The Google Pixel 3a XL Review: Does Mid-Range Make Sense?
by Andrei Frumusanu on June 27, 2019 8:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Mobile
- Smartphones
- Snapdragon 670
- Pixel 3a
- Pixel 3a XL
Battery Life
Battery life on the Pixel 3a XL should be good: The Snapdragon 670 SoC is manufactured on a 10LPP process node and the microarchitecture should be in line with the Snapdragon 845. In effect, I expect the unit to have similar efficiency as the S845 generation of flagships.
The battery capacity of the 3a XL is also relatively large: 3700mAh. It’s to be noted that Google here is advertising the rated capacity, whilst some other vendors in the last few years have started to advertise the typical battery capacity, which can be 100-150mAh higher than the rated one. Props to Google to remaining honest in their marketing numbers here.
In the our web-browsing test, we indeed see the Pixel 3a XL perform extremely well with a result of 11.3h. As I mentioned, the phone falls very closely to the efficiency of S845 devices with similar battery capacity: the OnePlus 6T being the closest comparison point to the 3a XL.
The phone is able to showcase much better battery life over the Pixel 2 XL and the Pixel 3 in the charts because these two phones suffer from inefficient LG panels and DDICs. Unfortunately we don’t have a Pixel 3 XL to compare to.
In PCMark we again see equality with S845 devices of similar capacity: Again the 3a XL falls in almost the same range as the OnePlus 6T here.
Overall, the battery life of the Pixel 3a XL is excellent. Google did well with opting not to go with LG for this line-up as I fear it would have resulted notably worse battery life results, and I hope the company does the same for the Pixel 4 phones.
Whilst we don’t have a review unit at hand to test, we expect the regular Pixel 3a to perform 15-20% worse, in line with the 23% smaller battery capacity of 3000mAh.
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Xex360 - Thursday, June 27, 2019 - link
The weird is this supposedly mid range phone has more features than the more expensive one.beluga - Thursday, June 27, 2019 - link
A series don't have wireless charging and not waterproof, both of which are important to me. Otherwise great phone.melgross - Thursday, June 27, 2019 - link
Water resistant. Nothing is waterproof.philehidiot - Friday, June 28, 2019 - link
I am water proof.Threska - Sunday, June 30, 2019 - link
Toilet:"Then why are you leaking?"philehidiot - Saturday, July 6, 2019 - link
I can say only this.Boom.
Namisecond - Sunday, July 7, 2019 - link
Would like to see you try and pass any of the IP ratings for water resistance...drowning = failure.Doku253 - Thursday, June 27, 2019 - link
It has a headphone jack but the 3a's lack a 2nd front facing camera, IP rated water resistance, UFS storage specification, wireless charging, Pixel Visual Core, Spectral/Flicker sensor and free unlimted original quality photo backup that the higher priced Pixel 3's have.yacoub35 - Thursday, July 4, 2019 - link
I would gladly trade Google no longer having a copy of all my personal photos for the addition of a headphone jack.edwpang - Friday, June 28, 2019 - link
Yeah, I replaced my oneplus 3 with a Xiaomi Mix 2s a while back. The oneplus 3 was working except for broken display when I bought the new one. I kept going back to oneplus for the convenience of 3.5mm plug. With the new Mix 2s, I have to either use bluetooth or converter which I always have to look for when I need it. Bluetooth has the obvious drawback of battery life and also latency in 10s of milliseconds. I noticed this when I practise singing, I am seeing quarter note even half note delay when using bluetooth. Now the oneplus 3 is dead! Next time, I'll definitely keep this in mind.