The Google Pixel 9a makes me question whether I need a flagship phone
Impressive camera specs and a much bigger battery make this a mid-ranger to reckon with
Google’s A-series Pixels have always been an affordable phone watermark, but the Pixel 9a is now so fully-featured I’m wondering if I’ll ever buy a flagship handset again. It packs in a huge amount of what makes the regular Pixel 9 so appealing, and even bests it in one or two areas – yet lands at a considerably cheaper £499 / €559.
This year’s model is less of a carbon copy than last year’s Pixel 8a was of the Pixel 8. Google has ditched its distinctive camera bar in favour of a flatter oval, although the flat central frame (made from 100% recycled aluminium) and rounded-off corners still bare more than a passing resemblance to the Pixel 9. The other tells are a matte rear panel made from composite rather than glass, and the new Iris colour option. The 9a also brings back Peony, Obsidian and Porcelain hues from the mainline Pixel 9 series.
Cameras are still one of the biggest reasons to pick up any Pixel phone, and the Pixel 9a doesn’t look like it’ll disappoint. There’s a 48MP lead snapper with optical image stabilisation and f/1.7 aperture, plus a 13MP ultrawide good for a 120-degree field of view. Super Res Zoom can get you up to 8x closer to the action without a dramatic drop-off in quality, and there’s a Macro Focus mode for close-ups. Expect 4K/60p video recording from the rear duo, while the 13MP selfie cam caps out at 4K/30.
Google’s image processing algorithms will then be out in full force, using Night Sight to sharpen up low-light scenes and Magic Editor tools like Best Take and Auto Frame to clean up any snaps before they go up on your social feeds.
At 6.3in it’s as pocket-friendly as the regular Pixel 9, and its Actua OLED display shines just as bright: a peak 2700 nits, or 35% more than the outgoing Pixel 8a could manage. A taller-than-Full HD resolution and 120Hz adaptive refresh rate should put it up there with the best mid-rangers for display specs.
Elsewhere it’s packing features I’d expect from a flagship phone, including IP68 resistance that’ll let it take a dunking with no ill effects, and facial recognition secure enough to open your banking apps as well as skip the lock screen. There’s also an under-display fingerprint scanner that uses optical tech, rather than the ultrasonic ones seen in the pricier Pixel 9 Pro models.
The Pixel 9a goes one better than the Pixel 9 Pro on battery capacity, finding room for a sizeable 5100mAh cell that should be good for over 30 hours of real-world use. The Battery Saver function can apparently nudge that total to a whopping 100 hours, while top-ups can be either wired or wireless.
Power naturally comes from Google’s own Tensor G4 chipset, paired with 8GB of RAM and either 128 or 256GB of on-board storage. That’ll be enough oomph to run all the firm’s Gemini AI smarts, including Circle to Search, Gemini Live, the Pixel Studio generative image tool, and the voice recorder app’s transcribing function. Other bespoke Android 15 goodies like theft protection, car crash detection and Google VPN also make the cut, and Google is continuing to promise seven years of Pixel Drop feature updates, new Android generations, and security patches.
I’ve yet to get my hands on one, but the fact I’m already comparing it against rivals from the class above (Samsung Galaxy S25, Xiaomi 15, Apple iPhone 16) has me debating whether paying a huge chunk of change for a flagship phone makes sense anymore.
The Pixel 9a looks set to ship in early April.
Tom Morgan-Freelander
Deputy Editor 
