Why the Pixel 9a Is Still the Best Google Phone for Most People

Late last month, Google launched the Pixel 10 and the Pixel 10 Pro. They’re the latest big releases in the Android world, which might carry more weight given the muted response to the iPhone 17 from some corners of the internet. But even if you are thinking of making the move to a new operating system, I wouldn’t recommend either flavor of Pixel 10 as your first port of call.

Instead, I think the Pixel 9a is easily Google’s best phone for almost everyone. It’s technically got the Pixel 9 name, but it’s also Google’s most recent budget variant, so it’s as current-generation as anything else. And while it does make some concessions to bring the price down, they’re fairly minor—and the device actually offers a few unique benefits of its own.

You don’t need the Pixel 10’s AI

“But what about all the fancy new Pixel 10 AI features?” you might ask. I’ve tried both the base Pixel 10 and the Pixel 10 Pro, and here’s the truth: You don’t need them.

Google’s announcement for the Pixel 10 series went hard on AI, and it’s true that the search giant is ahead of Apple and other smartphone makers on this front. But even with its head start, it’s clearly starting to run into diminishing returns. Existing AI features like the Gemini assistant and the Screenshots app are available on the Pixel 9, but most of the Pixel 10 exclusives focus on the camera app, and I don’t see most people sticking with any of them for long.

Case in point: 100x zoom. This Pixel 10 Pro exclusive feature sounds handy on the surface, supposedly letting you zoom in by 100x while still getting hi-res photos in return. But in truth, it just uses the same blurry digital zoom as other phones, then runs your shots through an AI to try to fix them up. It’s not really a reason to buy the Pixel 10 Pro—you can now get a similar result by just posting a photo to Gemini’s free, browser-based AI image generator as a prompt—and it frequently served me up photos with dreamy, unreal imagery that I wouldn’t feel comfortable posting. Just look what it did to my beloved Chrysler Building, and ask yourself if you would want to take a photo of a famous landmark only to get back a half-melted bizarro version instead. If you ask me, it’s firmly in the realm of novelty, at best.

I had a similar reaction to the other big camera AI developments this year, like using Gemini to edit photos or getting an AI to coach you while trying to frame a shot. Gemini image editing, which lets you use natural language to alter your photos, is handy, but also wrests control from you, and doesn’t tell you when it’s doing a simple job like a crop versus a more hallucination-prone one like generative fill. You can check the metadata of your new photo to know for sure, but frankly, the results aren’t good enough to be worth the time for me.

Photos taken on the Pixel 10 (left) vs. those same photos edited by Gemini (right)
Credit: Michelle Ehrhardt

The same is true of Camera Coach, which uses AI to help you take shots. This has the benefit of not actively putting AI imagery into your photo, but the advice it gave me was rarely more complex than, “make sure the subject is in frame” and “follow the grid lines the previous generation Pixels could already put on your phone for you anyway.” It’s mostly unobtrusive—even when you’re using Camera Coach, you can take your final shot whenever—but it’s so inconsequential that I doubt most people will even take the extra time needed to boot it up.

To Google’s credit, there are a few AI additions unrelated to the camera that sound a bit more handy, like Magic Cue and Voice Translate. But you’re unlikely to run into these often. Magic Cue will use AI to pull information from Google apps like your Gmail to display when it might be relevant in other Google apps, like a phone call. For instance, it could display a boarding pass from an upcoming flight while you’re calling to check on it. But it doesn’t work with third-party apps, and since that’s how I use my phone most of the time, I actually didn’t see it pop up while I was testing either the Pixel 10 or Pixel 10 Pro.

I also didn’t get Voice Translate to work during my testing. This uses AI to translate both your voice and the person you’re calling’s voice if you’re speaking to each other in different languages, using what sounded like some pretty impressive voice cloning during its Made by Google demo. But it also needs both callers to have a Pixel 10, and since you can’t count on having a lot of multilingual friends that all use the same phone, that means it won’t be much more than a tech demo for most people.

Basically, Google’s new AI makes big claims, but the features are either so niche or so unreliable that they aren’t a major selling point save for a very specific type of user. It could be fun to toy with, but is it $300 to $500 worth of fun?

The Camera is thinner and not much weaker

But even if the Pixel 10 and 10 Pro aren’t worth it on their AI alone, the hardware still gets a bump, right? Well, in the case of the base Pixel 10, it actually got a little worse in one specific way, putting it in range of the Pixel 9a.

One of the things I dislike most about Google’s Pixel phones is the camera bar, which is the long horizontal bump across the entire top width of the device. This houses the camera sensor, but personally, I’d much prefer a weaker camera that’s flush with the device instead.

Credit: Michelle Ehrhardt

With the Pixel 9a, Google granted my wish. This phone is the first Pixel in a long time to omit the camera bar, instead putting a single and much thinner pill in one corner of the device and leaving it at that. With the camera bar returning on both the Pixel 10 and Pixel 10 Pro, that alone makes the Pixel 9a worth considering as an alternative to me.

