**Google Pixel 7A Review: A Solid Alternative to the Pixel 7**

The Google Pixel 7A is a notable device that shares many similarities with its flagship counterpart, the Pixel 7. In fact, the 7A is often considered an "entry-level" Pixel phone, but it still packs a punch when it comes to performance and features. Despite being priced lower, the 7A offers many of the same capabilities as the more expensive Pixel 7.

**Low-Light Photography: A Mixed Bag**

One area where the Pixel 7 shines is in low-light photography. The device's Nightside processing and Tensor G2 chip work together to produce excellent results in these conditions. However, when comparing photos taken with both phones, I noticed that text was sharper on the Pixel 7, and details looked cleaner when zoomed in. While these differences are subtle, they can be noticeable. On the other hand, low-light video stabilization is where the Pixel 7 truly excels, as it produces significantly better results than the 7A.

**Video Stabilization: A Notable Gap**

In terms of video stabilization, the Pixel 7 is noticeably better than its 7A counterpart. This is particularly true in low-light conditions, where the Pixel 7's superior image quality and stabilization capabilities make all the difference. If video recording is a top priority for you, it's worth considering the Pixel 7 over the 7A.

**Battery Life: Similar but with Slow Charging**

Battery life on both phones was relatively similar, but the charging times were slower on the 7A. The wired charging speeds are already decent, but wireless charging feels like Generation One technology – slow and unresponsive. On the other hand, I did appreciate that the default screen brightness was 60 Hz on the 7A, although I had to enable "Smooth Display Feel" to get a 90-Hertz display.

**Physical Design: Similar but with Some Differences**

The 7A is slightly smaller than the Pixel 7, thanks to its smaller screen, which makes it easier to carry around. The device still features the same metal frame and camera hump design as the Pixel 7, although the seam between these two components is a bit more noticeable on the 7A. Additionally, the back of the 7A is made of plastic, rather than Gorilla Glass, which may raise some concerns about durability.

**Colors and Accessories**

The 7A comes in four color options: white, black, coral, and light blue – although the latter two are only available through Dbrand Ninja Turtle skins. It's worth noting that there is no microphone hole on the back of the device, unlike the Pixel 7, which may have some implications for noise cancellation.

**Screen Quality: Excellent**

The screen on both phones is excellent, with a 6.1-inch OLED display offering great colors and contrast ratios. The bezels are slightly thicker on the 7A, but this is not a major issue in my opinion. Both devices achieve around 500 nits of brightness in manual mode, although they can push up to 900-950 nits when using adaptive brightness outdoors.

