Member-only story
Why the Pixel 4a is One Big Compromise
The budget smartphone that doesn’t suck
In the past eight months, we’ve seen a sudden interest in what is now considered the mid-range price point in smartphones, though to be honest, it’s crazy to think we see 400 USD as mid-range just because phones are now over a thousand dollars.
Starting with the iPhone SE, following with the OnePlus Nord, and now the Google Pixel 4a.
As someone living in the Philippines, a third world country, I’ve seen far too many people carrying around poorly made, no name Chinese phones that boast good numbers on paper but have absolutely abysmal performance in real world use.
The trend in the lower epsilons of the smartphone world is to pack as many poorly executed features as possible to beef up the spec sheet and to leave the consumer to suffer with bad reliability.
Even the latest OnePlus Nord adds an additional two useless lenses just to boast a “Quad Camera set up.” (2MP, Macro Lens and the depth sensor.)
Google finally made a smartphone that throws out all the pretentiousness for a no nonsense mid-range phone, and they’ve done so by cutting all the right corners.
