The Google Pixel 3a XL Review: Does Mid-Range Make Sense?

Speaker Evaluation

The speaker situation on the Pixel 3a and 3a XL is quite different from that of previous Pixel iterations. In particular the new phone differs in that the bottom speaker is no longer a front-facing unit, but rather a more regular bottom-firing design.

Furthermore while the earpiece does serve as a stereo unit, it acts more like a tweeter while the main speaker takes care of lower frequencies.

In terms of the maximum volume of the phone, the Pixel 3a XL doesn’t quiget get as loud as other devices on the market, but it’s still more than sufficient to listen to in louder environments.

What we notice in the results in that the difference between holding the phone one-handed in portrait mode and two-handed and having the phone cupped, is that the delta is a lot higher than what we see on the Pixel 2 or Pixel 3; this is a case of the phone not having quite as good frontal directionality due to the bottom firing speaker.

In terms of the speaker stereo bias, there’s a clear loudness advantage to the right side / bottom speaker. While the earpiece is there, its frequency range is very limited in the low and mid-range and offers a lot more treble. The main speaker on the other hand has a very limited high frequency range.

Listening to content however with both speakers is quite good: The two speakers complement each other extremely well, and especially in the higher frequency ranges the Pixel 3a XL does very well. It’s notably lacking in the lower frequency and bass, but it’s still a very good experience.

The big thing to note here is that while the output isn’t perfect, the phone doesn’t suffer from the same high volume distortions as the Pixel 3 if you hold it wrong.

Overall, the speaker audio quality the 3a XL is very good for a phone in its range, particularly as we’re just used to mono speaker setups in devices from the competition.

The phone’s 3.5mm headphone output is good and seems certainly better than Google’s 3.5mm headphone dongle audio quality, however it did lack a bit of clarity in the higher frequency ranges compared to higher end models. Nevertheless, it’s good that Google opted to actually include this feature in the 3a series.