The Pixel 9A at Star Wars Celebration

Out of Camera #5

This weekend saw Japan play host to Star Wars Celebration, the world’s biggest Star Wars fan convention. It was held at the cavernous and somewhat remote Makuhari Messe exhibition centre, which is also where Tokyo Game Show takes place every year. Big news at this year’s Celebration included the announcement of Star Wars: Starfighter, a new feature film for 2027 that’s directed by Shawn Levy and stars Ryan Gosling.

Honestly, conventions like this are usually not my thing — I’m really not the type to wake up early and brave the crowds to spend hours in line to possibly get into panels. But I am a Star Wars fan, and a friend had a spare pass going, so I figured it’d be fun to check out the ostensibly more chill final day. And it was! There was a lot of neat stuff to see, and it doubled as a useful test for how the new Pixel 9A would perform in the real world.

I wasn’t really aiming for photographic masterpieces here, not least because of the $500 9A’s modest hardware setup. But “take quick pictures of neat stuff” is a pretty important use case for any smartphone camera, so let’s see how it did.

Here’s what the Pixel 9A has on board:

• 25mm-equivalent lens with 48-megapixel 1/2" sensor and f/1.7 aperture

• 120-degree ultrawide lens with 13-megapixel 1/3.1” sensor and f/2.2 aperture

Yeah, that’s it.

Google hasn’t historically had to rely on hardware to achieve its signature Pixel look, though. As you’ll see, the 9A is recognisably a Pixel.