Review: Nobody Should Buy the Google Pixel 10a

Google’s budget phones are ordinarily some of the most compelling on the market, with last year’s Pixel 9A being perhaps the best budget phone you could get. And, with the Pixel 10a, there are some updates and upgrades.Namely, it comes in four slightly different colors; the screen is 10 percent brighter and uses the slightly newer Gorilla Glass 7i protection; it uses ever so slightly thinner bezels; the charging speed is up to a modest 30 watts, compared to 23 on a wire, and up to 10 watts from 7 for wireless; and the 10a is completely flat, whereas the 9a has the slightest of camera bumps. Oh, and the 10a has more recycled parts.That is the entire, comprehensive list of everything new in the 10a compared to the 9a. Every other part—every other spec for the screen, the processor, the battery, and cameras—is identical to its predecessor. And there’s no hidden secret when you try it; it’s the same phone.Exactly the same as the Pixel 9a, the 10a runs on the Tensor G4 chip with 8 gigabytes of RAM—a chip that is now a generation behind the Tensor G5 in Google’s own flagship Pixel 10 and 10 Pro. The 10a has the same 6.3-inch OLED display running at 120 hertz, the same 48-megapixel main camera and 13-megapixel ultrawide camera, and the same 5,100-milliamp-hour battery. Exactly like the Pixel 9a, the 10a offers 128 or 256 gigabytes of storage at the same starting price.It’s almost refreshing for a company not to needlessly change what was otherwise working well, but the credit would only come if they hadn’t released this phone and continued to sell the 9a, but at a discount. Instead, they slapped a new number — and new color — on virtually the same phone and feigned it was a new release.This is the first phone in a long time that I can say, without reservation, that nobody should buy. Pixels are often hard to recommend because the annual updates are relatively minor and they are available for such aggressive discounts so quickly, but this is comical. You can buy a refurbished 9a for around $280, or a brand-new, unused one for $349—so why would you bother paying $499 for the 10a? It’s the same phone.A year ago, I struggled to recommend people actually buy the 9a, because the Pixel 9 and 9 Pro are such great phones, also available for extreme discounts. And that’s all the more true today. For a brand new version of a 9 or 9 Pro, you’d pay around $500 and $600 (or $334 and $495 for refurbished). The Pixel 9 Pro is such a good phone that I — a tech reviewer with access to lots of phones — bought one with my own money. If you want a great phone, buy one of those, or any other number of phones available on the market. Just don’t buy a 10a.

Review: Nobody Should Buy the Google Pixel 10a

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