The Pixel 10a is the Pixel 9a?

0:00 Another thing that happened where we thought it would be better,

0:03 but it actually got worse is that the Google has announced that the Pixel

0:08 9 series is now going to have the ability to use AirDrop as well.

0:11 So, if you remember a few weeks ago,

0:13 Google added compatibility for the Pixel 10 series to have AirDrop.

0:16 They said, "We are excited to bring this to more Android phones

0:19 soon." We were hoping that more Android phones would be more Android phones,

0:23 not more Google phones.

0:25 Um and so, they're being added to It's being

0:28 added to all Pixel 9 devices except for the 9A.

0:32 Mhm.

0:33 And uh when reached for comment about this, Google just kind of gave their PR

0:37 answer of "We're excited to bring this to more

0:40 Android phones in the future." I was

0:42 really hoping they were just going to be using the Pixel 10 series as a test

0:45 bed to make sure it worked on Android

0:46 at all and had enough stability, etc., etc.

0:50 But now they're just putting pushing it to the 9.

0:52 They still haven't done the 8.

0:53 There's all these other phones.

0:54 I don't really know what needs to be done here,

0:56 but Can I Do you think they didn't do 9A because when 10A drops,

1:02 10A will have it, and they need to wait a couple months for 9A to get it?

1:05 So, then 9A doesn't have it cuz Oh my god.

1:07 Nothing We'll talk about it in a minute,

1:08 but not much has changed in the 10A category.

1:11 Google thing to do, but doing that off the back

1:15 of finally having an Apple feature is just very strange.

1:19 They usually do that in Google Photos.

1:20 They don't usually do that Yeah, yeah, that's common.

1:22 with other features.

1:24 I'm a blip stan.

1:24 Blip stan.

1:25 Sorry, before we get off AirDrop, blip rules.

1:27 Blip kind of hit the studio this year [laughter] hard.

1:30 And like we've been an AirDrop studio.

1:33 As you probably have been familiar,

1:35 like a lot of us are using a Final Cut Pro and and Macs in the studio,

1:38 so we like pass files back and forth.

1:40 And it's decently useful for, I'd say, anything up to about 1 gig.

1:46 But as soon as I see like 890 megabytes,

1:48 I need to send somebody a file, I'm like,

1:50 "Do I really want to AirDrop this?" Like

1:51 it's kind of not work some of the times.

1:53 The UI also, speaking of Did you test this?

1:55 Every time I go to open to share and AirDrop,

1:57 it starts populating and it goes three, six, 12, 15,

2:01 and then a ton of devices and I go to click the one to AirDrop

2:03 to and then it slides over and it slides again to the next row.

2:06 Every single time I miss and I send

2:08 it to the wrong person and it's really annoying.

2:10 So, please test that, Apple.

2:11 Anyway, uh AirDrop usually doesn't work after

2:14 a large enough file size or it's extremely slow.

2:17 And Rufus, I think is the one who brought Blip to the studio.

2:19 He's like, "Have you guys tried Blip?" And we're like,

2:20 "What's that?" And he's like, "Yeah,

2:21 it's just an app that does the same exact thing,

2:23 but it actually works." And it's cross-platform.

2:25 And it's cross-platform and it's local.

2:27 It's faster.

2:28 We got to give Rivas a little more credit cuz

2:29 it was the kind of thing where he was like,

2:30 "Let me Blip this to you." We were like,

2:32 "Dude, you want me to download a thing just so you can No,

2:35 I'm not getting another Yeah, it's like AirDrop's right here, bro.

2:37 It's right here.

2:37 It works.

2:38 everyone sends their first Blip and it's like, Whoa.

2:43 [laughter] Do you know what it For the super niche content tech content creators

2:46 out there who might be reviewing Android phones and editing on a Mac,

2:50 being able to send the files through Blip instead is life-changing.

2:54 It's huge.

2:55 I'm going to send this to all my creator friends.

2:56 Yeah.

2:57 All four of us who are reviewing Android phones.

2:59 Bro, yeah, it's really good.

3:01 Anyway, Google decided to drop the Pixel 10a this week.

3:05 They were teasing it for a little bit.

3:06 They were sort of teasing it because it looks the same,

3:10 so they just showed us what it looked like already.

3:11 Now we have all the official specs and all the official numbers and everything.

3:15 And it's it's the same as the Pixel 9a.

