Google Pixel 5A: Spot the Difference!

Okay so you know those old games that used to be in newspapers that would be like spot the difference between these this really feels like one of those.

So we have a new pixel phone ladies and gentlemen not the pixel six so this was the uh often rumored but definitely not yeah so they they announced that it wasn't cancelled but then they never gave us a real date for it and then they but now we've quietly got this new pixel

you didn't forget about it did you so?

The pixel a series has been great we already know what it's about right the great cameras great software overall continued that formula and there's is the pixel 4a 5g announced in september 2020 nearly a year ago and like i said it's like that game

There are so many unchanged things this year-over-year refresh i've ever seen between phones in my life so here let's just go over all the things that are exactly the same okay so it's the same exact specs as last year snapdragon 765 same 12 megapixel camera on the back.

Alongside the same 16 megapixel ultra wide same back mounted fingerprint sensor same speakers and same headphone jack and it's got the same perfectly fine 18 watt charging and the same lack of wireless charging so the natural question is okay it's a new phone what.

is actually different what do they

so this is where the spotting the differences game comes in you might have seen uh the color side by side this is the easiest thing to spot it is a slightly new color last year the 4a5 g was just called just black the new 5a is literally called mostly black it's

Actually a slightly green cast to it so kind of catches the light nice sometimes but yeah then it looks like a green phone but it's mostly black then the 5a is actually slightly very slightly larger it's rocking a 6.3 inch 1080p 60 hertz oled display instead of the 6.2 inch 1080p 60hz oled display from last.

Year same pixel density same hole punch cut out just a little bit bigger and then from there there's a bunch of nice little quality of life improvements you might not ever know just from picking up the phone but the longer you use it the more obvious they would be so the 5a has a metal unibody construction polycarbonate from last year and you can.

Hardly tell holding it because they coat it in this soft touch finish anyway so it feels kind of like a rubberized type of plastic but no doubt that's going to wear better over time and it also lets them get to ip67 water and dust resistance which the 4a 5g did not have and i do like this new textured power.

Button on the 5a it's got a nice little accent color and i still love when phone makers do this honestly they all should and it's got a raised pattern to id in and then on the inside the pixel 5a has a substantially larger battery so up to nearly 4 700 milliamp hours and that is sweet so the last a series pixels were already quite good with the battery life because they're not drawing a whole ton of power again they still all have 60 hertz displays but the 5a's literal biggest improvement is on something it already did well so that's totally.

Welcome long lasting battery is always good to see but then the only other things you'd be able to identify you'd have to check the spec list for uh gorilla glass 6 on the new one versus gorilla glass 3 on the 4a5g and they actually removed the laser autofocus i don't know maybe a bit of a cost saving move kind of a bummer to see that at the end of the day that's everything 5a 449 so honestly reviewing this phone is like the easy part because it's so similar to last year if you're looking for a pretty great all-around phone for a mid-range 500-ish dollar price.

Other than not having a higher fresh rate i think this is a pretty safe bet i mean at this price you're competing against the samsung a series the iphone se oneplus nord and a couple others around there but this one's gonna have the best camera of that bunch again and a few nice google features great my bigger challenge was trying to figure why like why did google just make almost the same phone 11 months later because it feels kind of pointless but these companies don't do things for no reason.

A reason so number one i just feel like there is a pressure if you've started to do something year over year to just keep it updated even if it's not a big change it's not a new chip they didn't add that.

Many features but if you're just gonna offer people the latest available this does have like some weird timing where it comes around the time where we're all now thinking about the upcoming release of the pixel 6 with pre-announced this new more exciting pixel phone that's coming of course that means their only choices really or to not release the pixel 5a at all to do 5a with tensor first so when you look at it that way i guess it sort of makes sense that we ended up with this i mean you don't want to debut your custom.