Meet the Google Pixel 3a: A midrange phone with a flagship camera for $399

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  The Pixel 3a. It looks just like a Pixel. [credit:
  Google ]

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.—It’s Google I/O keynote day, and as part of the slate of announcements, Google has taken the wraps off of the Pixel 3a and Pixel 3a XL. This device was heavily leaked in the runup to launch, and the past information has been pretty spot on: we have a cheaper version of the company’s flagship Pixel 3 smartphone. The only big question not answered by the leaks was “How much cheaper?” and with the official announcement, we have our answer: the Pixel 3a is $399, and the Pixel 3a XL is $479.

As expected, the cheaper Pixels get cheaper thanks to the switch to a plastic back instead of glass, a cheaper SoC instead of the flagship Snapdragon 845, no water resistance, no wireless charging, and a downgrade to a single front camera instead of the normal + wide-angle dual front camera setup of the Pixel 3.

The smaller Pixel 3a has a 5.6-inch, 2220×1080 OLED display and a 3000mAh battery, while the bigger Pixel 3a XL gets a 6-inch, 2160×1080 OLED with a 3700mAh battery. Both devices have a 2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 670 SoC, 4GB of RAM, 64GB of storage, and a USB-C port. You still get NFC, stereo speakers, squeezable “Active Edge” sides that call up the Google Assistant, an eSIM chip, and an always-on ambient display mode.