The phone takes the most interesting features of the flagship Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro and sticks them into a more affordable mid-range phone, without trimming away too much of the good stuff that makes the Pixel one of the best Android phones you can buy.
All Pixel phones enjoy clever software tricks like adaptive battery management, which tracks how and when you use your device to tweak performance and extend the battery life, as well as features like a circle to search, which lets you trace a circle around anything on screen to find it online.
The HyperOS software isn’t as slick as the Samsung Galaxy’s OneUI or the streamlined version of Android found on Pixel phones, and the phone comes with a set of pre-installed third-party apps making it feel distinctly cheap out of the box, but there are loads of customisation options so that you can make it feel your own with some tweaking.
The £299 phone features a crisp 6.67in AMOLED screen with a smooth 120Hz refresh rate, a 200MP main camera with natural-looking post-processing, dynamic range and optical image stabilisation, IP68 dust and water resistance, and a 5110mAh battery that will comfortably go two days with light use.
We’re expecting a Pixel 9a to launch in a few months, but until then the Pixel 8a remains the best cheap Pixel phone around, especially as you’ll often find it heavily discounted.
