Weekly poll results: Pixel 3a gets some love, the Pixel 3a XL not so much

19 May 2019
These two will do better in Western regions where there is less competition in the mid-range. Elsewhere, their price makes them hard to love.

Sort by:

Chrsjns, 21 May 201964gb rom is just too restricting, it's like buying 16gb phone 5 ... moreI don't understand your comparison. 16 gigabytes equals to 64 gigas? How would you manage to fill them since photos and videos are in the cloud?

  • Anonymous

Kerr, 19 May 2019I laugh how emotional some people get against a smartphone, if y... moreAmen !!, same here. I have been working on the industry since 2003 and I can tell you I am more than pleased with the perfect balance of mid-tier specs, high-end camera and brand at a reasonable price.

  • Chrsjns

64gb rom is just too restricting, it's like buying 16gb phone 5 years ago.....

  • Adam

I understand it perfectly. When you visit a store with a lot of phones exposed. Always there are a few ones that grab your attention. And people usually ignore the rest. So the differences between them are more than obvious. Only a blind or one that only go to search a determined phone could not watch them. Then you look at the prices of them... those that are too expensive are discarded.

After that you grab them and how it feels, the touch of the buttons, the materials everything influences. Then you watch the brand and if those phones can be trusted locally with warranty and local custom services. In this case these sure that are manufactured by HTC that for example here has null custom service. So at most, your phone will be sent to a common service not specialized that repair whatever the shop send them with who knows what components and how long it can take.

And finally yes, the specifications that offer you for your money. In this case, for a mid-range phones, these are expensive, in the premium level so you expect a lot... but the design is dated, the features... with only few ones and the feeling and materials, plastic instead a good metal.

So yes, is understandable that people prefer other models from other brands at similar price. Not only at mid-range, flagships with one - two years too and can age better being more powerful. With equally good cameras, audio jack, expandable memory, premium materials, etc, etc.

no such thing as get or lx or not

no such thing as get or lx or not

I never understood the "ugly design" comments when almost every phone these days looks the same. They all look near identical at the front with some fragile glass on the back.

Andy93, 19 May 2019ZenFone 6? It's the same price as the 3a XL and vastly superiorAh, but it also is 100 dollars more and isn't sold in the US. For the western markets of North America, the Pixel 3a is great, not perfect though

Kingslayer, 19 May 2019"These two will do better in Western regions where there is less... moreMy guy, you don't have to make so many different comments. Just say what you want in one comment

I laugh how emotional some people get against a smartphone, if you don't like it fair enough avoid it. As one reviewer brilliantly summed up it, the Pixel 3a is NOT for you (the spec nerds on tech forums) but for everyone else who wants a great camera, don't know/care about specs as long as the phone runs OK, from a known name at a more reasonable price than a flagship. And I know about the specs and STILL bought a 3a XL, the camera is worth it to me.

  • Anonymous

Kingslayer, 19 May 2019I still don't understand close to 30% thinks Google completely m... moreOr they don't wantt an useless POS with minimum memory and no sd slot...? Camera doesn'make a smartphone, at least not if you're not a shallow teen, but if you are, you'd just go with the iPhone anyeay...

I still don't understand close to 30% thinks Google completely missed the mark?

I guess are shallow because the design is from 2016. They probably want to pay ALOT for their phones, want the notch, want more fragile glass rears, and don't want the headphone jack back. Brainwashed into these useless, shallow trends.

By Black Friday, the 3a will be $250 and the 3a XL will be $300. For now, because every retailer is/was giving away $100, their launch prices should have been $300 and $379, respectively.

Man, thats no kind of love, two thirds of the votes don't like them, and i don't blame them they are ugly and expensive.

  • Erick

There is no excuse, if Asus and others can give good prices with flagship specs Google sure can. But instead of that, they try to fool people with overpriced mid rangers... which is as o more greedy than Apple with its XR. And probably are manufactured by HTC so sure that they are one of the reasons of this overprices. And if you look where HTC is now, and that Google-HTC team was the designer of these old dated overpriced mid-rangers. Then they'll follow the same path now.

They can keep their overpriced crap taking dust till they drop below half of its prices and even then probably didn't worth agaist other phones. Old design, old SoC, few features vs price, and the only thing you are paying is a single small camera that isn't even the best today and a lot worse than a good dedicated compact camera for half or less price and from a good brand like Leica, etc.

I will never get an Android handset will less than 6 gb ram again. My last handset was the Samsung S9 with 4 gb ram. Good phone... except when playing video games. Less than 6 gb ram on Android units is not enough for online games, and even some offline games. Now I'm using a Samsung S10e. It is worse than my S9 in most respects ( for example: video recording image quality is grainy, it can't be lowered to 720 p resolution, battery life is no where near as good as on the S9, as the Snapdragon 855 is extremely battery inefficient, calls don't have the extra volume feature, picture texts require mobile data, and more) ... but video games run smooth as hell , as I got the 8 gb ram/ 256 rom version.

The point of these devices is to reach mainstream audiences in the Western regions.

Don't be shocked if they go for $199 in a year or so. It is similar to the iPhone SE that started off $399 as well before getting to $149-$199 in 2017. Then as cheap as $79-$99 for Black Friday deals in 2018.

The camera on the Pixel 3 really is amazing. I did a photo shootout with it and my Essential which has the Pixel camera app and the P3 won every time. I know the Essential camera isn't exactly special.

I asked people which photo was better and they always picked the P3. It just looks more natural. Like what you see with your own eyes is what you see with the photo especially indoor lighting.

The Pixel 3a and 3a XL needed to created for several reasons. Lower price to save the brand. Bring the award-winning Google computational photography to the masses. Bring back plastic backs and headphone jack. Excellent battery life.

Nothing wrong with what Google is trying to do here. They're trying to bring back positivity to alot more people. Better for these devices to be released than none at all.

I actually think this is better to get than the $500 Asus Zenfone 6 which has the Snapdragon 855. Why? Because why would I trust Asus again? And I despise phones that big and with glass rears.

If it really sell only for the camera Google should just use a lower end chipset to bring down the price. Pixel 3a XL price vs the Zenfone 6 with SD855. That is a hard bargain.


^ Same applied to the Nexus devices. I lived in the Philippines for five years which is similar to living in India and I rarely saw anyone use a Nexus. Those devices were really catered to Western regions.

The difference was Nexus used a flagship SoC but then never used the best display panels or had mediocre to poor battery life and camera. I don't really miss the Nexus devices at all and I began Android with the Nexus One. Nexus is just a cooler name to say than Pixel. They're practically the same thing except Google completely brands the Pixel to themselves only.

Ra, 19 May 2019It's because people were waiting for a NORMAL FRRIKIN SIZED PHON... moreExactly. I got hyped when I saw the 3a is going to have 5.6" display... But when you account in the massive bezels you get to phablet size anyway with >150mm height and >70mm width... It's still not that bad on today's standards but it's not the compact phone that I expected. As for the 3a XL... Just another oversized brick in the wall.