real-world applications; At A Glance, for example, was pretty practically useful, but I found the AI-suggested apps to be a miss.Another area where Pixel phones shine is in photography. The Pixel 7a is great at photos and videos, especially in daylight. The 7a does lack a telephoto lens, meaning it relies on digital zoom for magnification. This does unfortunately have an impact on photo quality, especially past the 2x and 4x magnification point, but beyond that, the 7a does generally live up to the Pixel reputation of fantastic cameras.