It’s been a scorching minute since Google introduced one among its beloved Pixel telephones to Indian shores. The final Pixel telephone followers loved within the Indian market was the Pixel 4a – the corporate’s then mid-range providing. Now, a few years since, we lastly have a glistening new Pixel telephone in our midst – the Google Pixel 6a. Whether or not it was Indian followers verbalising their disappointment about Google skipping out on bringing the Pixel 5a to India, or just Google’s resolution it was an opportune time to set its mark within the Indian smartphone market as soon as once more – we’re glad the Pixel 6a has arrived. Boy, has it arrived to rife competitors although.

The Pixel 6a is priced at ₹43,999, and whereas it’s Google’s mid-range providing, the telephone’s price ticket evidently competes with the higher-end telephones in India. The competitors consists of formidable choices such because the Samsung Galaxy S21 FE, Nothing Phone (1), and iPhone SE 2022. So, will the Pixel 6a make a stable mark within the high-end smartphone phase in India or will it fade into customers’ peripheral imaginative and prescient? Let’s discover out that and extra in our overview.

Google Pixel 6a Evaluate: Construct and design

The Pixel 6a carries over the identical design language because the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro, so for those who have been a fan of their aesthetic, you’ll be happy with the Pixel 6a’s minimalist look as effectively. The black digicam bar on the again of the telephone breaks up the colored space of the Pixel 6a’s rear panel offering a fairly clear look total. There’s a minimalist G or Google brand on the rear PMMA (plastic) panel that appears deceptively like glass. 

The again end, nevertheless, is a infamous fingerprint and smudge magnet and we continuously discovered ourselves wiping off the smears. The digicam bar protrudes from the body barely which stops the telephone from mendacity flat on a floor. The Charcoal colored variant we obtained for overview appears to be like a bit uninteresting; we’re larger followers of the Chalk variant that has a bit extra distinction. The beautiful Sage Inexperienced color that’s out there in world markets, sadly, hasn’t made its method to Indian shores.

The telephone carries an IP67 mud and water resistance ranking which implies it could possibly resist mud ingress and face up to momentary submersion in water as much as 1 meter for half-hour. A SIM tray sits on the left aspect with help for one nano SIM whereas the amount and energy buttons are positioned on the suitable. All buttons are simply reachable one-handed and fairly tactile however don’t really feel fairly as buttery clean as high-end or flagship telephones. The telephone additionally homes stereo audio system and a USB C port however no 3.5mm jack or microSD card slot. The audio system are significantly loud however we’ve heard louder at this value and decrease. Nevertheless, they don’t crackle even at most quantity, which is a plus. Sadly, the dearth of a microSD card slot means which you can’t develop the reminiscence previous the 128 GB inner storage capability you get, which is a disgrace. 128 GB storage can really feel inadequate to many and we might have most popular at the least an choice for a 256 GB variant.

The Pixel 6a is a compact telephone with a display measuring 6.1-inches; placing it towards the likes of different compact units such because the iPhone 13 Mini, iPhone SE 2022 and Samsung Galaxy S22. The entrance has a small punch gap cutout for the selfie digicam and pretty thick bezels with a thicker chin bezel. The show is flat with no curves, which we fairly appreciated, however the chunky bezels do diminish the glamour quotient. The show is topped with Corning Gorilla Glass 3 for cover, which is a bit dated for a 2022 telephone costing above ₹40K. The telephone comes with an in-display optical fingerprint sensor which was reasonably speedy as effectively. Total, we’re followers of the Pixel 6a’s clear and fashionable aesthetic in a sea of fairly garish telephones, particularly within the mid-range market. 

Google Pixel 6a Evaluate: Show

As for the show, the telephone sports activities a 6.1-inch OLED panel with Full HD+ decision. You additionally get HDR help and a Excessive Brightness Mode on the gadget. The show has a reasonably commonplace 20:9 side ratio with help for 24-bit color. The panel gives Widevine L1 help as effectively for HD viewing on streaming platforms. The show’s efficiency impressed us with true blacks, vivid colors, glorious viewing angles, and good daylight legibility. It’s positively not the brightest show, even at this value, however in most circumstances, you received’t have a difficulty with the display being too dim. We recorded a most brightness of 502 nits, which is fairly respectable and the show is able to going larger on Excessive Brightness Mode.

All is nice within the show division up to now, however the place the show stumbles compared to the competitors is the refresh price. The Pixel 6a helps solely 60 Hz refresh price which appears downright comical for a telephone pushing ₹40K. Particularly since competitors gives panels with 90 Hz, 120 Hz and even a whopping 144 Hz refresh price help. Scrolling and navigation are visibly and painfully slower than what most individuals would anticipate on this value bracket. Total, it is a show that gives a fairly good film and video watching expertise however the lack of a excessive refresh price does harm how responsive the telephone feels. 

