Google’s Pixel 6a may not have formally hit the market yet, but that hasn’t stopped some reviewers from getting their hands on a device prematurely, testing it, and showing some ways in which Google’s price phone reduced does not belong entirely to the Pixel. 6 family.
Malaysian tech youtuber Fazli Halim managed to get his hands on a product ready for retail Pixel 6a shows in early June and gave him the unboxing treatmentbut now it’s back with a full overhaul, in which we see the 6th fingerprint sensor compared to the current top-dog of the line, the Google Pixel 6 Pro.
While both phones feature on-screen fingerprint sensors, in the Halim review, the Pixel 6a’s sensor proves to be consistently faster to read and unlock the phone, as well as more consistent, compared to the Pixel 6 Pro.
It’s surprising considering the Pixel 6a’s lower specs (and therefore cost) that performance would be much better, but early signs seem to suggest it.
Analysis: a lighter touch
The slow, low-gloss performance of the fingerprint sensor was just one of the many small quirks that affected the Pixel 6 and 6 Pro around its launch in late 2021, with Google only partially addressing some of the issues phones have faced through subsequent software updates.
With that in mind, it was encouraging to learn that the Pixel 6a would use a different fingerprint sensor than the 6 and 6 Pro, something that Google’s senior vice president of devices and services, Rich Osterloh, confirmed during Google I / O 2022, when the Pixel 6a was officially announced.
While Halim’s video gives us our first proper look at the Pixel 6a, consumers will have to wait until July 28 to officially purchase the phone, which swaps several key hardware attributes found on the Pixel 6 and 6 Pro to get a lower selling price of $ 449 / £ 399 / AU $ 749, giving you the potential to be up and running as one of the best cheap phones over there.
The fingerprint is just an adjustment offered by the Pixel 6a compared to its siblings, with a smaller one 6.1-inch Full HD + OLED display at 60 Hza lower resolution 12.2 MP primary camera (compared to the 6 and 6 Pro’s 50 MP main unit, which makes them some of the best camera phones currently on the market) and a basic memory and 6GB and 128GB storage configuration, respectively.
Where the Pixel 6a holds up is with the same SoC Tensor made by Google and of course this faster fingerprint sensor, which, combined with the lower price tag, may be the perfect combination for some.
Then, again, we have the Pixel 7 around the corner after Google inexplicably showed it to I / O earlier this year, and will probably arrive with a new PIxel 7a model not long after, so the search giant hasn’t made it easy to decision of when to go looking. a new phone, it seems.