Google Pixel 8a – Unlocked Android Phone with Google AI, Advanced Pixel Camera and 24-Hour Battery – Obsidian – 128 GB

Reviewer: mark downs
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Great budget phone
Review: It’s an excellent budget phone. Great camera, vanilla android with fast updates, awesome camera. Plenty fast for my needs
Reviewer: Biggoof
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Not much to say
Review: protects my phone like a glove. I wish I could give you a more detailed review but I don’t make a habit of dropping my phone (or abusing my phone for that matter)
Reviewer: Zachary Munn
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: My girlfriend loved it!
Review: My girlfriend’s phone broke so for Valentine’s Day I got her this. She’s very happy with the quality and overall that’s all that matters
Reviewer: springn1
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Overall good phone with some flaws
Review: So, I’ve been using the 8a for about 6 months. I upgraded from the Pixel 5a due to support for that supposedly ending soon. I saw the 8a on sale so pounced. I’m mostly going to compare the 8a to the 5a. Keep in mind I really liked the 5a.8a vs 5aBattery life : 5a wins (slightly). I’m not sure how they compare on mAh but the 5a kept a charge a little longer. That’s not to say the 8a won’t last long. It pretty much always gets me through the day and I don’t really feel held back by the difference.Screen: 8a wins (slightly). 8a is a little crisper, overall both are very good. Downside to the 8a is the screen size was a hair smaller I believe.Camera: 8a wins solidly. 5a took good pictures. 8a is even better, especially in low light. I also found the 8a AI editing feature to be handy at times.Charging: Mixed bag. 5a had a faster charging speed (although no Turbo charge). But I like having the wireless charging in the 8a which the 5a didn’t have. After about 2yrs of 5a use the port was kinda loose. Wireless charging should negate that later problem of the port wearing out.Functional speed: 8a wins. 5a wasn’t slow, but 8a is a little snappier.Headphone jack: 5a wins only because the 5a had one, 8a does not have a headphone jack. Most of my headphones/ear buds I use are wireless, but I still use a few wired ones. But you can get an adapter which has worked fine for the 8a.**Fingerprint reader/sensor: 5a wins by a long shot. This is the reason I removed a star. The 5a fingerprint reader on the back of the phone worked right nearly every time (except with moist fingers). The 8a in screen finger reader works more than half the time, but was is far less accurate than the 5a method. To make matters worse, I think the Pixel engineers forgot most people like to put a screen protector on. With a screen protector on the 8a, the fingerprint reader is nearly useless. (I had tried resetting the fingerprint scans to no avail). Maybe this wasn’t the engineers’ fault. Maybe a sales exec thought a fingerprint sensor on the screen sounded cool so demanded it while the engineers said it needed more work. But I digress.Out of frustration, I had started using the less secure face unlock which does work reasonably well. But the face unlock doesn’t work well if you’re wearing sunglasses or in dimly lit rooms. So, I’ve had to type the numerical unlock a lot more with the 8a.Overall this is a good phone at this price point that does most of what the expensive phones can do. But they need to overhaul the fingerprint sensor. Either move it to the back again or improve it so that it a) works nearly every time and b) works with most screen protectors.
Reviewer: E
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Solid phone
Review: If you aren’t a heavy smartphone user this is a great choice. I mostly only use it for being a phone, surfing the web, and as an Android Auto phone. It isn’t very heavy. Most apps run fine, although there are some that are seemingly poorly optimized that either run slow or run the phone hot. Android auto initially had issues with stuttering but that has worked itself out, it was probably fixed in a patch.
Reviewer: Granny Annie
Rating: 1.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Returned even a main frame computer programmer could not get it to work properly
Review: I bought this 5 days ago. The initial set up was quick. I am now on day 5 of finishing of the set up🥴 I has leftout so many things. I am having to set tons of preferences. None of them were added. Nor was any of my software transfered. That will probably take me a week to get installed and setup. I have a Nokia. So I don’t know which phone is not transferring completely. My old phone is a G4 and this is a G5 and that maybe pert of the issue also, but I was told it should not be 🤷🏼‍♀️I worked Tech Support 20 years at a college and helped students with software issues helping use their laptops, tablets. When I was in the computer lab I was uncharge of install and troubleshoot software on the colleges Macs and PC’s over our Intranet. Mac’s and computer graphics were my specialty. I understand and can support various devices such as laptops and tablets and normally phones and teach them the basics of how to use 95% of software programs we teach until they get to the advanced stages and while installing / transferring and setting up new phones was not list of things the college did. I was allowed sit with the students and staff and instructors and teach setup a few college related things like setting up their phones to access our network and their emails on our servers. I wasn’t supposed to spend more than 15 minutes with each student when we were busy when we were not I would teach them more. After 15 minutes I set them up with a one of our technicians assigned to help with more complicated problems as my main job was answering the phones and helping staff with minor issues or writing them up a ticket and assigning them to technician to help with classroom issues.This install and transfer has been a royal pain and taking way long than it has with my other phones!!!Can’t tell you eases of use except that it seems like everything I do needs permission to access or troubleshooting. Which is a pain especially since it is supposedly storing the passwords. Like I said I don’t know which phone is responsible for all the problems, but I almost feel starting from scratch and not transferring data might have been quicker.1 month later…Took it to my brother who has programed main frame computerscouldn’t get it to work after several hours. He said to return it!!
