Pixel 4A: Plain looks, but a great price and camera

Google took the wraps off its second-generation Pixel 4A phone last week (announcing the Pixel 4A 5G and Pixel 5 at the same time), joining Samsung’s Galaxy A51 and Apple’s new iPhone SE in the increasingly crowded budget-friendly segment. For $349, you get a 3,140-mAh battery, a headphone jack and a standout 12-megapixel camera that CNET’s Lynn La says in her review of the Pixel 4A “raises the bar for how good a budget phone’s camera can be.”

At that price, the Pixel 4A undercuts its closest competitors, the iPhone SE and the Galaxy A51, by $50.

But Apple’s and Samsung’s recent budget offerings are popular for good reason. The 2020 iPhone SE rocks Apple’s top-of-the-line A13 Bionic processor, also found in its fancy iPhone 11 Pro. Apple’s proprietary chipset comfortably outperformed the Pixel 4A’s Snapdragon 730G in our benchmark tests. The iPhone SE 2020 also has an IP rating for water and dust resistance, which the Pixel 4A lacks.

Pixel 4A: Plain looks, but a great price and camera

The Galaxy A51, meanwhile, sports the largest battery of the pack (4,000 mAh) along with a more versatile quad-camera setup that includes a wide-angle shooter. That’s a feature not present in the Pixel 4A or the iPhone SE. For more information, check out the chart below, where we compare the three phones’ specs.

Despite its ho-hum design, the Pixel 4A is still an excellent value with a top-notch camera.