Pixel 6a vs. the competition: The mid-range gets better with Tensor power

While flagship phones continue to be expensive, many phone manufacturers now offer mid-range options that are far more affordable. Today, Google announced the Pixel 6a, the latest of its “a” line of phones that are designed to fit that need. It looks and feels a lot like the Pixel 6, but it has a smaller footprint roughly the size of the Pixel 5 and a smaller display. It also has the same 5G as the 6 and the 6 Pro, Titan M2 security, and the same Tensor SoC as the P6 Pro. But it’s certainly not the only mid-range handset on the market. Here, we’ve compared it with the iPhone SE 2022 as well as the Samsung Galaxy A53 to give you an idea of how it stacks up against its rivals. Be sure to check back soon to see how the Pixel 5a fares in our review.

None

Pixel 6a

Samsung Galaxy A53 5G

iPhone SE

Pricing

$449

$450

$429 / $479 / $579

Dimensions

152.2 x 71.8 x 8.9 mm (5.99 x 2.83 x 0.35 in)

159.6 x 74.8 x 8.1 mm (6.28 x 2.94 x 0.32 in)

138.4 x 67.3 x 7.3 mm (5.45 x 2.65 x 0.29 inches)

Weight

178 g (6.3 oz)

189 g (6.67 oz)

144g (5.09 ounces)

Screen size

6.1 inches (156 mm)

6.5 inches (165.1 mm)

4.7 inches (119.4 mm)

Screen resolution

1,080 x 2,400 pixels (429 ppi)

1,080 x 2,400 pixels (405 ppi)

1,334 x 750 (326 ppi)

Screen type

OLED, 60Hz

Super AMOLED, 120Hz

Retina HD LCD

Battery

4,410 mAh

5,000 mAh

Up to 15 hours, mAh unknown

Internal storage

128 GB

128 / 256 GB

64 / 128 / 256 GB

External storage

None

Up to 1TB microSD

None

Rear camera(s)

Dual Pixel Wide: 12.2 MP, f/1.7

UltraWide: 12MP, f/2.2

Wide: 64 MP, f/1.8

UltraWide: 12 MP, f/2.2

Macro/Depth: 5 MP, f/2.4

Wide: 12 MP, f/1.8

Front camera(s)

8 MP f/2.0

32 MP f/2.2

7 MP, f/2.2

Video capture

4K at 30, 60 fps

4K at 60 fps

4K at 60 fps

SoC

Google Tensor

Exynos 1280

Apple A15 Bionic

CPU

Octa-core 2.8 GHz

Octa-core (2.4 GHz & 2.0 GHz)

3.23 GHz hexa-core

GPU

ARM Mali G78

Mali-G68

quad-core Apple GPU

RAM

6 GB

6 / 8 GB

4 GB

WiFi

802.11 ax

802.11 a/b/g/n/ac

802.11ax

Bluetooth

v5.2

v5.1

v5.0

NFC

Yes

Yes

Yes

Operating system

Android 12

Android 12

iOS 15

Other features

IP67 certified, USB-C

IP67 certified, USB-C

IP67 certified, Lightning port

Follow all of the news from Google I/O 2022 right here!

新 Pixel 平板電腦將於 2023 年到來

Google 在 I/O 中宣佈預計會於 2023 年推出最新一代的 Pixel 平板，雖然暫時未有任何具體關於裝置規格的資訊，但 Google 裝置及服務部高級副總裁 Rick Osterloh 就透露，Pixel 平板將會跟最新的 Pixel 手機一樣，採用自家研發的 Tensor 晶片。…

Google’s Matter smart home standard is launching this fall

Google plans to finally launch its new smart home industry standard called Matter this fall. Devices will all connect quickly and easily using Fast Pair and the platform will support a variety of voice assistants and networking protocols. Those include Alexa, Google Assistant, Siri as well as WiFi, Thread and Bluetooth LE. While Fast Pair feature has been used for headphones and audio gear, the company is working to use it for more things, including syncing lightbulbs and smart plugs with Android and Nest devices. You’ll be able to scan a code with your phone to get things rolling, which should be quicker and easier than the current method for adding new gear to your arsenal. 

The company first announced Matter in 2019, although back then it was known as Project Connected Home over IP (Project CHIP). At I/O 2021, Google announced a redesign to its smart home Developer Center to include all the tools developers would need to make product compatible with the standard. Matter was delayed until 2022 last August and the fall timeline now means Google has pushed it out yet again. The delayed launch was supposed to happen in the first half of this year. Still, after all of the roadblocks, the promise of a more seamless process for adding devices to your smart home from a wide range of companies is a compelling one.  

Follow all of the news from Google I/O 2022 right here!

