Google has to be the worst company for phone leaks, with their phones you don’t just get claimed specs, renders and questionable product shots, but you get full hands-on videos and benchmarks.
The Google Pixel 4a is the latest phone to be fully tested in a comprehensive video showing how it performs in games as well as multiple benchmarks.
The only thing we don’t know about it at the moment is the price and the official launch date. The phone was originally due for announcement on May 22, but reports suggest it may be delayed until June.
The video is posted by Cuban YouTube channel TechnoLike Plus, which has a pre-production Pixel 4a in hand. So it is possible the benchmarks will change slightly with software optimisation.
Price
According to 9to5Google, the Pixel 4a could cost less than the cheapest iPhone. The claim is that Google would sell a 128GB variant of the Pixel 4a for $349, while a 64GB variant might be just $299.
Specification
Google Pixel 4a
- Display : 5.81 inches 2340×1080 IPS
- Chipset: QualcommSnapdragon 730
- RAM: 6GB
- Storage: 64GB/128GB UFS 2.1
- Camera:
- Rear: 12.2 MP, (wide), 1/2.55″, 1.4µm, dual pixel PDAF, OIS
- Front: 8 MP, f/2.0, 24mm (wide), 1/4″, 1.12µm
- Battery: 3000 mAh battery 18W fast charging
- Other Features: Rear mounted fingerprint, 3.5mm, no IP rating
Google Pixel 3a
- Display : 5.6 inches OLED 1080 x 2220
- Chipset: QualcommSnapdragon 670
- RAM: 4GB
- Storage: 64GB eMMC 5.1
- Camera:
- Rear: 12.2 MP, (wide), 1/2.55″, 1.4µm, dual pixel PDAF, OIS
- Front: 8 MP, f/2.0, 24mm (wide), 1/4″, 1.12µm
- Battery: 3080 mAh battery 18W fast charging
- Other Features: Rear-mounted fingerprint, 3.5mm, no IP rating
This is one of the few phones to use the non-G variant of the Snapdragon 730, and most phone makers have ditched that series of chipsets in favour of the SD720G.
The only two phones I know that used this specific chipset are the Redmi K20 released June 2019, and the Samsung Galaxy A71 released January 2020.
To be fair, it’s a decent chipset and a massive upgrade from the Snapdragon 670 and this should offer plenty of power for smooth day to day performance, whereas some people reported the 3a struggled a lot from time to time.
Google have ditched the massive head and chin bezel adopting a slightly more modern design with a punch hole selfie camera.
Even though the display is physically larger, I would expect the overall dimensions to be about the same due to the design changes. However, they have switched to an IPS display which may not be quite as good.
The camera specification remains identical to the Pixel 3a; both phones use the same primary camera you find on the Pixel 4, however, the Pixel 4 has the benefit of the telephoto lens.
Storage has been switched from the slower eMMC technology to the much faster UFS 2.1, you then also get an extra 2GB of ram.
The battery has been bumped up fractionally, but I would expect with the larger display and IPS technology along with the more powerful chipset the overall performance will be lower on average.
Photo Samples
Camera Specification
An early camera review was posted on XDA developers including seveal photo samples in a Google Photos Album.
Benchmarks
Antutu Benchmark
In the video, the Pixel 4a scored 268,973 on AnTuTu and the Pixel 3a scores just 158081 this would give the Pixel 4a a 70% increase in performance.
For comparison, the Realme 6 Pro with the newer Snapdragon 720G scores 282336. So, even if Google had used the more modern chipset the overall difference in performance is not significant.
Geekbench 4.4 benchmark
In Geekbench 4.4 the phone scored 2544 for the single-core and 6370 for the multi-core.
The Pixel 3a scores just 1633 and 5209, which represents a 56% and 22% uplift in performance going from the 3a to 4a.
Battery Performance
Finally, the video goes in-depth with battery life, showing the battery info screen on the front. The Google Pixel 4a managed as much as 7 hours and 21 minutes of screen-on time on one occasion and 5 hours and 20 minutes on the other.