Why I chose the Google Pixel 4a as my wife's phone

This article is based on an article from the Japanese edition of Engadget and was created using the translation tool Deepl.

Hi, I'm Gian Suzuki, who bought the Pixel 4a for my wife. At the same time I borrowed a product from Google, my wife wanted to buy a new phone, so I recommended the Pixel 4a to her almost without hesitation.

In other words, at this point in time, "If you're a light smartphone user, you have no other choice but the Pixel 4a," but I won't get paid by the Engadget editorial team if I finish the article, so I'm going to start a very long meander here.

Small, fast enough, one camera but super beautiful, and you can use Suica with it

The headline above is a sales pitch to my wife, but these are the four features of the Pixel 4a. In case you're wondering, I'm going to write down the main specifications because it's standard, but I didn't tell my wife this.

Key specs of the Pixel 4a

Dimensions: 144 x 69.4 x 8.2 mm

Weight: 143 g

Display: OLED capacitive touchscreen, 5.81 inches, 1080 x 2340 pixels (punch-hole),

SoC: Qualcomm Snapdragon 730G

Memory: 6GB

Storage: 128GB (No card slot)

Rear Camera: Single, 12.2 MP dual-pixel, f/1.7 aperture, 1.4 µm pixel width, 77° field of view, Autofocus with dual pixel phase detection, Optical + electronic image stabilization,

Front Camera: Single, 8 MP, f/2.0 aperture, 1.12µm pixel width, 84° field of view, Fixed focus

Security: Fingerprint Recognition (rear-mounted)

SIMs: Single Nano SIM, eSIM

Battery: 3140 mAh

Other than the four sales pitches, I told my wife that the only color is Just Black, non-waterproof, non-wireless charging, you can't insert a memory card, but you can record four times as much data as your current phone.

She was quite worried about the fact that it was only black in color, but when I told her that she should just wear a case, she agreed. The reason wasn't that she wanted a pretty color, but that "a flashy color is more convenient for me to find my phone when I have it in my bag," she said.

Just to be sure, I will check the performance

My wife, who doesn't play any games on her phone, is fine with moderate performance, but when I ran the standard benchmark, it was exactly the right score. When I told my wife that the latest phones cost about 100,000 yen but are twice as fast, she replied, "The cheaper one is better. Even the 42,900 yen (for the Pixel 4a) is an expensive purchase," she replied immediately. I tend to use "work-related" excuses to buy flagship devices, but I'm grateful to my wife for teaching me about general financial sense.

More important than how many cameras are in the phone is whether you can get a good night view

My wife considers camera performance to be of the utmost importance. I took quite a few shots with the Pixel 4 and Pixel 4a for this article and to show my wife, but to be honest, I can't see any difference at all, even with a full-screen display on a 43-inch 4K display.

That's why I'm posting only the photos I took with the Pixel 4a this time. However, as you would expect, the Pixel 4, which has an optical telephoto camera, was higher resolution when zoomed in, so I'll post the comparison photos at the end.

By the way, my wife finally decided on the Pixel 4a after looking at the night scene mode photos. I think this depends on the person, but for my wife, the ability to capture a beautiful night scene was most important to her, rather than the number of cameras.

The Pixel 4's super-resolution zoom is up to 8x and the Pixel 4a's is up to 7x, but there's still a big difference in resolution when you zoom in. However, if you have a 21-inch display, the Pixel 4a's 7x super-resolution zoom is acceptable image quality, personally. By the way, my wife seems to be able to forgive even if it is displayed on a 43-inch display. If that is the case, Google setting the super-resolution zoom to 7x may be an exquisite decision for light users.

It's also perfect as the main device for users who love weird devices

I told you at the beginning of this article that if you're a light smartphone user, there's no other choice but the Pixel 4a, but after testing the Pixel 4a for a few weeks, even as a fanatic, I didn't feel it was any less than I imagined it would be. It's also a great main device for users who are passionate about weird devices.

This article is based on an article from the Japanese edition of Engadget and was created using the translation tool Deepl. The Japanese edition of Engadget does not guarantee the accuracy or reliability of this article.