Google Pixel 9a review: Budget Pixel, finally done right

Try, try till you succeed. That, in essence, is the story of the Pixel 9a, Google's all-new budget Pixel smartphone for 2025.Since the time Google has been making these 'affordable' a-series phones—it has been a while—I've had two types of emotions, and they've been constantly at war with each other. A part of me said, why bother? The other insisted the best is yet to come. In other words, even though I've had a hard time reviewing—and recommending—these phones for one reason or the other, deep down, I would keep coming back for more. With 9a, it seems, my prayers have been answered and Google's persistence has paid off.To be fair, last year's Pixel 8a came very close to delivering the best hardware package you could expect from Google at the time. It covered a lot of ground and fixed many problems of its predecessor(s) except maybe that it could have priced it better. With the Pixel 9a, the price has come down significantly all the while improving upon a winning formula to such an extent that we can say, these phones have finally started to walk the talk. The Pixel 9a is available for Rs 49,999 for 256GB, without any conditions. That is Rs 10,000 less than what the 8a cost at launch for the same amount of storage.The list of upgrades is long. The design is all new. The display is brighter. The battery is bigger. Charging is faster. There's a new chip and more powerful optics. New phone for less price—the 9a has winner written all over it, even without getting into the specifics. The specifics, luckily, echo the sentiments of the specs to a great degree.advertisementGoogle Pixel 9a design and displayThe phone's exterior, which is the first thing you notice when you unbox any phone, says a lot about what sort of category it belongs to. This includes ID (short for industrial design) and choice of build materials. The general thumb rule is that more affordable devices tend to look a certain way and come with stripped-down materials. In cases like the Pixel a, the device is often built around an existing template. For the Pixel 8a, it was the Pixel 8. For Pixel 9a, it is the Pixel 9.
The Pixel 9a has a plastic back and comes in three colours: Obsidian, Porcelain, and Iris. The phone has a metal frame and is IP68 rated.
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But while the 8a was very close to its fancier sibling, the 9a is a bit different. This has its merits. The most visible one of them is that there is no camera bump on the back, because Google has removed the camera visor, possibly to cut cost. That visor has been a Google Pixel trademark and seeing it gone—at least for those who've been following it closely—will take some time to adjust, some might not get used to it at all. I am all for change and, frankly, it's nice to see a decent phone without any camera bump after so long, but I can't help but point out that this also makes the phone look somewhat cheap and fragile. It doesn't feel that way—rather it is built solid with a matte composite back and metal frame—but as is the nature of these things, looks are as important, and the 9a fails to make an impression quite like the Pixel 8a.
You get a 6.3-inch display with wide, chunky bezels.
The Pixel 9a is slightly bigger than the Pixel 8a, though the increase doesn't come at the cost of increased dimensions, which is always challenging to pull off. The 9a, in fact, is closer to the Pixel 9 with its 6.3-inch display, but the panel is different. Here, Google is using a p-OLED screen (which is perhaps adding to its slim proportions), but just like the design, chunky bezels give away the phone's budget footing. The fingerprint scanner is also optical, not ultrasonic. Everything else about this display is as high-end though. It has plenty of pixels (1080p, 422ppi), it is fast and smooth (up to 120Hz is supported), and it is plenty bright (2700 nits HBM, 1800 nits HDR). It is essentially a pro-grade display at a non-pro price.Google Pixel 9a performance and camerasThe same pro-ness extends to the underlying chip. The 9a has the same Tensor G4 as any of the more expensive Pixel 9-series phones, including the Pixel 9 Pro XL and Pixel 9 Pro Fold. Google doesn't discriminate. With the G4, it has been transparent about positioning as well, not overselling it with lofty claims but talking about real-world use cases. It has designed the chip specifically to make everyday interactions with your phone—and this includes AI—faster, not to beat benchmarks.advertisementSo, while newer Qualcomm chips, like the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 and 8 Elite, might smoke the Tensor G4 in terms of raw power, meticulous tuning and optimisation ensure it feels as competitive in day-to-day. RAM is 8GB, not 12GB like the Pixel 9, which explains why some AI features are missing. Pixel Screenshots is a notable omission. Everything else works at par, which also means that the Pixel 9a is—now—the cheapest phone to try Google's current and next-gen AI features. (You do not get a year of Gemini Advanced for free when buying it like with 9, 9 Pro, 9 Pro XL, and 9 Pro Fold though.)
There is no camera bump.
The Pixel 9a has fantastic battery life, which was mostly expected given that it has a 5100mAh, the biggest we've seen on any Pixel phone to date. This means the 9a can last 4–5 hours longer than the Pixel 9 (4,700mAh) and almost as much as the Pixel 9 Pro XL (5060mAh), which has the advantage of having an LTPO display. Charging is capped at 23W wired and 7.5W wireless. The Pixel 9 has 27W wired and 15W wireless.
The 9a is powered by Google's Tensor G4 chip and runs Android 15 right out of the gate.
advertisementFor photography, the Pixel 9a packs a new 48-megapixel primary sensor which is paired to a brighter f/1.7 aperture optically stabilised lens (compared to the Pixel 8a). The revamped setup brings noticeable improvements in picture quality right from the amount of detail that it can pull in tricky and low light to dynamic range, which, again, adds to the overall detail and authenticity of photos. The signature 'cool and contrasty' Pixel look remains intact across landscape and portraits even in this budget Pixel, which—if you're a fan or enthusiast—could be a big reason why you might want to buy it. The ultrawide—13MP/f/2.2—is a do-over from the Pixel 8a and has started to show its age, especially when you start comparing it to the other Pixel 9-series phones, all of which now have a 48MP sensor. The front camera, too, is only serviceable with the 13MP f/2.2 setup, taking good-enough photos when you give it lots of light.advertisementCheck out full camera samples below; Click to access more Google Pixel 9a: Should you buy it?The Pixel 9a feels like a culmination of years of refinement, and it finally feels like the one budget Pixel phone that gets almost everything right. The hardware upgrades are many, and they are meaningful: a brighter, more vivid display, a bigger battery that easily lasts a day and more, and an improved primary camera that produces stunning results in nearly all conditions. From a performance standpoint, it delivers where it matters most—daily reliability, clean software (with guaranteed seven-year software support), and AI smarts. The haptics are tight, the speakers loud and clear.Yes, there are compromises—chunky bezels, a plasticky design, underwhelming ultrawide and selfie cameras—but they feel like calculated trade-offs in a phone that's priced more smartly than any recent Pixel a-series device. At Rs 49,999, the 9a undercuts its predecessor while offering more where it counts and is the first in the line-up that I can recommend without adding an asterisk.

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