But probably will never have….
If you’re not anyone who’s into following smartphones or a tech nerd, then Goggle’s Pixel range of devices has probably been off your radar in the past three years of its existence, despite being a hit in the US and other western countries. The first Pixel was a fast,reliable and simple alternative to all the craziness companies like Samsung and LG were cooking up at the time, while the Pixel 2 and 3 have been smartphone camera kings in both their respective release years. However, while the Pixel phones did bring amazing software features and unbeatable cameras as standard, they were always a bit lacking in many other areas flagship phones need to have. Which is why google seems to have found the perfect balance between its simplistic formula and amazing camera and software features : the Pixel 3A and 3A XL
So what makes this thing so great? We’ll cut to the main part: it costs USD $400! Now that may sound expensive for some of you but let’s run through some numbers here: the iPhone X started at $1000 and so does the XS , the Galaxy S10 starts at $900 (which is why Samsung released the slightly cheaper $750 S10e) and even the normal Pixel 3 starts at $850. That phone and the Pixel 3A only differ when it comes to the processor (the 3A comes with a slightly slower Snapdragon 617 instead of the 845), wireless charging which the 3A doesn’t have, water resistance which only began with the Pixel 2 and the 3A comes with a headphone jack, unlike the Pixel 2 and 3 which don’t because Google for some reason thought copying Apple was a good idea. The 3A still keeps Google’s responsive stock Android software, has a basically identical camera setup as the amazing Pixel 3’s camera and keeps the same RAM and storage options along with it’s bigger variant the 3XL. If that doesn’t sound like the perfect Google phone, I honestly don’t know what does. You can even see The Verge‘s review below because they totally agree.
Now as we just mentioned before, the Pixel phones were lacking in a lot of flagship phone requirements, but arguably the biggest of those was looks. I’m more of a functional person myself but even I have to admit that a flagship phone has to look like something inspiring, elegant or straight out of a futuristic sci-fi movie. Look at the Galaxy S10 , iPhone XS or Huawei P30 and you just want to buy those phones. Look at the Google Pixels though , and well, there was a lot left to be desired. The first Pixel was basically an iPhone clone (though it at least had a headphone jack) while the 2 tried to sort of be different with it’s XL variant but faced screen problems and the 3 had the biggest notch in recent flagship phone history. To put it simply, the Pixels don’t look great for their price, but the 3A negates that by being 300 dollars cheaper than most of them. By going back into budget phone territory , the 3A actually looks standard if not pretty nice for how much you pay for it. And to be fair , there are some good looking and durable cheap phones as well, in fact Nokia excels at that with phones like the 6 and 7 ranges. But neither of those phones can compete with what the 3A brings in reliability, software and most importantly that amazing camera.
You may think we’re over-hyping the camera but we’re not. Pixel phones have been beating the iPhone, Samsung Galaxies and even Huawei phones for years now. And the 3A has basically the exact same camera as the normal Pixel 3. The only phone that can beat it right now is the crazy periscope and night time lenses on Huawei’s P30 Pro but other than that, this is basically the best camera on the market, which again is on a $400 phone! We figured you may still not believe us so we figured we’d give you another YouTube video courtesy of Mr Mobile.
Impressed yet? Good, because here comes the sad part: most people in Zim will probably never see this phone. You see, half the reason a lot of you didn’t know the Pixel phones was because they where made largely for US and Europe releases only at first, branching out into Asia and now India. However Africa has never been on their radar, let alone Zimbabwe, which is quite a shame because official distribution would likely mean this phone would get here close to it’s $400 starting price. Perhaps at most you would buy it for $500. Now though, you know that the only way you’ll get this phone is through your special “plug” or source that you get phones from (alongside Boyz RepaXimex of course) and those guys can honestly make the price be anything when you think about it. You might actually find the 3A being sold at a more expensive price than the Pixel 3 is sold in America, and that just kills the whole point of the phone.
But either way, this is honestly the best device google has come up with in years as far as I’m concerned, and hopefully one day they’ll realise cheaper pixel devices can have a home in Africa too. Until then however, you might want to text your Ximex plug for a hookup.
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Google night sight is still better than Huawei. I wouldn’t say it’s the best but it’s one of the best ( don’t write off the Nexus devices)
Well we definitely appreciate your opinion mark. Though based on what we’ve seen scouring the net, the Huawei P30 pro has even Google beat in that department. Either way it’s an exciting time to talk about smartphone cameras.