A heart of AI

When Google first came out with the first Pixel phone, the general opinion was that the search giant wasn’t in the business to sell hardware, but to get more users for its software services such as the assistant, integrating them irrevocably with everything a user does through the day. To add to the compelling nature of these services, Google includes innovative software tricks that are meant to make life easier to the point where one can’t do without them.

Google is, of course, the maker of Android, but a Pixel phone has features that are exclusive to it. There’s Google’s voice typing which is makes responding to a message super fast compared with other phones. There’s call handling, designed to reduce the nuisance aspects and focus just on what the user wants. There’s Now Playing which takes mere seconds to identify a music track. Even the camera is all about software as it practically eliminates any effort needed to capture a photo. The software features are shared by the Pixel 7a and not restricted just to the higher end models. This is made possible because all of the phones in the series use the Tensor G2 chipset.

Computational camera

The Pixel’s software really shines when using the camera. With the extent of computational photography involved, both in capturing and in post-processing, there’s actually little for the user to do. This may annoy a few photography buffs but the majority are happy to let the camera do the job.

The phone’s 64 megapixel rear camera has a 13 megapixel ultra wide companion and a 13 megapixel selfie camera. Given good light, the Pixel 7a’s camera produces bright clear images. The software compensates for handshake and allows you to edit the images in a variety of ways including erasing unwanted bits and adding background blur. It also ‘unblurs’ faces with a feature that borrows information from the ultra wide camera and that sometimes works well.

In low light, all Pixel cameras including this one infuse light into the scene even going as far as to let you see objects you wouldn’t detect easily without the camera. There are other tricks to explore in the camera app and Google’s Photos app.

The Pixel 7a is a good deal and will be a better one when it gets discounted. But the differences between the 7a and the Pixel 7 are not dramatic. A few specs are changed and the camera uses a different sensor, but ‘power’ wise both phones are as good as each other.

Pixel 7a design

Google Pixel 7a: Upgrade brings sought-after features