**Audio: Similar but with Some Differences**

The speakers and haptic motors are similar on both phones, but I did notice that the 7A had slightly worse thermal performance during demanding gaming sessions.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enthe pixel 7A is a hundred dollars cheaper than the pixel 7 so this is 500 this is 600 and this is actually the smallest price Gap we've ever seen between a regular pixel device and like the budget pixel a device now normally Google will launch a regular pixel device for six or seven hundred dollars and then a few months later they'll launch the a series of that device it's going to be 150 maybe 200 cheaper but the a series device will have some features ripped out and be made with cheaper components but it's usually quite obvious to the user as to what has been removed and like what the deficiencies are of this more budget a series device it's about to hit that price point right but this year Google did something a little bit weird this device the pixel 7A has so many features on it it actually feels strangely similar to the pixel 7. it now has a high refresh screen at 90 Hertz it has eight gigs of RAM and it has wireless charging the specs are so similar it may seem like a no-brainer to just pick up a 7A and save the hundred dollars instead of the seven but there's a reason why it's 100 cheaper you you just got to dig a little bit deeper to find out why okay let's start off with the camera system so it's now running a 64 megapixel main sensor that gets binned down to 16 megapixels now in good lighting condition the 78 is excellent and it's really close to the regular pixel 7. I would say though that the 7A isn't as good at White balancing as the regular 7. often the pictures are a bit Greener to me and also the dynamic range on the 7A isn't as good like you have to get sweaty and pixel peep the photos to really see the differences here but in any scene I shot that had really bright areas and really dark areas the regular pixel 7 would do it better like in these photos here you can still see the textures and details in some of the darker areas but a lot of them are lost on the pixel 7A images now it's a really dark roof like with your naked eye it's actually really hard to make of the details up there especially with how bright it was outside but the pixel 7 with this gn1 sensor just does a better job the ultra wides on the 7A are quite good I'd say that they're actually quite similar to the pixel 7. it's just that the 7A has a wider fov I think this hits 120 degrees the low light photos on the 7A are good it is a pixel device with Nightside processing and the tensor G2 chip but the same shots were usually better on the pixel 7. like text was sharper on the pixel 7 and when you zoom in a lot of the details just look cleaner over the 7A it's not substantial but it is noticeable and I'd say very consistent across all of the low light images that I took now in terms of video stabilization despite having the same processor the same eight gigs of RAM it is noticeably weaker on the 7A now I don't know how much of this comes from the differences in camera Hardware or if Google's like intentionally soft capping the 7A here but if video is really important to you there is a noticeable gap between the two phones and it's even more pronounced when it comes to low light video conditions like the regular pixel 7 is quite a bit better here in terms of video image quality and stabilization battery life on the 7A was really similar to any of the recent pixels I've tested but the charging times were slow like the wired charging is already a little slow but the wireless charging was painful like it feels like generation one wireless charging it's that slow it's cool that they included the tech but don't expect fast Wireless juicing uh one thing I noticed though the default setting on the screen was 60 hertz I had to enable smooth display feel to get that 90 Hertz and it's just strange because like the regular pixel 7 it's 90 Hertz out of the box so I don't know if that was done with intent or just like a review sample thing uh in terms of physical differences the 7A is slightly smaller than the seven it's got a smaller screen so it fits in your hand a little bit better it's the same kind of vibe though right it's got the metal frame around the edges with the camera hump but it doesn't protrude out as high as it does on the pixel 7 but if you'll remember on the pixel 7 in the pixel 7 Pro when they launched it Google drew our attention to the fact that the camera hump blended into the unibody metal frame to give it this more premium look on the 7A there is a seam there it's like a separate piece of material which it's insignificant to most but I imagine it's one of the things they've done to keep the cost down now in terms of the back this is a plastic back despite it looking very similar to The Gorilla Glass glossy back of the regular pixel 7 this is plastic it's very easily removed though so any kind of repairs or battery replacement is going to be relatively simple and you can see how flexible that plastic panel is which is great for durability and it won't crack as easily when you drop it now in terms of colors it comes in four color options this year there's a white there's a black there's a coral color and there's light blue and obviously you have your dbrand Ninja Turtle skins which is arguably the best skin for any device ever now on the regular pixel 7 there is this microphone hole right beside the flash it's not there on the 7A so I thought there'd be a difference in noise cancellation on calls and just video recordings I think there is a slight difference but it's so small that I don't want to go into it like I don't think it makes a big difference if anything at all the fact that there is no mic at the top in terms of the screen so it's now running a 90 Hertz display it's a great screen 6.1 inches OLED great colors and contrast ratio media looks great the bezels are a little thicker on the 7A if you care about that stuff but it's not a big deal to me uh the 7A hits about 500 nits in manual mode very similar to the pixel 7 and same with adaptive brightness Outdoors they're both around 900 950 nits so very similar screens the speakers and haptic Motors are quite similar between the two devices but I did notice that the 7A had slightly worse thermal performance than the seven in really demanding games but yeah the pixel 7A for 500 gives you an awesome phone but if you care about photos videos pixel 7 is better I also think in terms of pricing like sometimes you'll see like uh you know why buy this for 500 when this thing goes on sale for 450. if this