For years, the Google Pixel A series has offered incredible value, delivered unparalleled camera quality, offered more updates than other phones in its class, and often outperformed those under $500 thanks to its Google Tensor processor All products within price range.
But then the Nothing Phone 2a came along. At $350, it’s $150 cheaper than the Pixel 7a (and possibly the Pixel 8a) while offering a flagship-grade design, a better display than anything in its price range, and battery life and charging speeds that would please anyone. .
With the Pixel 8a launching soon (most likely at Google I/O 2024 on May 14), there are a few things Google can do to prevent Nothing from seriously cannibalizing its hard-won Pixel A series market share. There’s no doubt that as long as Google can keep up with the competition, it will be the best budget phone in its price range when it launches, but the Pixel 8a could learn a few things from the Nothing Phone 2a.
price
The Google Pixel 8a is expected to debut at the same $499 price as the Pixel 7a. The price is up $50 compared to previous generations of the Pixel A series, but the 7a improves the overall experience by offering a better display, a better fingerprint sensor, wireless charging, and even a camera upgrade.
While all of these things are important, it’s even more important that Google doesn’t raise prices again this year to ensure its price remains under $500.
The obvious problem is that the Nothing Phone 2a is $150 cheaper than that, and it’s hard to argue that the Pixel 8a is much better value than Nothing’s first budget phone.
design
Google’s Pixel design has been incredible over the past few years, and it would be a shame to see Google ruin it now. The latest Pixel 9 leak looks pretty ugly, but luckily, the Pixel 8a leak makes it look more like the Pixel 8.
While Nothing’s glyph interface and associated transparency are great, the camera island on the back of the Phone 2a doesn’t look particularly appealing. On the plus side, it’s instantly recognizable as a “Nothing Phone” thanks to these unique design aspects.
Likewise, Google’s signature camera bar design is instantly recognizable even when the phone has a case. It’s a great design that looks great, and we wouldn’t want to see Google do anything different. At least, don’t make it look like the Phone 2a’s weird camera hump.
exhibit
Last year, Google upgraded the Pixel 7a to a 90Hz display, which was a major leap from the Pixel 6a’s sluggish 60Hz display. However, the Nothing Phone 2a ups the ante in a few important ways, starting with a bright 120Hz OLED display. It can reach 1,300 nits of brightness, 300 nits more than the Pixel 7a, and the 120Hz display can shift between 30Hz and 120Hz depending on the content. The Pixel 7a can only switch between 60 and 90Hz.
The Pixel 8a could improve on this by matching most specs, including brightness levels, which we’ve seen significantly improve in recent years.
Beyond that, the Nothing Phone 2a display does a few things Far Better than any Pixel display (including high-end ones): it doesn’t flicker slowly. PWM-sensitive users like me have trouble using Pixel phones because they traditionally flicker at a 240Hz rate. The Pixel 7a uses 360Hz, but that’s still not high enough for sensitive users.
Meanwhile, the Nothing Phone 2a’s display does not flicker at all when the brightness is above 50%, but switches to 1920Hz PWM dimming when the brightness is below 50%. Google needs to increase its PWM rate to accommodate what is quickly becoming the industry norm, to help sensitive users and prevent users from becoming sensitized from staring at a slowly blinking display.
Battery Life
If there’s a specific weakness for the Pixel 6a and Pixel 7a, it’s battery life. The Tensor G2 inside the Pixel 7a is more battery efficient than the Tensor G1 inside the Pixel 6a, and as we saw with the Pixel 8, the Tensor G3 inside the Pixel 8a is even more efficient than the Tensor G3 inside the Pixel 7a. more High battery efficiency.
However, the Tensor’s battery efficiency pales in comparison to the MediaTek Dimensity 7200 Pro inside the Nothing Phone 2a, which drains the battery throughout the day. The Nothing Phone 2a typically has a battery life of up to two days on a single charge.
While we don’t expect the Pixel 8a to have the same battery life as the Pixel 8a, any kind of improvement compared to the battery life of the Pixel 6a and 7a would be a welcome improvement.
charging speed
Google added wireless charging to the Pixel 7a, a first for a Pixel A series phone, but the charging speed is only 5W and relatively useless. It’s understandable that Google has to cut corners in some areas to keep the phone under $500, but it’s even worse if it adds an important feature only to have it not work properly.
If the Pixel 8a includes wireless charging, it will need at least 10W. The Pixel 8 series supports 15W wireless charging, so this feels like a reasonable price deal while still offering something useful. The Nothing Phone 2a doesn’t support wireless charging at all, which could give Google a significant advantage over Nothing’s budget phone.
However, Google Pixel phones have never supported 45W fast charging like the Nothing Phone 2a, which I find to be more valuable than any wireless charging method. Faster overall charging will help address the battery life issues in the section above, making a full charge halfway through the day no big deal. The current 18W charging speed of the Pixel A series is not enough.
sustained performance
Google Pixel 6a and 7a offer best-in-class peak performance, but Tensor has a bad reputation for overheating and slowdowns a lot of When running anything that needs to be processed quickly. As you can see from the gray chart above, the Pixel 7a loses a lot of performance very quickly.
Meanwhile, the MediaTek Dimensity 7200 Pro in the Nothing Phone 2a maintained high performance even after 30 minutes or more of heavy processing. If you are a mobile gamer, this metric is especially important to you.
Google could improve this with better thermal management in the Pixel 8a, which would help the phone feel faster if it can keep its high-performance features intact for more than a few minutes at most.
Camera quality and features
To this day, no phone under $500 can match the Pixel 7a’s photography capabilities. Competitors, including the Nothing Phone 2a, simply didn’t stand a chance.We have no doubt that the Pixel 8a will be completely different from this – rumors and leaks suggest that Google won’t make any meaningful changes to the camera hardware – but Google may improve some parts of the camera software.
Nothing offers a proper manual mode on its phone, although it lacks some of the other features offered by Google Camera, and it makes the Nothing Phone 2a look more capable, even though the opposite is true. If Google can introduce a great manual camera mode from the Pixel 8 Pro, it will be a huge advantage over other companies in the space.
Software update
Besides the camera, one of the best reasons to buy a Pixel is the support from Google. Google has long offered more multi-year software updates than any other Android phone maker, and the Pixel 8 series goes a step further than ever before, offering seven years of major software update guarantees.
Plus, with the Pixel 8 coming with Gemini Nano, there seems to be no better reason to buy a Pixel phone with excellent support.But Google’s update is nothing special reliable Lately, that’s been the real elephant in the room.
The Nothing Phone 2a is only scheduled to get three major OS updates and four years of security updates, but Nothing has given the phone three updates since launch, and historically the update quality has been excellent. Google could certainly learn a thing or two from nothing in that regard, and that certainly starts with a brand new phone.
coming soon
Although there is no official announcement yet, we are pretty sure that the Google Pixel 8a will be launched on May 14 at Google I/O 2024. Our Pixel 8a rumor roundup covers everything that’s been leaked or rumored so far, and it’s quite detailed. juicy.
All in all, it looks like Google will deliver another winner this year, but part of that success will be Google adapting to changes across the industry. The Nothing Phone 2a is a great example of how to deliver a quality budget phone without making too many compromises, and Google’s mid-range price should deliver better specs and longer software support.