Pixel 4a owners thread

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timmmay

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#277238 2-Oct-2020 20:39

Following on from Pixel 4a released here's the owners thread.

My impressions after using the phone for a few days. As context my last phone was the lower midrange Moto G8 plus, before that the flagship but aging Huawei P9

Super fast / responsive user interface, especially when developers options changed so animation / duration scaled changed to 0.5X
Convenient size: fits great in my hand / pocket. My wife has been saying phones have been getting too big, this would be perfect for her.
Plain Android: no crap
Upside: battery rated at 3080ma is showing as 3234ma in Accubattery. Suggests a good quality battery, as the Xiaomi rated at 4000mah was showing 3400mah from memory.
Downside: battery life average. I charge to 80% to prolong battery life, I tend to need to give it a top-up charge during the day. Not unreasonable or problematic given my lifestlyle. If you charge to 100% and are ok going down to 20% I'm sure it will last a day with moderate to heavy use. The G8 rarely got below 50% with my average days usage with no top-up charge, the Pixel will get down to 30% with a top-up to 80% around midday. I'd say the 4a consumes battery at about twice the rate of the G8, which I guess is a trade-off with performance.

All in all I'm pretty happy with the move from the G8 plus to 4a.

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#2597413 4-Nov-2020 09:46

Update based on another month of use. Still really liking the phone, the size, the speed.

I'm happy with the battery performance, given the smaller phone size. I still charge the battery to 80%, by the end of a day working from home with regular use of messaging apps and occasional phone calls it's usually 50% by the end of the day. A day at work in the office I use it a bit more, it might be 35 - 40% but I tend to top it up. If I charge to 100% it easily lasts the day for moderate use.

All in all, a really good phone. Hopefully more manufacturers bring out smaller flagship type phones. This one should last me quite some time, unless it fails somehow.

ToPGuNZ

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#2598206 5-Nov-2020 11:20

One month in and I am very pleased with the Pixel 4a. Battery wise it is all good. I do not play games on it, but even when I play videos or use maps along with my general use there is no time so far when I have been left short. Plenty to get me through a day or two easily.

I like the simplicity of the software, the lightness and size of the device and the camera (well the camera software) is also very good so far. Call volume and clarity is a huge improvement from my last phone, I regularly turn the volume down now. Holding it while juggling a few other items in my hands the other day I could one handed swipe through to goggle pay and pay wave without unloading everything from my hands. Finger print reader has been excellent.

The only negative so far is that I use my left hand to hold the device and my index finger regularly touches the camera lens so I worry about how dirty the lens might get.

tieke

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#2598416 5-Nov-2020 19:04

I'm generally pretty pleased with it, although every now and then I have a software drawback compared to my previous Redmi Note which I hadn't expected on what people often cite "as the best android experience".

Can't think of them all offhand, but I remember being surprised that there is no ability to search your call history, and also that there is no gaming mode: I don't play games often on my phone but having a notification suddenly taking up a third of the screen isn't very helpful. I know I could manually turn on DND or disable notifications, but the Xiaomi did all that automatically when you were playing a game.

The battery makes it through the day, but the Xiaomi's 4000mAh definitely lasted longer, although didn't charge as quickly. Not been too much of an issue so far, but a couple of times the battery has been less than 10% when I've gone to plug it in at night, which never happened with the Xiaomi, so I'm slightly concerned about battery life a bit down the road.

The speaker has been fine, although I noticed the volume doesn't go as loud as the Xiaomi, but that hasn't been an issue.

I don't want to sound too negative - I'm liking the smaller size and better camera, and returning to a phone with nfc for paywave/topping up my Snapper card has been great. Maybe it just made me realise what a good value the Redmi Note series is :)

MaxineN

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#2598419 5-Nov-2020 19:08

Curious onlooker but has anyone gotten VoLTE working on the Pixel 4a?

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st02197

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#2598437 5-Nov-2020 19:44

Had the phone for a week and enjoying how easy it is to hold the phone on one hand. I like how simple the software is too.

One shall annoyance is how the navigation bar doesn't hide when watching full screen videos in Chrome e.g. when watching something from Vimeo.

That bar didn't really bother me on a bigger screen but it looks more obvious on the pixel 4a.

timmmay

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#2598485 5-Nov-2020 20:08

MaxineN:

Curious onlooker but has anyone gotten VoLTE working on the Pixel 4a?

Reading the VOLTE thread the impression I got was it each phone needs to be supported by the network. Given it's not sold in NZ that seems unlikely.

MaxineN

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#2598488 5-Nov-2020 20:17

timmmay:

MaxineN:

Curious onlooker but has anyone gotten VoLTE working on the Pixel 4a?

Reading the VOLTE thread the impression I got was it each phone needs to be supported by the network. Given it's not sold in NZ that seems unlikely.

I've gotten it working on an Oneplus 8 via Qualcomm's PDC(dragons ahead, linked my post here, also you won't get any support if you do this and if you break it you have to reflash/reset to factory). So I imagine you might also have luck the same way I did.

Really is a your mileage may vary if you try and go down this rabbit hole.

Ramblings from a mysterious lady who's into tech. Warning I may often create zingers.

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timmmay

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#2598708 6-Nov-2020 08:15

I'm really liking the update speed on this phone. Today (6th Nov) I got the monthly security update dated 5th Nov. I did a manual check but it tends to find them pretty quickly itself. Three years of fast updates is great.

Bhima

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#2600580 9-Nov-2020 17:21

Loving the phone still after having it for 2 odd months. The simplicity and ease of use is unmatched. Easy all day battery even when I've been on a few road trips.

My biggest peeve is still the speakers, they're just meh honestly.

tieke

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#2600982 10-Nov-2020 12:12

Both a minus and a plus? Was a bit annoyed that despite playing with battery settings, developer options etc there was no way to stop the Pixel from background killing the Stuff-Fibre Voice app. On the positive side, I found that the default Pixel phone app actually lets you add SIP lines so they are supported natively and the Voice app isn't needed.

tieke

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#2600983 10-Nov-2020 12:13

(Adding a SIP line is found in the dialler under Settings/Calls/Calling Accounts/SIP Settings)

timmmay

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#2601006 10-Nov-2020 12:53

To keep an app open you need to go into the app properties, advanced, battery, then disable optimising battery. I don't have a good way of testing that but that's what I've found.

tieke

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#2601011 10-Nov-2020 13:00

I did that, as well as quite a few other suggestions that people had, but none of them worked.

To be fair, it looks like this isn't just the Pixel: looking at the app page several other users have also complained about it closing in the background, which apparently often happens with android SIP-phone apps. Not ideal if you want to be able to receive calls, which is why Google incorporating it into their native phone app is so useful.

Lamboluvr

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#2602589 12-Nov-2020 12:14

Does anybody know if you are able to get dual sim working on this phone with say a spark e-sim and a 2 degrees normal sim?

I am guessing the answer is no as the spark e-sims only work with specific listed handsets on their website right?

tieke

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#2611016 26-Nov-2020 11:25

Annoyingly I've had to switch back to my Redmi Note because the wifi on the 4a frequently just stops working. No issues with the other wifi connected devices in the household, and both the router and pixel have been updated/rebooted.

Sometimes it seems to work fine and then other times there are huge lags/"no internet connection" notifications. Only noticed after I had spotted that it was frequently only connecting to mobile data despite wifi being available. Had been working until recently, so will leave it for a month and see if there are any appropriate updates.

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