Google Pixel 10a Review

The a-series has one job and the 10a does it. At $499 it takes the pictures a Pixel takes, which at this price is not a close contest: the 48-megapixel main camera and Google's processing beat everything near it in daylight and most of it after dark, and Night Sight is still the reason people buy these. The back is flat, with no camera bump at all, which sounds trivial until the phone stops rocking on a desk.

The screen is where the small gains are. The 6.3-inch pOLED still runs 60 to 120Hz, but it peaks at 3000 nits against the 9a's 2700 and sits behind Gorilla Glass 7i instead of Gorilla Glass 3, although it ships set to 60Hz and has to be switched over in settings, which many owners never will. The 5100 mAh battery is unchanged and still good for a full day with room to spare. Charging is 30W wired and 10W wireless, and IP68 is better protection than the price suggests.

The compromise is the chip. Tensor G4 is the part the 9a used and the part the Pixel 9 used in 2024, two generations behind the G6 in the Pixel 11, with 8GB of memory beside it. It is quick enough for everything except sustained gaming, and it is the reason the seven-year update promise reads more like an endurance test than a guarantee.