I feel like a fool for spending so much on a phone
In my previous post I talked about buying a Pixel 9A to try out life here on android. I picked the 9A cause a) I didn't want to spend a lot of money. b) the 9A and 10A where intreaging to me but In my own thoughts about the 10A launch I said you should buy a 9A so I thought it best to take my own advice.
Here's the thing it was great advice. I got this phone direct from Google for £350 as they where running a clearance sale now the 10A is available. No doubt soon they will be practically giving away 9As for black Friday this year.
The device came in a simple but small package notably not a single piece of plastic and the box was clearly made from a recycled material just from looking at it I could tell from the texture which is nice to see.
Inside was Just the Phone, a charging cable, a quick start guide and a SIM tool. Side note I really like this SIM tool it's cool and circular will be keeping that around.
I turned the phone on and went through the setup. I migrated my data from the iPhone. It kindly gathered me a list of Apps that I had on my iPhone that are available on the Play Store and installed them for me. So far it was so good.
At the point of writing this it's been just over 24 hours since I began using the device. I am not ready to do a full review of the phone yet, that will have to wait until I'm a week or two into using this device to get a proper sense of the phone.
Here's my initial impressions though. I like the pixel experience Material 3 Expressive is a much better design than Liquid Glass that is just straight up a fast.
Things are easy to read the have tactility to them despite being digital but it's all just easy to understand. Plus the whole thing has a charm and whimsy to it something just completely lacking from modern apple OSes like the squiggly lines for playback or downloading progress or the way buttons react and bounce to your interaction or even just the simple thing of sliders for volume and brightness having a bar handle on them to make it super easy to see what is what.
Material You is also much better theming engine than iOS while I admire apples Ability to wrangle developers to make their icons as vector graphics so the theming can be better as well as eaiser for light and dark mode icons the Material You icons while not completely perfect are a much more pleasing end result.
Back to the phone itself though my thoughts overall is this thing is great. It's all the phone you need and nothing else no bells and whistles no gimmicks just big screen big battery and a camera or two.
Cameras seem decent but not amazing. Certainly good enough for most people and the way I use a phone camera which is essentially just for utility it's more than passable. Speakers left a little bit to be desired but when I remember this thing cost 1/5th my iPhones cost suddenly I'm totally fine with the way the speakers sound. The screen is great too, high refresh rate with some VRR albeit only between 60-120Hz vs the iPhones 1-120Hz but still better than nothing. The battery though has been a champ.
I have been using the device pretty heavily today finishing up singing into stuff and just putting the thing through it's pases and here at 23:20 18 hours after I took it off charge it is comfortably at 51%.
This was honestly the biggest thing for me about why I love the 17 pro max, a comfortable 2 day battery life is what I want out of a phone and the fact this budget device can deliver that is a great plus although it should come as no shock considering that the phone is equipped with a 5100mAh battery the biggest battery on a Pixel outside of the folds of course and Dwarfing the 17 Pros 3800mAh battery.
It really makes you think of apple was to put a 5100mAh battery in the base pro, which clearly is possible given the 17 Pro and the Pixel 9A are practically the same size, they would be getting almost a full week out of their devices.
Overall then initially I am starting to feel like a bit of a fool honestly back in September I paid £1200 for this iPhone 17 Pro, granted I did pay extra for the 512GB storage but still this 9A was only £350 and it matches it in a lot of ways for daily use.
Sure the iPhone can absolutely demolish this thing when it comes to high performance uses but let's be honest most people are just not doing those things day to day.
They're doing web browsing, Instagram, WhatsApp, Discord, light games like Balatro, watching YouTube videos and for that this phone is more than enough.
So if youre in the Market for a new phone especially with the memory and storage crisis an oil crisis and a cost of living crisis maybe there is no need to spend more than £350 even brand new for a phone anymore.
Last Edited: 4 days, 5 hours ago.