How to pre-order the Google Pixel 6a smartphone

Google’s annual I/O keynote was chock full of hardware and software announcements, key among them being the introduction of the Pixel 6a smartphone. The latest midrange handset brings many of the Pixel 6’s features down to the more accessible price point of $449. Google also announced the Pixel Buds Pro, its answer to Apple’s AirPods Pro and the company’s first earbuds to support active noise cancellation. It’ll be a while before you can get your hands on either of these gadgets, but here’s how to pre-order the Google Pixel 6a and everything else announced today.

Google Pixel 6a

Google I/O 2022 Pixel 6a
Engadget

The Google Pixel 6a will be available for pre-order starting July 21st for $449, and it will be more widely available starting July 28th. You’ll be able to pick it up from the Google store and other retailers.

The Pixel 6a is the latest midrange addition to Google’s smartphone lineup. But just because it’s not a true flagship doesn’t mean it won’t have some of the features that the standard Pixel 6 does. In fact, Google carried a lot of things over, including 5G support, the Titan M2 security chip and the same Tensor SoC that’s inside the Pixel 6 Pro. It also has an under-display fingerprint sensor and a USB-C port for charging, but alas, no headphone jack.

As far as the camera goes, the Pixel 6a has the recognizable camera bar that the rest of the Pixel 6 series has, along with a dual rear array that includes a 12-megapixel main shooter and an ultra-wide lens. It also has some of Google advanced camera features like Night Sight, Magic Eraser and more. Overall, the Pixel 6a’s design is very similar to that of the others in the lineup, but it’s about the size of a Pixel 5 and has a 6.1-inch always-on touchscreen with a 60Hz refresh rate and HDR support. Google claims the battery inside the Pixel 6a will last all day.

Google Buds Pro

Pixel Buds Pro
Google

The Google Pixel Buds Pro will be available for pre-order starting July 21st for $199, and they will be more widely available starting July 28th. They will be available in red, green, blue and black. You’ll be able to pick them up from the Google store and other retailers.

The Pixel Buds Pro are the first that Google has made that support ANC. The buds also have a new custom audio processor and transparency mode, the latter of which should help you jump into conversations without taking the buds out of your ears. Like many other earbuds at this price range, the Pixel Buds Pro will be able to connect to more than one device at a time and intelligently switch between, say, your phone when you need to take a call and music from your computer.

Google claims the Pixel Buds Pro will get up to 11 hours of listening time on a single charge, or up to seven hours if you use ANC for the whole time. The company also said they’ll be updating the earbuds to support spatial audio later this year.

Follow all of the news from Google I/O 2022 right here!

The Pixel Tablet is coming in 2023

Google’s last tablet was the ill-fated Pixel slate, a device that was widely criticized — so much so that in 2019, Google said it wouldn’t make tablets anymore. In classic fashion, though, the company is changing its tune. Today as part of its hardware presentation at Google I/O 2022, Google teased the Pixel Tablet, a premium Android-powered device that’s set to arrive sometime in 2023. 

As this product is months away from being released, Google is only giving us a scant few details right now. Rick Osterloh, Google’s SVP of devices and services, said that the Pixel Tablet is a “premium” device that will run on the company’s custom Tensor chips, just like the latest Pixel phones. What we haven’t heard is how much it’ll cost, how big the screen is or when it will be released. We can say that, based on the renders we saw, it looks a bit like someone just took the screen off a Nest Hub.

Naturally, the new tablet will run Google’s version of Android specifically built for larger screens, an initiative that’s been in the works for a while now. Historically, the big knock against Android tablets is that the software never feels like it’s built for the bigger screen, and that apps aren’t optimized to use this bigger view. Even with changes made to Android to support larger screens, it doesn’t necessarily mean developers will build their apps to take advantage of that space. 

But Osterloh told reporters in a briefing ahead of I/O that Google has clearly heard that users want a larger-screen Pixel experience to compliment their phones — so the company is at least seeing some level of consumer demand for such a device. Whether that leads into market adoption is another question entirely, as neither Chrome OS nor Android tablets ever caught on in a significant way. Samsung has had some success with its Galaxy Tab line and Amazon’s budget lineup of Fire tablets have both stuck around, but Apple’s iPad remains dominant. 

Given that this device won’t be out until sometime in 2023, it’s far too early to predict if Google has learned from its past mistakes in the tablet arena. But the company made a commitment at I/O to rebuild more than 20 of its apps for large-screen devices, and huge developers like Facebook, TikTok and Zoom are on board as well. If more third-party developers get on board by the time the Pixel Tablet arrives, it could have a shot at redefining what we think of when it comes to premium Android tablets.

Follow all of the news from Google I/O 2022 right here!