thing goes on sale so will this the pixel devices are very often on aggressive sales all right there you have it foreign thank youthe pixel 7A is a hundred dollars cheaper than the pixel 7 so this is 500 this is 600 and this is actually the smallest price Gap we've ever seen between a regular pixel device and like the budget pixel a device now normally Google will launch a regular pixel device for six or seven hundred dollars and then a few months later they'll launch the a series of that device it's going to be 150 maybe 200 cheaper but the a series device will have some features ripped out and be made with cheaper components but it's usually quite obvious to the user as to what has been removed and like what the deficiencies are of this more budget a series device it's about to hit that price point right but this year Google did something a little bit weird this device the pixel 7A has so many features on it it actually feels strangely similar to the pixel 7. it now has a high refresh screen at 90 Hertz it has eight gigs of RAM and it has wireless charging the specs are so similar it may seem like a no-brainer to just pick up a 7A and save the hundred dollars instead of the seven but there's a reason why it's 100 cheaper you you just got to dig a little bit deeper to find out why okay let's start off with the camera system so it's now running a 64 megapixel main sensor that gets binned down to 16 megapixels now in good lighting condition the 78 is excellent and it's really close to the regular pixel 7. I would say though that the 7A isn't as good at White balancing as the regular 7. often the pictures are a bit Greener to me and also the dynamic range on the 7A isn't as good like you have to get sweaty and pixel peep the photos to really see the differences here but in any scene I shot that had really bright areas and really dark areas the regular pixel 7 would do it better like in these photos here you can still see the textures and details in some of the darker areas but a lot of them are lost on the pixel 7A images now it's a really dark roof like with your naked eye it's actually really hard to make of the details up there especially with how bright it was outside but the pixel 7 with this gn1 sensor just does a better job the ultra wides on the 7A are quite good I'd say that they're actually quite similar to the pixel 7. it's just that the 7A has a wider fov I think this hits 120 degrees the low light photos on the 7A are good it is a pixel device with Nightside processing and the tensor G2 chip but the same shots were usually better on the pixel 7. like text was sharper on the pixel 7 and when you zoom in a lot of the details just look cleaner over the 7A it's not substantial but it is noticeable and I'd say very consistent across all of the low light images that I took now in terms of video stabilization despite having the same processor the same eight gigs of RAM it is noticeably weaker on the 7A now I don't know how much of this comes from the differences in camera Hardware or if Google's like intentionally soft capping the 7A here but if video is really important to you there is a noticeable gap between the two phones and it's even more pronounced when it comes to low light video conditions like the regular pixel 7 is quite a bit better here in terms of video image quality and stabilization battery life on the 7A was really similar to any of the recent pixels I've tested but the charging times were slow like the wired charging is already a little slow but the wireless charging was painful like it feels like generation one wireless charging it's that slow it's cool that they included the tech but don't expect fast Wireless juicing uh one thing I noticed though the default setting on the screen was 60 hertz I had to enable smooth display feel to get that 90 Hertz and it's just strange because like the regular pixel 7 it's 90 Hertz out of the box so I don't know if that was done with intent or just like a review sample thing uh in terms of physical differences the 7A is slightly smaller than the seven it's got a smaller screen so it fits in your hand a little bit better it's the same kind of vibe though right it's got the metal frame around the edges with the camera hump but it doesn't protrude out as high as it does on the pixel 7 but if you'll remember on the pixel 7 in the pixel 7 Pro when they launched it Google drew our attention to the fact that the camera hump blended into the unibody metal frame to give it this more premium look on the 7A there is a seam there it's like a separate piece of material which it's insignificant to most but I imagine it's one of the things they've done to keep the cost down now in terms of the back this is a plastic back despite it looking very similar to The Gorilla Glass glossy back of the regular pixel 7 this is plastic it's very easily removed though so any kind of repairs or battery replacement is going to be relatively simple and you can see how flexible that plastic panel is which is great for durability and it won't crack as easily when you drop it now in terms of colors it comes in four color options this year there's a white there's a black there's a coral color and there's light blue and obviously you have your dbrand Ninja Turtle skins which is arguably the best skin for any device ever now on the regular pixel 7 there is this microphone hole right beside the flash it's not there on the 7A so I thought there'd be a difference in noise cancellation on calls and just video recordings I think there is a slight difference but it's so small that I don't want to go into it like I don't think it makes a big difference if anything at all the fact that there is no mic at the top in terms of the screen so it's now running a 90 Hertz display it's a great screen 6.1 inches OLED great colors and contrast ratio media looks great the bezels are a little thicker on the 7A if you care about that stuff but it's not a big deal to me uh the 7A hits about 500 nits in manual mode very similar to the pixel 7 and same with adaptive brightness Outdoors they're both around 900 950 nits so very similar screens the speakers and haptic Motors are quite similar between the two devices but I did notice that the 7A had slightly worse thermal performance than the seven in really demanding games but yeah the pixel 7A for 500 gives you an awesome phone but if you care about photos videos pixel 7 is better I also think in terms of pricing like sometimes you'll see like uh you know why buy this for 500 when this thing goes on sale for 450. if this thing goes on sale so will this the pixel devices are very often on aggressive sales all right there you have it foreign thank you\n"