Last week, at its I/O developer conference, Google unveiled its Pixel 3a and Pixel 3a XL smartphones (priced at $399 and $479, respectively), as part of a new strategy to introduce the purist version of its Android platform to a more price-conscious and upgrade-weary consumer.
At face value, the phones do look like a pretty good deal when compared to their more expensive Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL counterparts, which were introduced in October of 2018, and cost $400-$420 more.
Is Pixel 3a such a good value?
If you choose to go with the “budget” version of Google’s phones, you are giving up the considerably faster, flagship version of last year’s Qualcomm’s Snapdragon processor, wireless charging, water resistance, HDR-compatible displays, glass sandwich construction, enhanced visual processing for the camera, and you’re downgrading to a single selfie cam.
Review: A cheaper Pixel 3 with the same great rear camera CNET
But realistically? The Pixel 3a is the phone Google should have introduced in the first place. It’s more than good enough for what most people need, although the anemic 4GB of RAM is still a significant shortcoming, as it was with the higher-priced version introduced last year.
At $399, however, it is hardly the best value in Android smartphones. For roughly the same price or even less, there’s plenty of stuff from 2018 with better specs from Chinese competitors, although you might have to shop around a bit. And the camera on the Pixel 3a is probably the best in the business at that price point.
I routinely carry a Pixel 3 in addition to my iPhone XS Max, because it takes significantly better close-up and low-light photos for the kind of food photography that I do. But I doubt most consumers even make the most out of the smartphone cameras they already have.
Why Google is unable to differentiate
The value that Google is trying to sell with its smartphones is Google itself — not the hardware. As one Android fan site so aptly put it, this is a “Boringly Good” phone.
The purist Google experience is what makes a Pixel a Pixel, along with the ability to receive updates and version upgrades quickly. That’s a big plus for software developers who want to jump onto Android pre-release versions as soon as they become available instead of having to contend with the painfully slow release cycle of most OEMs.
But any OEM can make an Android device because Android is Open Source. And anyone can make a “Google Experience” phone if they license the Google Play components, which includes the same apps Google installs on the Pixel.
An OEM can also choose to release an Android One device, which is effectively an OEM version of a Pixel; they can’t make any third-party “enhancements” to the OS, and they also have to agree to a strict software update and patching schedule to keep that certification.
Most OEMs, however, have shied away from the Android One program, opting instead for their launcher interfaces and enhancements to differentiate their devices in an increasingly commoditized smartphone marketplace. With very few exceptions, everyone is buying from the same supply chain and using the same indistinguishable components; from a consumer perspective, there very little differentiation besides hardware configuration on Android devices.
Google, in effect, is competing with itself with the Pixel. The same Google services used on the Pixel are available to all the company’s Google Play Services licensees. This Android OEM partner ecosystem Google maintains is why Apple has a natural advantage: It doesn’t have to differentiate from its partners, because it doesn’t have any partners.
Only Apple makes iOS devices. It doesn’t have the diversity of devices, and its customers have few choices. There is something to be said for having the OS tied to the hardware and on a routine patch and update schedule that often outlives the lifetime of when a customer owns the product. That helps explain why the used market for iOS devices is still quite strong, and why Apple itself is facing growth challenges with iPhone.
On the flipside, most Android devices never see major version updates of the OS, and the “Toxic Hellstew” of fragmentation is quite real; only about 10 percent of Android devices in the wild have even been updated to Android P, the current version.
Can Google learn from Microsoft?
Microsoft went through a very similar set of challenges when introducing its Surface hardware in late 2012. At the time, the value of the company launching its own devices was questionable when many good Windows laptops from the Windows partner ecosystem already existed. The detachable/convertible tablet format was not proven, and at the time, the Windows 8 OS was not optimized for it, which made it a tough sell.
Flash forward to 2019: The Surface Pro 6, the Surface Book 2, and Surface Laptop 2 are by far the best Windows 10 systems in their classes. You can make a compelling argument that they are even better systems than what Apple offers with comparable MacBook Pros at the same price point. I wouldn’t think twice about buying one now versus a partner product if I needed a new Windows 10 machine.
The Surface line provides a superior, bloat-free experience from its competitors, with better functionality, battery life, and portability than most other Windows laptops on the market. As a result of this highly competitive product from Microsoft, the OEMs have also had to step up their game — I think Dell, HP, and Lenovo are making much better machines now, at least in their business-class offerings.
A solution to an unproven value proposition?
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