And the best part? The smaller camera on the Pixel 9a isn’t actually any weaker than the camera on the base Pixel 10. It’s just missing a lens.

Yep, while Google added a new telephoto lens to the Pixel 10 that allows it an up to 5x optical zoom, it also downgraded that phone’s ultrawide lens down from 48MP to 13MP, which is the same as on the Pixel 9a. And because both phones also have the same main lens, that means for everything but zoomed shots, you don’t lose anything by going with Google’s budget phone.

A close up photo taken on the Pixel 9a
Credit: Michelle Ehrhardt

To be fair, the Pixel 10 Pro is stronger than both phones on all fronts, but I’d argue that’s overkill for most users. If you never or rarely touch the zoom lens on your camera, whether to zoom in or out, you’ll actually get a similar experience across all three devices. So why pay more? Especially when the Pixel 9a’s camera is so much sleeker. If you’re a casual photographer, it could give you the same results, while taking up less space. A hidden upgrade.

Better battery life and a smooth OLED display

If the Pixel 9a’s camera is arguably on par with the more expensive Pixel 10 phones, then its battery life just straight up surpasses them. Packing a 5,100 mAh capacity, it puts both the Pixel 10 and Pixel 10 Pro to shame. To put that into more everyday terms, Google promises 30 hours of battery life on the 9a, but only 24 hours of battery life on either Pixel 10 model.

That held up in my testing. While the Pixel 10 died after about 18 hours of watching a video at 50% brightness (my standard test), the Pixel 9a was only a little under 50% capacity at the same time. And it was actually closer to half capacity when the Pixel 10 Pro died, which was after 16 hours of viewing. I actually haven’t had a full day to dedicate to draining this thing yet, but I assume that’s what it would take based on my tests, which easily puts the other Pixels to shame.

Granted, 50% brightness on the Pixel 9a isn’t quite as bright as on the other phones, since it only hits 2,700 nits of peak brightness as opposed to 3,000 nits on the Pixel 10 and 3,300 nits on the Pixel 10 Pro. But 2,700 nits is still plenty bright—the iPhone 16 maxes out at 2,000 nits. And on all other fronts, the display doesn’t compromise: The Pixel 9a has the exact same size (6.3-inches) and resolution (1,080 x 2,424) as the Pixel 10, and also works with Smooth Display for a responsive 120Hz refresh rate. It’s even an OLED, so you’re not making any compromises by going cheaper here.

Half the cost of a Pixel 10 Pro

Perhaps the biggest reason to opt for a Pixel 9a over a Pixel 10 is the same reason it was worth it compared to the other Pixel 9s—it’s just cheaper.

While the Pixel 10 starts at $799 and the Pixel 10 Pro starts at $999, the Pixel 9a is a mere $500. Given how closely it compared to even Google’s current-generation flagships, that’s a heck of a deal. And that doesn’t even come with any cuts to storage space, since both the Pixel 9a and all models of the Pixel 10 Pro begin with 128GB of storage. The cost to upgrade storage is also the same here—a simple $100 markup—although the Pixel 10 Pro does uniquely offer capacities over 256GB.

I’ll miss Pixelsnap, but the Pixel 10a is probably months away

I’ve been pretty high on the Pixel 9a so far, but I will make one concession—it doesn’t have PixelSnap, and I will miss that.

While the iPhone has had MagSafe since the iPhone 12, it took until this year for the Pixel to get its own version. Called Pixelsnap, it allows you to magnetically connect your phone right to compatible accessories and chargers on their own, with no need for cables or adhesive metal circles.

The Pixel 10 resting on a Pixelsnap Carger with Stand
Credit: Michelle Ehrhardt

I won’t lie, it’s convenient. It works with Qi2 charging for faster wireless top-offs, and while Google has its own official Pixelsnap accessories, it also worked fine with my Belkin iPhone charger, as well as a third-party MagSafe wallet I bought for my iPhone.

I’d miss that convenience by opting for the Pixel 9a instead of the Pixel 10, but I don’t know if I’d miss it enough to spend another $300 to $500. If there’s one reason to get a Pixel 10 model phone instead of a Pixel 9a, I think this would be it.

But what about the Pixel 10a?

As it did with the 9a, Google is sure to release a budget version of the Pixel 10 series down the line, and at that point, this article will probably become irrelevant. Granted, it’s not guaranteed to have Pixelsnap, but given how close the 9a already is to the 10, I bet it will—it’ll be an easy way to set the 10a apart from its predecessor.

However, the 9a didn’t come out until this April, and you can bet the 10a will follow a similar pattern. That means waiting over half a year from now, and frankly, I don’t like to prognosticate quite that much. Better tech is always on the horizon, but when making purchasing decisions, we have to live in the here and now. And right now, the Pixel 9a is still the best Google phone for most people.