The Pixel 10a doesn’t have a camera bump, and that’s great

For years, smartphone manufacturers have made the camera larger on devices to chase camera improvements. While this kind of design makes cameras better, it sometimes creates usability issues. With the Pixel 10a, Google took a new approach to completely remove the camera bump and make a flat phone that rests entirely on surfaces.

While this is a nice change in the world of big camera bumps, Google hasn’t otherwise made major design changes with its latest budget smartphone. The Pixel 9a looked pretty much the same with a very small camera bump.

I have the plain old black device, but Google offers the phone in Lavender (a mix of pale blue and purple), Berry (coral), and Fog (a grey-green tone).

The 6.3-inch screen size is the same as last year’s device, but the display is now brighter by 3,000 nits. Google is using the Actua display series it used with the other Pixel 10 devices to make it more usable in bright conditions. The screen is capable of a 120Hz refresh rate, but the device ships with it set to 60Hz, so you’ll have to manually change that through the phone’s settings.

In terms of build and specifications, the Pixel 10a goes toe-to-toe with the Pixel 10, with a few differences. For example, the Pixel 10 has Corning Gorilla Glass Victus 2 on the front and back, while the cheaper 10a has a plastic back and Corning Gorilla Glass 7i protection on the front. The budget device also has a larger 5,100 mAh battery compared to 4,970 mAh on the base Pixel 10. The Pixel 10 Pro XL has a 5,200 mAh battery.

There are only minor differences between the Pixel 9a, Pixel 10a and Pixel 10, most of them to do with performance and computing power. The obvious hardware difference is that the budget phones use the Google Tensor G4 chip compared to the Tensor G5 in the Pixel 10. The Pixel 10 charges at 30W via USB-C, up from the 23W charging capacity of the Pixel 9a. Wireless charging is supported at 7.5W for the Pixel 9a, 10W for the Pixel 10a and 15W (magnetic) for the Pixel 10.

The battery capacity and faster charging speed are useful as the battery lasts easily throughout the day, including for regular apps, a few hours of video playback and light gaming. Plus, the brighter screen makes the device better for all-around experience in different lighting conditions. Yes, the 10a has thicker bezels than its more expensive cousins, but they don’t make much of a difference in day-to-day use. After all, you get the device for a much lower price than a flagship.

The Pixel 10a uses the Tensor G4 chip, which was also used in the Pixel 9a. That means there are no performance gains this year, which you might notice if you switch between a lot of apps. Due to the older chip and its 8GB RAM combination, the Pixel 10a cannot run the updated Gemini Nano AI model, meaning it has fewer AI features on the device than the Pixel 10a series.

The list of features not available on the Pixel 10a includes notification overviews, the Pixel screenshot app, Magic Cue (a feature that offers contextual suggestions across apps like Gmail, Messages and Maps), call notes and on-device call translation.

The phone has a 48-megapixel main camera and a 13-megapixel wide-angle camera, which is the same as last year’s device. The main camera works fine in most conditions, even in low light. But given the older and smaller sensor on the wide-angle lens, it tends to lose some detail, and it doesn’t have autofocus.

The Pixel 10a has a camera coach AI feature that can guide you in taking a photo of an object by helping to frame it better in the viewfinder. There’s also Auto Best Take, which combines images to create the best composition from a bunch of shots – useful when photographing a group. The phone also has support for up to 8x super resolution zoom, but the processing and quality isn’t as good as the Pixel 10, which offers up to 100x zoom through this feature.

In particular, some AI features may make it to the Pixel 10a through a Pixel Drop, Google’s periodic software updates that** often bring new capabilities to older models.

Google offers seven years of software updates with this device, which is essential for receiving both operating system updates, along with feature loss and security updates. While this isn’t a Pixel 10a exclusive, the phone has a quick sharing feature that now works with Apple’s AirDrop. This means I could simply transfer images, like I did for this story, to my MacBook within a few taps. Previously, I had to connect the Pixel 10a to my MacBook with a USB-C cable.

At $499, good battery life, a bright screen, and faster charging are the main things going in favor of the Pixel 10a. At this price, the phone offers good value for money in a light and flat design. But if you already have last year’s Pixel 9a, there’s no need to change. Also worth considering: the Nothing phone 4a Pro, also at $499, poses tough with better specs, such as a bigger and brighter screen, a more capable Qualcomm processor, a dedicated telephoto lens, and faster 50W charging speeds.