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Phones · Google Pixel

Google Pixel 8a

30owners with an opinion
74%of verdicts positive
17/6positive/negative since 2024
1.5 yrslongest happy owner
0happy after 3+ years

Praised for ease of use and reliability; criticized for software and performance.

What owners wrote

Likes itOwned 1.5 years
For context, I'm a long-time iPhone user, who switched to a Pixel 8a about 18 months ago. > Apple has had better mobile hardware for years. I can't say I noticed a difference in quality when switching. Maybe some people can, but for me it was just a different, but still well-made phone. > Apple has higher consumer trust. I can't speak for consumers in general, but this is certainly no longer the case for me. I also used MacOS for 20 years, and switched to Linux about a year ago because I didn't like the direction Apple was headed. It may be my choice of reading material (HN), but I receive almost daily confirmation that this was a sound decision. > Apple has better app selection (for most people). Not selection, necessarily, but certainly quality. As a side note, my iPad (my sole remaining Apple device) quietly updated to iOS 26 a few days ago. Despite having spent months reading about how bad it is, I was still genuinely shocked. Again, I can't speak for "consumers", but for me Apple now has a far worse user experience.
Doesn’t like it
>resilient to drops I would be content if they'd stop making phones slippier than a wet bar of soap. My Pixel 8a is ridiculous, I don't know how they do it. If you have dry hands, it's nearly impossible to hold on to.
Doesn’t like it
>pixel >I do not use a case I have a Pixel 8a, and I have to use a case for it, because it appears to be designed to be as slippery as possible. Every edge is round and there's nothing to grip - it feels like an aluminium/glass bar of wet soap.
Likes it
I get you. I used to buy Nexus devices as well as some of the first Pixels, until at some point the prices shot up to ridiculous levels for a phone and I went with other brands. Last year though the Pixel 8a was selling for 350€ and I got one. Luckily, given the recent developments. Will be installing GrapheneOS.
Likes it
I almost switched to pixel before getting my new 17 pro max. I feel like im just constantly fighting the ios keyboard or having to type so slowly and carefully but it still is screwing up. I have a pixel 8a and Im shocked how quickly I can type on it while constantly tip toeing and fighting the ios keyboard. It's ironic because my first iphone i used was a 4s and i was pleasantly surprised how nice it was to type on after using samsung phones. Now it's like the tables have turned. Im constantly fighting the ios keyboard. Sometimes when i tap and get the wrong character i will move my thumb to where i would have had to type to get that wrong character and i know for sure i did not move my thumb that far away from the character i actually wanted and thought i tapped on. Im honestly shocked how bad typing on ios has become. i got a pixel 8a just to amuse myself and i was again totally surprised how fast and easy the typing was. something is going rotten inside apple. even controlling when the keyboard appears and when you want it to go away is frustrating on ios. i find the little universal down arrow on the pixel phones much better.
Doesn’t like it
I upgraded from a Pixel 4a (running Calyxos) to a 8a, only because at some point Whatsapp videos broke on the 4a and friends got videos with some green encoding. Otherwise, I had no reason to upgrade. I hate my new phone. I could use the 4a with one hand comfortably, but that is not the case with the 8a. My thumb does not reach the top of the screen like before. I have to hold it in diagonal position just to be able to do the gestures Android -by design- expects. The fingerprint sensor moved from the back to the front. That design helped having the phone in the right direction when taking it out of my pocket. Now it comes half of the time upside down. The fingerprint sensor is bad. Half of the time does not work and I have to use the pin. On the 4a was flawless. Camera is better. Yes.
Likes it
Last I checked it's trivial to not spend your time and/or money on such stupid apps. checks his pixel 8a yep, there's no games installed here The amount of people in both this and the reddit thread treating the poster like some minor without responsibility for their actions is pathetic. This is a grown ass adult pissing their time and money away on mobile games. Then when they realize how totally reckless they've been, seek a f*cking refund? And people are calling for laws protecting this grown ass adult from themselves? We're clearly not talking about some eight year old people. Quit expecting some nanny state to do your adulting for you and grow the fuck up. I'll defer to the late George Carlin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pz8jO2Sht0&t=460s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=leWjdWUR_KI&t=85s
