Updated at August 4, 2020:
Google India will officially be bringing the Pixel 4a in India in October 2020. Yup, that’s sort of a long wait still we are getting the phone. It will be available for purchase exclusively through Flipkart. The homegrown e-commerce marketplace has already put up a teaser page announcing the same. Now the only thing remaining to know is the Indian pricing of Google Pixel 4a.
As for extra perks, Google will be giving three-month free trials of YouTube Premium and Google One for all customers purchasing the Google Pixel 4a.
Our original story from Monday, August 3, 2020, follows:
We may have missed the last year’s Google flagship Pixel 4, but we do now get an affordable choice that packs “everything you love about Google” phone. Google has officially launched Pixel 4a, the affordable Pixel series and the successor to last years Pixel 3a.
In a nutshell, the Google Pixel 4a packs the incredible Google camera tech, all-day battery with quick charge option, the purest of Android OS with the new Google Assistant and Snapdragon SoC with 6GB of RAM.
Google Pixel 4a price starts at $349 in the US, which roughly converts to Rs 26,254. To recall, the Pixel 3a launched in India for Rs 39,999. So, if Google launches Pixel 4a in India under the 30K price bracket, then it going to sell hot like Jio SIM. That said, the company has not yet announced the pricing and availability of the phone in the Indian market.
Meet Google Pixel 4a
This time around, Google has gone for a much more modern design with Pixel 4a. It got a plastic body (Polycarbonate unibody) with a matte finish that’s lightweight and feels good to hold on your hand. The phone is very compact, considering the 5.81-inch 1080p OLED display it has that too support HDR. The screen is protected with Corning Gorilla Glass 3 cover glass.
Under the hood, the Google Pixel 4a is powered by 2.2 GHz + 1.8 GHz 64-bit Octa-Core Qualcomm Snapdragon 730G mobile platform paired with Adreno 618 GPU. The phone carries 6 GB LPDDR4x RAM and 128GB UFS 2.1 internal storage. Note that there is no expandable storage option available.
The Google camera
The best part of any Pixel smartphone is its camera. Carrying forward the tradition, the Google Pixel 4a boasts all the camera magic Google posses. The phone comes with the same primary camera sensor from its bigger sibling Pixel 4. On the rear side, the phone carries a single 12.2-megapixel IMX363 camera sensor with f/1.7 aperture, 77-degree field of view and autofocus with dual pixel phase detection. It also comes with optical and electronic image stabilisation. However, you are missing the telephoto shooter from Pixel 4.
This camera module supports almost everything from Pixel 4, which include HDR+ with dual exposure controls, Portrait Mode, Top Shot, Night Sight with astrophotography capabilities and fused video stabilization.
For selfies, there is an 8-megapixel front-facing camera housed in the punch-hole of the front screen. It features the 84-degree field of view and f/2.0 aperture.
Pure Android
As with any Google Phone, the Pixel 4a runs on the latest Android operating system. That’s now at Android 10, and you are guaranteed to get minimum three-year minimum OS and security updates with the phone.
Google has brought its complete Pixel experience to the phone. These include the new faster Google Assistant with Lens – which was introduced last year with Pixel 4, Live Caption – which now supports real-time captioning for video and audio calls, the Personal Safety app for real-time emergency notifications and car crash detection, the Recorder app and everything you knew associated with a Pixel phone.
Connectivity-wise the Google Pixel 4a is a dual SIM phone (one physical SIM and one eSIM) with support for 4G LTE, VoLTE, 3G, Wi-Fi 2.4 GHz + 5 GHz 802.11a/b/g/n/ac 2×2 MIMO, Bluetooth 5.1 + LE with A2DP and NFC. For an extra layer of security, the phone boasts Titan M security chip along with the rear fingerprint scanner. There is also the down-firing stereo speakers, two microphones and noise suppression support. Lucky for us, Google is still keeping the support for the 3.5mm headphone jack.
Well, you will not be missing the Soli radar chip this phone, as the original Pixel 4 was never launched in India.
The Google Pixel 4a packs 3140mAh battery with 18W USB PD (Power Delivery) fast charging support. As it packs Adaptive Battery, it learns your app usage and reduces power to the ones that you rarely use. Thus you almost get all-day-long battery life with the phone, claims Google.
Also the Google Pixel 4a is only available in a single, Just Black colour option.