Google Pixel 9a review: The Energizer Pixel

The Google Pixel 9a had a rocky start. A "component quality issue" delayed its launch by weeks, and early reports about an outdated Exynos modem and limited Gemini Nano tools raised concerns that it would fall short of the A-series' usual quality.

That's why I focused my Pixel 9a review period on stress-testing its apparent weak points. I tested the modem's performance and drain in remote areas, put Gemini through its paces, and checked for any Tensor performance issues with overheating.

My ultimate perspective? The Pixel 9a has kept up the A-series legacy as a solid value flagship. I did notice compromises in terms of camera quality and long-term AI viability, but they're reasonable cutbacks that only power users won't accept.

And the revamped Pixel 9a battery life is good enough to even make Pixel 9 and Pixel 9 Pro owners jealous.

Michael Hicks

Proud owner of the Pixel 9, 9a, 8a, and 6, Michael has used Google phones for years, along with iPhones and Galaxy phones, and knows what features readers would want him to test.

Google Pixel 9a: Price and availability

After a delayed launch, the Google Pixel 9a arrived April 10 at the Google Store, carrier sites, and retailers like Best Buy. The 8 GB/128 GB variant costs $499 / £499 / €549 / CA$679; the 8GB/256GB model costs $599 / £599 / €649 / CA$809 / Rs 49,999.

As with most Pixel A-series phones, the Google Pixel 9a has the same processor, display, and storage as the mainline Pixel 9 but with other cutbacks. If the Pixel 9a vs. Pixel 9 differences are too stark, look into an upgrade.

Google Pixel 9a: Specs

Google Pixel 9a: Design

• The Pixel 9a is uniformly thick, replacing the camera bar with a teardrop sensor.
• It's water-resistant but weakly protected against scratches.

The Pixel 9a has the same machine-cut, flat-sided aesthetic as most Android phones and iPhones these days. Its only claim to fame is the ultra-slim, teardrop camera sensor that's a bit too subtle, squeezed into the corner of a flat, matte slab.

The classic Pixel camera bar catches on pockets but steadies your phone on flat surfaces. Thankfully, the left-aligned 9a sensor is so thin that it prevents any wobbling. It's easy to browse and tap the 9a on a desk or wireless charger, and it's much simpler to slide it into my jeans pocket.

Google justified removing its trademark camera bar by explaining it was necessary to "eliminate battery anxiety" with more capacity and make the 9a vapor chamber larger for better thermals.

This naturally made the 9a thicker, so they had to slim down the display and camera sensors to keep it at the same 8.9mm thickness as the Pixel 8a. Frankly, that's not very slim, but the 8a has softer edges to ease the grip a bit.

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Removing the camera bar was the right decision: Battery life is the trademark feature the 9a needed, the cooling chamber seems to be effective for performance, and it offsets the extra weight. The trade-off is that the thicker grip takes some getting used to.

Still, it's lighter and easier to hold than most 6.7-inch budget phones; the 9a isn't a "small phone," but it falls into a decent sweet spot.

I also appreciate that the Pixel 9a has IP68 dust and water resistance, a slight bump over last year's IP67 standard. Unfortunately, Google stuck with Gorilla Glass 3 for protection, saving Victus 2 for the mainline Pixel 9s. I don't have any scratches yet, but it's only a matter of time without a screen protector.

Caseless daredevils will enjoy the Pixel 9a's matte finish that doesn't show fingerprints (at least on my Porcelain model). I also appreciated that the volume rocker and power button have a more subtle click than the Pixel 8a when pressed.

Google Pixel 9a: Display

• The display matches the Pixel 9's for size, brightness, refresh rate, and resolution.
• It's much brighter than most cheap and mid-range phones.

Google essentially transplanted the Pixel 9 display onto the Pixel 9a. You get the same 6.3-inch size, FHD resolution, non-LTPO 120Hz refresh rate, and up to 2,700 nits of brightness outdoors or 1,800 nits with HDR.

Practically speaking, no phone hits its peak brightness score without manipulated conditions. However, that 1,800 high-brightness mode (HBM) score is legitimate: the 9a is comfortably readable with decent color saturation in direct California sunlight, while the Pixel 8a (1,400 nits) is dimmer and less pleasant to use outdoors.

Compare the Pixel 9a against the OnePlus 13R (1,600 nits HBM) or Galaxy A56 (1,200), and it's clearly the best mid-range phone for the outdoors.

Despite the 9a's tradeoffs in other areas, it's visually uncompromised from the Pixel 9 — except for its lesser Gorilla Glass protection, slightly thicker black border, and 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio. I watched vivid YouTube nature videos side by side on the Pixel 9 and 9a, and I couldn't see any clear difference in color accuracy or contrast.