Google Pixel 6a Efficiency Evaluate

The Pixel 6a homes Google’s in-house developed Tensor chipset paired with 128 GB UFS 3.1 storage and 6 GB LPDDR5 RAM. The telephone performs effectively as a day by day driver with barely any hitches when finishing up duties equivalent to calling, texting, social media browsing, internet searching, and extra. Whereas the efficiency was stable for probably the most half, there have been cases the place the telephone did warmth up significantly (touching 45 levels Celsius) when clicking pictures, taking pictures movies, and updating apps. This precipitated some minor lags and stutters which did take away from an in any other case close-to-flagship expertise.

In benchmarks, the Pixel 6a does decently with the telephone constantly clocking in larger scores than the Nothing Telephone (1) in most exams however it did lose out, in a number of benchmarks, to the Samsung Galaxy S21 FE, Motorola Moto Edge 30 Pro, and iPhone SE 2022. The telephone clocked in a rating of 691272 in AnTuTu which was significantly decrease than the iPhone, Samsung and Motorola units we talked about above. 

The telephone additionally lagged behind the competitors in GeekBench with it scoring 1015 within the Single Core take a look at and 2689 in Multi Core. In PCMark Work, the pattern continues with the Pixel 6a even dropping out to the cheaper Nothing Telephone (1) with a rating of 9758. Furthermore, within the CPU Throttling Take a look at, we discovered that after quarter-hour, the telephone throttled to 66 per cent of its peak sustained, which reveals that the Pixel 6a has points with sustaining sustained efficiency throughout intensive duties.

The telephone, nevertheless, does do barely higher in GPU benchmarks with it beating out the Nothing Telephone (1) and the Samsung Galaxy S21 FE in 3D Mark Wild Life however it continues to lag behind the iPhone SE 2022 and the Moto Edge 30 Professional. You possibly can see the sample repeat in most GFX Bench exams as effectively. This does harm the Pixel 6a’s worth proposition a bit since these telephones are all virtually equally priced. 

Nevertheless, in gaming exams utilizing GameBench Professional, the Pixel 6a did shine fairly a bit. In Name of Responsibility Cellular, the telephone performed at common fps of 60 with a whopping 100 per cent stability and in Asphalt 9, we acquired 59 fps at 98 per cent stability. The gameplay was principally clean and jitter-free barring the cases when the telephone heated up after longer durations gameplay, which is once we skilled a sliver of stutter. Total, the Pixel 6a gives stable day-to-day efficiency however does lag behind some opponents by way of warmth administration and smoothness.

The Pixel 6a additionally comes geared up with Google’s Titan M2 safety chip that shops your delicate information equivalent to passwords and keys throughout the gadget. So, you don’t must retailer such information on any server, thereby lowering the danger of a safety breach. It additionally handles processes equivalent to encryption and safe transactions inside apps. In fact, we couldn’t absolutely put this chipset to the take a look at throughout our transient testing interval, so we will’t make any claims about how effectively it really works. Nonetheless, it’s good to see Google placing within the work to attempt to guarantee person safety and privateness.

Google Pixel 6a Evaluate: Software program

That is the bread and butter of a Pixel gadget – inventory Android Pixel expertise. Any Android purist will soar with glee experiencing the bloatware-free, clear Android 12 UI that the Pixel so unabashedly gives. And that is the place the telephone races forward of most competitors. Whereas different units from OnePlus, Xiaomi, and Oppo are rife with third-party apps and even adverts, the Pixel 6a gives a pure Android 12 expertise devoid of any of those deterrents. 

The person interface is clear and fully hassle-free and Google’s Materials You theming choices look unbelievable. Apps barely ask for pointless permissions and it was a real pleasure experiencing Inventory Android after the barrage of customized UI skins OEMs slap onto their Android units. In fact, another telephones from corporations equivalent to Motorola do present a near-stock expertise however the Pixel gives a lot extra. You get a totally unlocked Google Photographs enhancing app, quite a few Google Assistant options, distinctive options equivalent to Magic Eraser, Dwell Translate, and far more.

The telephone additionally gives customers with three years of assured software program updates and 5 years of safety updates. Nevertheless, three years is barely low for a Pixel telephone, particularly, since many Samsung telephones now present 4 years of OS updates, so it’s beating Google at its personal recreation, in a method. 

Additionally notice, when testing the telephone, we unusually discovered that our overview gadget was nonetheless on the April safety patch, which is simply odd. We spoke to Google about this and so they assured us that the gadget will get an replace in August with the most recent safety patch. We hope this doesn’t translate to retail models and is simply a difficulty with the overview one.

Google Pixel 6a Evaluate: Battery life

Some world critiques of the Pixel 6 and 6 Professional have complained about mediocre battery life. Fortunately, this didn’t translate to the Pixel 6a, in our expertise. We acquired fairly unbelievable battery life throughout our testing interval of over per week. The telephone routinely lasted a day with ease with regular utilization consisting of occasional gaming, clicking pictures, social media, internet searching, and enhancing pictures. We acquired a screen-on time of about 5 hours which is fairly good for a 4,410 mAh battery.  In our video loop take a look at, the telephone lasted about 14 hours from 100 per cent to empty, which is fairly good.

