Google Pixel 8a - Unlocked Android Phone with Google AI, Advanced Pixel Camera and 24-Hour Battery - Bay - 128 GB

It's an excellent budget phone. Great camera, vanilla android with fast updates, awesome camera. Plenty fast for my needs

protects my phone like a glove. I wish I could give you a more detailed review but I don't make a habit of dropping my phone (or abusing my phone for that matter)

My girlfriend's phone broke so for Valentine's Day I got her this. She's very happy with the quality and overall that's all that matters

So, I've been using the 8a for about 6 months. I upgraded from the Pixel 5a due to support for that supposedly ending soon. I saw the 8a on sale so pounced. I'm mostly going to compare the 8a to the 5a. Keep in mind I really liked the 5a.8a vs 5aBattery life : 5a wins (slightly). I'm not sure how they compare on mAh but the 5a kept a charge a little longer. That's not to say the 8a won't last long. It pretty much always gets me through the day and I don't really feel held back by the difference.Screen: 8a wins (slightly). 8a is a little crisper, overall both are very good. Downside to the 8a is the screen size was a hair smaller I believe.Camera: 8a wins solidly. 5a took good pictures. 8a is even better, especially in low light. I also found the 8a AI editing feature to be handy at times.Charging: Mixed bag. 5a had a faster charging speed (although no Turbo charge). But I like having the wireless charging in the 8a which the 5a didn't have. After about 2yrs of 5a use the port was kinda loose. Wireless charging should negate that later problem of the port wearing out.Functional speed: 8a wins. 5a wasn't slow, but 8a is a little snappier.Headphone jack: 5a wins only because the 5a had one, 8a does not have a headphone jack. Most of my headphones/ear buds I use are wireless, but I still use a few wired ones. But you can get an adapter which has worked fine for the 8a.**Fingerprint reader/sensor: 5a wins by a long shot. This is the reason I removed a star. The 5a fingerprint reader on the back of the phone worked right nearly every time (except with moist fingers). The 8a in screen finger reader works more than half the time, but was is far less accurate than the 5a method. To make matters worse, I think the Pixel engineers forgot most people like to put a screen protector on. With a screen protector on the 8a, the fingerprint reader is nearly useless. (I had tried resetting the fingerprint scans to no avail). Maybe this wasn't the engineers' fault. Maybe a sales exec thought a fingerprint sensor on the screen sounded cool so demanded it while the engineers said it needed more work. But I digress.Out of frustration, I had started using the less secure face unlock which does work reasonably well. But the face unlock doesn't work well if you're wearing sunglasses or in dimly lit rooms. So, I've had to type the numerical unlock a lot more with the 8a.Overall this is a good phone at this price point that does most of what the expensive phones can do. But they need to overhaul the fingerprint sensor. Either move it to the back again or improve it so that it a) works nearly every time and b) works with most screen protectors.

If you aren't a heavy smartphone user this is a great choice. I mostly only use it for being a phone, surfing the web, and as an Android Auto phone. It isn't very heavy. Most apps run fine, although there are some that are seemingly poorly optimized that either run slow or run the phone hot. Android auto initially had issues with stuttering but that has worked itself out, it was probably fixed in a patch.

I bought this 5 days ago. The initial set up was quick. I am now on day 5 of finishing of the set up🥴 I has leftout so many things. I am having to set tons of preferences. None of them were added. Nor was any of my software transfered. That will probably take me a week to get installed and setup. I have a Nokia. So I don't know which phone is not transferring completely. My old phone is a G4 and this is a G5 and that maybe pert of the issue also, but I was told it should not be 🤷🏼‍♀️I worked Tech Support 20 years at a college and helped students with software issues helping use their laptops, tablets. When I was in the computer lab I was uncharge of install and troubleshoot software on the colleges Macs and PC's over our Intranet. Mac's and computer graphics were my specialty. I understand and can support various devices such as laptops and tablets and normally phones and teach them the basics of how to use 95% of software programs we teach until they get to the advanced stages and while installing / transferring and setting up new phones was not list of things the college did. I was allowed sit with the students and staff and instructors and teach setup a few college related things like setting up their phones to access our network and their emails on our servers. I wasn't supposed to spend more than 15 minutes with each student when we were busy when we were not I would teach them more. After 15 minutes I set them up with a one of our technicians assigned to help with more complicated problems as my main job was answering the phones and helping staff with minor issues or writing them up a ticket and assigning them to technician to help with classroom issues.This install and transfer has been a royal pain and taking way long than it has with my other phones!!!Can't tell you eases of use except that it seems like everything I do needs permission to access or troubleshooting. Which is a pain especially since it is supposedly storing the passwords. Like I said I don't know which phone is responsible for all the problems, but I almost feel starting from scratch and not transferring data might have been quicker.1 month later...Took it to my brother who has programed main frame computerscouldn't get it to work after several hours. He said to return it!!