The 9a fingerprint sensor has been speedy and responsive, with no failed readings after several months. My colleague Brady's first 9a review unit had fingerprint problems due to an isolated hardware issue; however, a replacement unit resolved this issue.

Unless you're used to QHD+ resolution or have PWM sensitivity, you should love the Pixel 9a display experience. Just be ready to buy a screen protector.

Google Pixel 9a: Hardware and performance

• Its Tensor G4 performance matches 9 and 9 Pro in many benchmarks, though short for some thanks to lower RAM.
• Lower memory also restricts on-device Gemini Nano tricks.

The classic A-series appeal is getting a "flagship" chip in a mid-range phone. Tensor chips have fallen behind top-tier Snapdragon and Dimensity chips for raw power — though the TSMC-made G5 may change that — but the Tensor G4 feels like a much better fit for a $499 phone than a $999 Pixel 9 Pro.

Past A-series phones had slight Tensor differences, such as worse thermals, which impacted performance; that's not the case with the Pixel 9a.

Its thicker redesign incorporates proper vapor cooling, which pays off in the benchmarks: the Pixel 9a is the slowest of the three phones, but by a very slim margin, and its graphical performance is right in the mix, despite having 4–8GB less RAM.

This year's Snapdragon flagships may surpass the Pixel 9 and 9 Pro, but when it comes to mid-range phones, the Tensor G4 easily outperforms the competition in browsing, gaming, and AI.

My colleagues resented that the Pixel 9 & 9 Pro default to 128GB UFS 3.1 storage, with no UFS 4.0 option for faster data transfer and game loading. That's a fair complaint for flagships, but this storage level is a reasonable default for mid-tier phones.

Otherwise, the hardware perks I've liked on other Pixels apply here, particularly the subtle but strong haptics and fairly rich stereo sound whenever I'm not using wireless earbuds.

In terms of specific 9a downgrades, the 8GB of memory has little noticeable impact on day-to-day browsing or Android gaming, aside from some occasional lag while editing photos. However, it does restrict a few Gemini Nano-powered features that require on-device AI, which I'll address in the software section.

You also get Wi-Fi 6e, though the 9a adds more antennas with 2x2 MIMO. Whether I used wireless or cellular over the Exynos modem, I didn't notice any connectivity issues, dropped calls, or slow downloads over Google Fi. Your mileage may vary based on your network and region; if you're concerned, consider getting a Pixel 9 with Wi-Fi 7 and a newer modem.

Google Pixel 9a: Battery life & charging

• Battery life is Pixel 9a's greatest strength, lasting over a day with heavy use and two days with light use.
• Slow charging speed is a weakness, especially wireless charging.

Battery life is the star of the Pixel 9a show. Google estimates 30+ hours, a 6-hour boost over the 8a. We called last year's A-series "disappointing" for battery life, while the Pixel 9a easily lasts a day with 120Hz toggled, heavy gaming, streaming, camera, and AI use, with juice to spare.

Both Brady and I found that we could stretch the 9a to two days with more casual use and decent standby battery life. And my colleague Harish raved that it gives the "best battery longevity of any Pixel I've used in the last nine years," with an average of 1.5 days with heavy use.

Many other budget phones have 5,000mAh+ capacity but much larger displays and less efficient chipsets than the Tensor G4, so they're more likely to need daily charging. The Pixel 9a might be a sleeper pick for people who'd normally buy the Moto G Power 2025 or other big battery phones.

The Pixel 9a's longevity mitigates its problem with slow 23W charging. Because it'll easily last a full day and night with capacity to spare, it might not matter that it takes about 20 minutes to hit 25%, 46 minutes to 50%, or 105 minutes to hit 100% with a 30W charger. Pixel 9 charging is barely any faster, so you're not missing out on anything.

I rarely use wireless charging, but let's be frank: at 7.5W, it's only suited for overnight charging where speed doesn't matter. Otherwise, it's so slow as to be almost pointless.

Google Pixel 9a: Software and Gemini

• You get wide range of Gemini text and image generation tools.
• Current and future on-device AI tools are restricted thanks to lower memory.

Let's get the obvious stuff out of the way: the Pixel 9a gets seven years of OS updates and security patches, leaving behind most mid-range phones with two or three OS versions at most.

The Pixel 9a uses stock Android 15, with all of the Pixel touches you're used to. It's been an entirely normal experience, but I must acknowledge Google's... spotty track record with Pixel Drops that introduce performance issues. The current patch is great, but long-term A-series buyers should be prepared for occasional issues.