Reviewer: Muhammad Omair Ali
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Nice, I like the product and working good
Reviewer: Aza
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Nice Product
Reviewer: Gordon Muir
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: I’ve had this for several months now and have no regrets to buying it.It charges well, holds the charge well and always works well.Even though I do some gaming on it, it holds up.So far no issues at all
Reviewer: Rick Holden
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Love the cell phone, great camera’s (front and back) easy to use, transferred prior data from my Samsung smoothly
Reviewer: Micah C.
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: The camera is great, the hardware seems really fast to use with no lag but I was trying to store it in the box that it came with and I thought its on a hinge I can easily open the box and use the phone but no it falls 2 inches off of a small box that I had and it looked like it made a pinsize scuff on the silver plastic around the phone and thats really not what I was expecting for the quality of the materials because it fell on wood with paint, it wasn’t metal or tile or anything like that what, should I of bought a case protector for the phone? no this phone is going to get damaged as its used, the monitor I use got scratched because something fell on it, my desk is scratched, this doesn’t say its cheap enough to get damaged, please pay less to get photos this high quality if thats a problem for you or buy a case protector which is a good idea but thats after its terrible. These are so expensive but there treated like scratch technology. After using it for a couple days I can say the camera is great but I did think it needed a better face for the video capture but thats one of the small things you notice about cameras, they may look better in person than the camera for video capture meaning that you need a really attractive face or its a character and what features do you like about the character and what you don’t, its one of things about the technology that I really found to be one of the potential problems because real life interactions are usually better but for photos I was thinking these are better than video capture.After really looking at the image quality I think its lacking in comparison to an IMAX for daytime photos and the video capture in 4K didn’t quite meet my expectations for film, I wouldn’t be using this for filming Planet Earth, a huge amount of data in the imagery that was non existent, not as good as the photographs at 8.3MP at 4K. These are great for using if you don’t have an expensive camera but don’t expect it be a replacement for the film industry. Comparing the video quality to someone elses it did look like mine was out of focus, it does seem to be how I was panning the camera that it was going out of focus or something, the quality didn’t really look worse but there was some motion blur.Really looking at the image quality for distance photos I needed better quality images, im feeling like I needed a better camera and when compared to a less expensive smartphone these are great images but thats only this much better for distance photos and yhea there better selfie images of faces but its also a different style of quality, the faces look different, they look like completely different people being photographed and that means you might like how the person looks with a different phone because of the difference.After using the phone for enough time to determine if I needed a case protector, ive decided it almost feels like if I was using it alot and not being as careful id definitely need to get one but so far it doesn’t seem like im going to drop this phone, Ive not used it enough in a way id need case protector but im sort of feeling like id need one, im using the box it came with and that seems sufficient for storing it but it could use a case protector or something else to store it in but it seems like an extra cost until its used in a way that it would feel like it needed one for sure but im not using it quite like that so im ok for now but it does feel that way. I don’t wanna replace it or if there was enough damage that it didn’t work id need it, im already feeling like its not for any fast movements, I can probably use it without mostly but as soon as I start using it in a certain setting I need a case protector, like im already feeling like I want to buy one just so its there to use if I needed one.I found where the camera is lacking for photos and that is anything to do with distance and leafs or bright sunlight shining at the camera somewhat as in it didn’t look better than a smartphone less than half the price but for most photos it does work and it doesn’t have any effect of something being tall. The quality of the images does still need to be better for a photographer, id consider upgrading to a better camera at this part of my experience with the phone but it does show enough detail to be impressed with the level of detail.After quite of bit use with this camera im really looking for a higher quality image, im quite satisfied with the closeup photos and the distance are quite good to but if you looked at the photographs from the most expensive cameras you would be looking for better image quality. It really struggles to look the same as the eyesight. I realized what it was that wasn’t quite there after really examining the photo quality is that you need to take professional photos with a PhaseOne or something similar to it, the Huawei smartphone cameras take great photos and so do the Pixel phones but the file size is completely different, these are fantastic images with the smartphones but your comparing them now.What I found somewhat of a complication with previewing the larger non smartphone cameras is that theres alot of settings and options on them that you may not understand at first making smartphones the easiest decision for actually taking photos but the need to see the the highest quality image is there in my mind.I am finding that if you want to zoom in after you take a photo it is to blurry and that is even from two feet away so it seems to be that there is interest in taking higher quality photos than this. I was looking at it like it was important for that to be better or you’d need to take a macro photo.Looking at it from the perspective of thickness in the image of the detail, I can’t feel these enough even though the image quality is really good, there not 3d, its a very flat image and you’ll notice that with the really high mega pixel cameras it has the right amount of detail and this was enough but it also needed additional detail, its reaching the distance but its not quite there yet.Im just looking at these photos and thinking I really don’t like that the clarity that you’d see with the eyesight or a really expensive camera isn’t there and though I can zoom in and it looks better, I can zoom in and it looks better but 94% zoom im thinking these should be clearer, 146% zoom the background looks like a painting, 200%+ zoom these are not clear enough at all. Id really think that close up photos are good but theres still a level of not being able to focus the camera, it needs a stand or something.I did find one slight problem with photographing during a day with cloudy weather and some rain, it blurred the photo as in out of focus and added a white film to it which was really noticeable when zoomed in, it actually said that these photos didn’t really look that great but it was only a few of them, a really difficult thing to see in photography.