Likes it
Modern phones weight the same as the old ones... A couple of days ago, I walked 20.000 steps on a mountain trail, and I didn't notice a problem with my pixel 8a in my pants' pocket. Holding it is not a problem too.
Likes it
Until I purchased a Pixel 8a, I thought the same thing. I discovered that all the newer pant models that I purchased have bigger pockets , so that's not a problem anymore.
Likes it
From my experience it was quite usable on Pixel 8a, but I did experience problems. For context, I use it mostly for web development. It runs a desktop environment with VNC, so I'm able to connect and run software like a browser. I don't develop on the device, but instead connect to a remote machine. Although the browser takes a few seconds to start, I didn't have any issues doing frontend development or doing web searches and reading docs, but I tend to be careful regarding the number of open tabs. The Terminal app does crash from time to time. It can crash after 15 minutes, but I've also had it running for about 2 hours without issues. I'm not bothered by this as I just reconnect and continue where I left. The reinstall is not needed every day. When I run the app, sometimes it says there was an unrecoverable error and suggests to reinstall. I ignore this, because it's a timing issue; the app was slow to start. Usually, if I run it again after closing the activity, it starts normally. The same VM has been running for me without a need to reinstall for a few months. The battery usage is not too bad. I use an external display and make the phone screen black during this time. The battery gets depleted at a rate between 5% and 20% per hour, but this is only for active usage. I haven't been running it all the time in the background.
Doesn’t like it
The flexibility afforded by sideloading, which allows that that an Android phone is still for the most part a pocket-sized computer that can operate in a mode not intended by its creators (as opposed to a restricted consumption appliance like the iPhone) is what has kept me on the platform for 16 years and counting. If they take that away, then I really don't see a compelling difference between the two platforms. Android has been getting markedly more flaky for me ON MULTIPLE GOOGLE PIXEL DEVICES since 2018. My current Pixel 8a on Android 15 regularly has the underlying UI controls (separate from the launcher) crash and force me to restart if I want to use the app overview switcher since day 1. I also have no app overview button in the stock Android calculator since Android 14, the shipped OS, so if I want to switch between a calculation and another app I must first return to the home screen. Wasn't like this in previous releases! Furthermore, the day/date is routinely cut off in the statusbar and its pulldown. This product passed multiple reviews and 2 major OS releases with these (and many other) obvious and irritating bugs and shows no signs of improvement. If they left these holes in the surface, I can only imagine what's underneath. It's ridiculous, but I guess we're cranking out complexity at a rate that exceeds our ability to manage it (or our ability to manufacture new fucks at a rate exceeding their consumption). If Purism is shopping for new users, all they would…
Neutral
I got it all set up and tested out Gemma3 1B on a Pixel 8a. That only took a few minutes, which was nice. But it was garbage. It barely parsed the question, didn't even attempt to answer it, and replied in what was barely serviceable English. All I asked was how it was small enough to run locally on my phone. It was bad enough for me to abandon the model entirely, which is saying a lot, because I feel like I have pretty low expectations for AI work in the first place.
Doesn’t like it
I got a new phone in January, a Pixel 8a, after my previous phone's touch screen died. I never had issues with my old phone playing music. When I played music over Bluetooth, the new phone would bug out after a few songs and make odd muffled sounds. I would have to reconnect the speaker and restart the app and it would play another song or two before bugging out. I tried a bunch of suggestions online, nothing helped. Then there was an Android update and the problem went away. Joy! Now there's another Android update last week. Suddenly my music app doesn't change the actual music that's playing when I click play on a song. The UI says it's playing the new song, but it keeps playing the previous song. It's such a mess. I don't know how there could be churn in the simple, standardized system for playing music. I certainly don't notice any new features or improvements.