GPS navigation for an hour dropped the battery by 5 per cent from 85 to 80 per cent and quarter-hour of COD: Cellular drained the battery by 6 per cent from 79 to 73 per cent. Should you’re an influence person, it’s possible you’ll must cost the telephone in the direction of the night however for those who’re a light-weight to average person, you must finish the day with about 15-20 per cent battery. 

Now, whereas the battery life expertise was fairly nice on the Pixel 6a, the 18 W quick charging speeds is nothing to jot down dwelling about. Within the age of 67 W, 80 W and 120 W quick charging in mid-range telephones, 18 W charging simply feels awfully gradual and dated. The telephone took a whopping 1 hour and 49 minutes to go from zero to full. Additionally, there’s no wi-fi charging on the telephone, if that’s one thing you favor to have in your telephone. The corporate additionally hasn’t packaged a charging adapter within the field, so you’ll have to fish to your personal USB PD 3.0 suitable charger.

Google Pixel 6a Digicam Evaluate

Two issues virtually at all times appear to face out on a Pixel gadget. First, the software program expertise, which we’ve already spoken (raved) about, and second, the digicam expertise. So, naturally, our expectations have been excessive and the Pixel 6a did not disappoint. The gadget homes two rear digicam sensors – a 12.2 MP main sensor – which has been tried and examined for the reason that Pixel 2 days – and a 12 MP ultrawide shooter. The Pixel 6 and 6 Professional acquired 50 MP sensors, however actually, there’s not a lot to complain about even with the older sensor now we have acquired right here. Primarily due to Google’s tuning and distinctive computational images.

Photographs in daylight look nothing in need of unbelievable with crisp particulars and real looking colors. The dynamic vary can also be glorious. In difficult lighting circumstances, whereas the viewfinder confirmed blown-out highlights generally, the top end result achieved after some computational images magic was good. Shadows have been hardly ever crushed and highlights remained completely uncovered in most pictures. The ultrawide digicam additionally shone in a similar way however the primary sensor positively had extra element, particularly on the edges of the picture.

In low mild, Google’s distinctive Evening Mode labored wonders – clicking pictures that you could possibly barely inform aside from well-lit ones. Should you pixel-peep, you will note some cases of grain however it’s minimal in comparison with the evening mode efficiency provided by different mid-rangers and even some high-end telephones. Human tones are true to life with nice color copy, one thing that we battle to see on even high-end telephones. 

Taken in Low Mild with Evening Mode lively

The 8 MP selfie digicam additionally clicks some good footage with true-to-life colors and respectable element however they seem softer than the first sensor. Portrait mode on each the selfie and rear digicam supplied nice pictures with stable edge detection, though at instances, in harsh lighting, the blurring and edge detection did look a bit aggressive. 

Add to this stellar efficiency Google’s enhancing options equivalent to Face Unblur, Magic Eraser and extra, and also you get a dependable and well-rounded digicam efficiency matched by virtually no telephone at this value. The closest competitor with regard to images at this value is the iPhone SE 2022 however the Pixel 6a nonetheless clicks barely extra detailed and crisp footage. Video recording can also be fairly good on the Pixel 6a with the telephone supporting as much as 4K at 60 fps. You even get OIS to maintain movies trying clean. To see all the total decision digicam samples, go to this Drive link. 

Google Pixel 6a Evaluate: Verdict

The Google Pixel 6a gives nothing in need of stellar efficiency in two areas – software program and digicam. For the worth, that is just about one of the best software program and digicam expertise you will get. Add to {that a} clear and fashionable design, reasonably highly effective {hardware} with Google’s Tensor chip, and nice battery life, and also you get a telephone that proves to be a stable contender within the Indian smartphone market. Nevertheless, the telephone does have some downfalls – what telephone doesn’t? You’ve got a dated 60 Hz refresh price panel, barely chunky bezels, some heating points, and meagre 18 W charging. Owing to this, the ₹43,999 price ticket could begin to really feel lower than cheap. 

Google has marketed this telephone as a mid-ranger, however its pricing makes it extra of a high-end gadget within the Indian market, and at this value, the competitors is ferocious. You’ve got fast-charging monsters such because the OnePlus 10R, uniquely designed telephones such because the Nothing Telephone (1), and energy beasts such because the iPhone SE 2022 or the Motorola Moto Edge 30 Professional. That’s when the Pixel 6a’s worth begins to crumble a tad bit. Nevertheless, this telephone isn’t meant for an influence person or a function seeker – it’s meant for individuals who really benefit from the Pixel expertise and need a set of dependable shooters for each event. And for these people, it’s really a Pixel Good smartphone.