Gemini is the star of the show. When I put my Pixel 9 and 9a side-by-side and had them perform AI tasks, the 9a was identically speedy and proficient.

Gemini 2.0 Flash described fun manatee facts and the history of pizza-making. Magic Editor added fun backgrounds to boring selfies. Pixel Studio generated silly Android mascot images. And I held conversations with Gemini Live. There wasn't any noticeable difference.

In terms of new features over the Pixel 8a, Google gave the 9a support for Add Me, Astrophotography, and Macro Focus, helping you take better photos. I was even able to try the new Advanced Live video streaming feature on the 9a.

That said, the Pixel 9a has a slightly watered-down version of Gemini Nano for on-device AI tasks, thanks to its 8GB of RAM.

That means no access to Pixel Screenshots or Call Notes, nor any future Nano-powered AI tricks introduced on the Pixel 10 series. That won't bother casual users who mostly use Gemini like Google Search, but power users will resent their absence.

Google Pixel 9a: Cameras

• Google's post-processing helps 9a photos look rich and color-accurate despite a small main sensor.
• Macro Focus is a strength; low-light and zoom photos are less reliable.

Google kept the Pixel 9a ultrawide and selfie cameras unchanged, and its new 48MP main sensor is smaller than the 64MP sensor on the Pixel 8a — though it has a larger aperture. It's near-identical to the primary Pixel 9 Pro Fold camera, another device that Google strove to keep relatively thin.

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My Pixel 9a camera samples show how the phone captures vivid colors and decent detail in good lighting, but only when I get decently close to my subject. The lack of optical zoom and smaller sensor that captures less light makes it less reliable than the 9 Pro in less-than-ideal conditions.

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The Pixel 9a's biggest strength is its new Macro Focus mode, shown above, which senses when you're close to your subject and turns this mode on by default. It also uses image recognition to focus on the entire subject, where other macro modes only focus on one tiny spot and blur the rest.

My colleague Brady conducted an in-depth Pixel 9a vs. 8a vs. 7a camera comparison that reaches the same conclusions: the 9a's strengths are color accuracy and Macro Focus, while its weaknesses are low-light photos and its lack of optical zoom.

Generally speaking, the Pixel 9a outperforms almost any mid-range phone for camera quality. If you want an uncompromised photo experience, you'll need to pay twice as much for the Pixel 9 Pro.

Google Pixel 9a: Competition

The Pixel 9a tops our best cheap Android phones list. One alternative, the Samsung Galaxy A56, has a dimmer 6.7-inch 120Hz AMOLED with better Victus+ protection. It gets six years of OS updates and has faster 45W charging. But our tester hated the laggy Exynos 1580 performance, limited AI tools, worse battery life, and "inconsistent" photo quality.

The OnePlus 13R costs $100 more for a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip with more raw power paired with 12GB of RAM and 256GB UFS 4.0 storage, plus a 6.7-inch LTPO AMOLED, 6,000mAh battery with 80W charging, and a 50MP telephoto lens. This is a true value flagship, but again, it's a bit expensive, quite heavy, and only gets four years of OS updates.

The Nothing Phone 3a Pro is another alternative. At $459, you get 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, dual 50MP sensors with a 3X periscope lens for good camera quality, a 6.7-inch LTPO AMOLED display, and six years of support. But you also get a slower Snapdragon 7s Gen 3 chip, Wi-Fi 6, a heavy design with a bulky camera island, and IP64 water resistance.

Google Pixel 9a: Should you buy it?

You should buy the Google Pixel 9a if...

• You want the best possible battery life paired with Pixel smarts.
• You see Gemini AI as an exciting novelty (but maybe not a daily necessity).
• Google's trademark software support and camera processing appeal to you.

You shouldn't buy the Google Pixel 9a if...

• You care about Wi-Fi 7, Gemini Nano, or telephoto lenses.
• You want a larger display or blazing charging speeds (especially wireless).
• You want the best possible benchmarks or pro camera tools.

I don't know what Google fixed with its component quality delay, but it seems to have worked.

Usually, I start to catch flaws with tech devices in the months after a review. But so far, my Pixel 9a experience hasn't shown any new pain points. And although my Pixel 9 is better in many ways, I find myself continuing to use the 9a simply because I'm spoiled by the battery life.

It's easy to take the A-Series for granted, but it's rare to spend $499 on a "flagship" chip and excellent AI-backed photography. Now that we get epic battery life too, the Pixel 9a is tough competition for any mid-range phone. I still kinda miss the camera bar, but I can live with that.