There aren’t too many surprises with the Pixel 8A. The latest $500 Pixel follows Google’s A-series playbook in most of the ways you’d expect. But there are two main reasons why this is enough to make the 8A the best A-series Pixel yet.
The first is that over time, Google has been steadily reducing the feature gap between the A-series and its core Pixel line, adding things like extra camera lenses, wireless charging, and screens with faster refresh rates. That means the 8A is closer to the higher-end Pixel phones than ever before.
The second is that last year’s 8 and 8 Pro were easily the strongest, most refined Pixel phones that Google has put out to date. The 8A shares in that achievement.
The biggest difference between the Pixel 8A and the 8 is the cost of its components. You get a plastic back panel on the 8A, which I actually think looks and feels pretty good; it has a similar matte texture to the glass used on the 8 and 8 8 Pro. The trademark camera bar uses a brushed matte finish versus the polished aluminium on the higher-end phones.
Google has also made cutbacks in screen quality. The bezels are smaller than on the 7A, but they’re still pretty thick, especially on the phone’s bottom edge. The 6.1” 1080p OLED panel also exhibits noticeable colour shifting when viewed at slight angles, especially when displaying content on light backgrounds. (Dark mode does mitigate the effect somewhat.) This was also true of the 7 and 7A, and I didn’t see it mentioned in a lot of reviews, but it’s hard not to notice it if you’re picky about this kind of thing.
On the other hand, this is the first A-series Pixel with a 120Hz display, up from 90Hz on the 7A. Google has also increased the max brightness to a claimed peak of 2000 nits. I haven’t noticed the screen kicking into eye-searing levels outside, but it’s always been easily visible.
Overall, I dig the 8A’s design for what it is. Between the comfortable screen, the rounded edges, and the chunky bezels, it reminds me of the iPhones 11 and XR. It’s a phone that makes sensible tradeoffs while feeling coherent in its own right.
The Pixel 8A uses the same Tensor G3 system-on-chip as the 8 and 8 Pro. It has 8GB of RAM, matching the 8. For the first time on an A-series Pixel, there’s an option for 256GB of storage, which will cost you an extra $60 in the US over the 128GB base model.
The battery is 4492mAh, a couple percent larger than the 7A’s; in a pre-briefing with reporters, Google said to expect around 15% better endurance. “Fast” charging is still limited to 18W with a cable, and you can also charge wirelessly at 7.5W.
As far as these basic specs go, I think the 8A is a lot more competitive at $500 than the 8 Pro is at $1,000. The Tensor G3 chip doesn’t prioritise pure horsepower and gets left in the dust on benchmarks by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 3. On a mid-range phone, though, it’s more than acceptable.
I still use the Pixel 8 Pro a lot and generally find the Tensor G3 works fine, other than its clearly lagging performance in high-end games. It’s a much better platform than previous Tensor chips, which had major issues with efficiency and overheating. For everyday phone tasks, I’d consider the Tensor G3 to be a selling point more than a caveat in this price range.
The camera hardware is unchanged from the 7A. The main camera uses a 1/1.73” 64-megapixel sensor and an f/1.9 lens, and there’s also a 13-megapixel 1/3” f/2.2 ultrawide module.
Google famously has not placed a premium on cutting-edge camera hardware in the past, often managing to eke out significant year-to-year improvements through image signal processing and computational photography. The 8A definitely uses less expensive parts than the 8 and 8 Pro, but it hangs with them just fine.
Here are some side-by-side comparisons. 8A on the left, 8 Pro on the right.
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In this regular daylight snapshot, detail and colour tuning is basically identical across the two phones.
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It’s also hard to tell much difference between these two ultrawide shots.
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This is a slightly silly comparison, but I thought it was worth including because I was surprisingly impressed by the 8A’s digital zoom at up to 5x. The 8 Pro shot is way better, of course, but that’s because it has one of the best dedicated 5x telephoto cameras on the market.
![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_720,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F0ec4e5df-61b3-46fd-9b54-7db9dbf55ce2_4624x3472.jpeg)
![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_720,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F1c18358f-bd2d-4619-9095-aca519ecca44_4080x3072.jpeg)
Exposure remains consistent across the Pixel phones even in low-light scenes like this.
All in all, if you’re a fan of Google’s punchy Pixel look, the 8A does a great job of pulling it off. It wouldn’t be my first choice, but I can’t really fault this camera for the price.
The Pixel 8A also offers most of Google’s trademark Pixel camera software features, like Best Take, Photo Unblur, and Magic Editor. Action Pan remains exclusive to non-A phones, and Video Boost is still only on the 8 Pro, but that’s about it.
The same goes for the 8A’s overall software package. Features like Circle to Search and Live Translate, as well as Google’s ever-unbeatable voice recorder app, are legitimate differentiators for a device at this level. The Pixel line still runs my favourite version of Android, and the 8A delivers the full experience in all the ways that matter.
Google is also promising seven whole years of Android OS and security updates for the 8A, which will be very impressive if it actually happens. For comparison, the 7A is set to get three years of OS upgrades and five years of security updates from its launch. Seven years of OS updates is completely unprecedented for a mid-range phone, and I’d be surprised if there weren’t caveats like new features being limited to newer devices. Remind me to revisit this in 2031.
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As with previous generations, Google’s biggest competitor for the Pixel 8A is likely to be Google itself. The 8A is well-priced in a vacuum, but Google’s strategy of releasing the A-series phones half a year after the flagships often compromises the value proposition.
In the US, the Pixel 8 has already gone on sale at $550, just $50 more than the 8A’s launch price. Right now you’ll pay $200 more, but both phones will likely fluctuate in price until the Pixel 9 generation and beyond.
The extra cash for the Pixel 8 gets you a better quality display, a more premium build, faster wireless charging, and a theoretically better camera system that you’re unlikely to see much difference with in practice. Personally I would spring for the Pixel 8 even at the current pricing, mostly because the difference in screen quality is meaningful to me.
But I don’t think most people will care about that, and the 8A will eventually go on sale itself, so I don’t want to overthink the pricing here. If you want a Pixel and have a budget in mind, I’d recommend getting whichever one fits that budget at the time you need a new phone.
It’s really hard to knock the Pixel 8A. Corners have been cut, of course, but they don’t compromise what sets the Pixel experience apart.