- #New york times wirecutter gift guide update#
- #New york times wirecutter gift guide android#
- #New york times wirecutter gift guide pro#
During Amazon Prime Week, the price for that model fell to $450. (The Pixel 5a, in contrast, is eligible for just three years.) In processing power alone, the Pixel 6a is a step up, too.īut before you buy it, you should take a quick look at the Pixel 6. You also get five years of guaranteed security updates, Google says.
#New york times wirecutter gift guide android#
The phone’s display was also bright enough to use outdoors on a cloudless day without straining my eyes.Īnd now the $449-dollar question: Should you buy a Pixel 6a?Ī Pixel phone is a no-brainer if you like the purity of the stock Android experience-a clean and simple interface without the extra apps and add-ons that manufacturers like Samsung and OnePlus layer on top of the operating system.Īnd if you already own a Pixel, the 6a’s new camera tricks and other AI-assisted capabilities-think real-time, offline translation (Live Translate)-might be tempting. The $450 Samsung Galaxy A53, for example, has a large 6.5-inch display with a 120Hz refresh rate, and that higher refresh rate makes for speedier scrolling and animations, although a lower refresh rate may help conserve battery life.ĭespite the low refresh rate, the Pixel 6a didn’t stutter while I was tapping through screens and photo galleries, nor while I was moving settlers around in Civilization VI. The OLED display has the same 60Hz refresh rate of the Pixel 5a, which may disappoint some people. The plastic back of the Pixel 6a is easy to smudge with fingerprints, marring the model’s pristine looks, but you should tuck it in a case for protection anyway. the Pixel 6’s tougher Gorilla Glass Victus, and a “3D thermoformed composite back” instead of Gorilla Glass 6. In terms of build quality, the Pixel 6a is made of slightly fewer premium materials: a Gorilla Glass 3 front panel vs. In the meantime, here’s a closer look at what it’s like to use the Pixel 6a. It supports 5G low- and mid-bands, but to work on Verizon’s 5G Ultra millimeter wave (mmWave) network, you’ll need to buy the $499 Verizon-specific model. The phone is available now for preorder in gray (“charcoal” Amazon, Best Buy), white (“chalk” Amazon, Best Buy), or green (“sage” Amazon, Best Buy) and comes with 6GB of memory and 128GB of internal storage. We won’t know for sure how the model stacks up to the competition until we purchase one at retail for testing in our labs. The smaller sensor doesn’t perform nearly as well in poor lighting conditions, so that’s worth considering when debating between the Pixel 6a and other low-priced phones.
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While the rear camera on the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro boast a large 50-megapixel sensor, the one on the Pixel 6a has the same 12-megapixel sensor found on the 5a-and all models dating back to the 3-plus-year-old Pixel 3. In particular, you won’t find the Pixel 5a’s headphone jack, which one of my colleagues laments as a betrayal.Īnd, unlike previous A-series phones, the Pixel 6a doesn’t have the same camera hardware found on Google’s flagship models. Overall, the experience was positive, but it’s worth noting the compromises Google made to hold fast to that $449 price. Over the course of a week, I used the Pixel 6a alongside the Pixel 6, the inexpensive Samsung Galaxy A32, and the high-end Galaxy S21 Ultra. While I enjoyed test-driving the clever AI capabilities-particularly removing people from photos and translating Spanish tapas menus into English-what I really wanted to know was how well the phone performed everyday tasks like capturing my kid and dog on camera, streaming Netflix, scrolling through social media, and screening role-playing games.
#New york times wirecutter gift guide update#
We’ll update this review with the final results as soon as they’re available. I asked Google for a press sample of the phone to see some of those tricks firsthand and get an overall impression of the user experience ahead of the official July 28 release date.Īs always, the test samples evaluated in our labs will be purchased at a retail store, so they will be no different from the Pixel 6a you might buy. Tensor also gives the Pixel 6 line of phones a few exclusive Android skills, magically erasing people and objects from photos, instantly translating text conversations and videos (to and from English in a handful of select languages), and generating captions from calls and videos.
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