3:22 Almost literally the same.

3:24 So, I went into this thinking that it's the same phone.

3:26 I I have the spec sheet in front of me here.

3:28 Display, same size, same resolution.

3:30 I'm going back and forth, okay.

3:31 Display, batteries, same size, okay.

3:34 Okay, cameras, same exact cameras, all right.

3:36 Uh chip, same exact Pixel the Tensor 4 chip.

3:41 So, I'm like, "What did they actually change

3:43 in the Pixel 10a?" It's the same price.

3:45 Uh in case you're curious, I have a full list here of everything

3:49 that's different about Pixel 10a perfect, Pixel 9A.

3:53 Ready?

3:53 I'm ready.

3:54 The camera bump, which was pretty flush before.

3:58 It was like very flush.

3:59 It was actually It's like a millimeter protruding.

4:03 Now it's actually zero flush.

4:05 So they took an angle grinder to it.

4:07 Yeah.

4:08 Um the uniform bezels, I can't tell with my eyes,

4:12 but I'm told They're slightly thinner.

4:14 10% as they say.

4:16 It doesn't look it.

4:17 Uh wired charging goes from 23 watts to 30.

4:19 Wireless charging goes from 7 and a half 7 and a half watts to 10.

4:22 Okay.

4:23 And the display is 10% brighter.

4:25 Did they tell you the wired charging thing?

4:27 Their spec sheet they sent is so vague and annoying.

4:31 10% brighter.

4:32 Yeah.

4:32 On the spec sheet they sent us, it just says uh

4:35 10% It's like an imperceptible brightness change.

4:38 It was like 2700 peak brightness to 3000 nits.

4:41 brightness is logarithmic already, so like Yeah,

4:43 it's not going to blow your mind, but [laughter]

4:46 It's uh it's a little brighter and the otherwise it's the same phone,

4:50 same Tensor G4, same 8 gigs of RAM.

4:53 Does it have Nope.

4:55 It probably not.

4:56 Nope.

4:56 [snorts] My one This is the thing about releasing

5:01 a new phone that's basically the same as last year.

5:03 A lot of people sometimes like to complain like, "Oh,

5:05 you didn't change anything." But I think without

5:08 any substance for what they should have changed,

5:10 that's kind of an empty complaint cuz change

5:12 for the sake of change isn't doesn't really help anyone.

5:14 Like you want to keep it consistent.

5:15 You've got a brand, you know, you have to keep something consistent.

5:18 So what should they have changed is the real question.

5:22 And the number one thing that comes to mind is

5:24 you did this whole Pixel Snap thing with the Pixel 10s,

5:27 the Qi2 magnets in the back.

5:28 This would have been perfect.

5:29 You could have just one-upped.

5:30 You could have made an ad about how the base

5:32 iPhone 17e or 16e or whatever doesn't have it.

5:35 This would have been fun.

5:36 You could have had it across the whole Pixel 10.

5:38 And they didn't add magnets.

5:39 That's crazy.

5:40 They didn't uh move to the Tensor G5.

5:43 They didn't add uh they didn't go 256 gigs of base storage.

5:47 They didn't do any of the things they could have done

5:49 that I think would have been nice at this $499 price.

5:52 Taking notes from Samsung.

5:54 Yeah.

5:55 So, first I was like, why even release a new phone at all?

6:00 Because it's, you know, you don't have to every year.

6:03 But then I was like, you know what?

6:04 You're Google, you kind of just do.

6:05 You just you just go through the motions.

6:07 And I felt that vibe the entire time I was like shooting the phone.

6:09 We went to the city and like have a little

6:11 briefing and they brought us to this back room.

6:13 I always feel like they usually like shut down that area

6:16 of the building to keep it quiet so that we can shoot.

6:19 There was just Google employees walking by.

6:21 Oh, they're doing the thing.

6:22 Like nobody seemed to care.

6:23 We shot the phone.

6:25 Uh it it was very much an afterthought type of phone.

6:27 So, it's updated.

6:29 I wanted you so bad to bring a 9A and just leave it on one of the platforms

6:34 and then see if anyone accidentally recorded the wrong

6:37 phone and made it into a different review.

6:38 It's perfect because the colors of the phones, there's four colors,

6:42 are almost exactly the same, just a little bit more saturated.

6:47 And I and I saw the spec sheet had different color names and I was like, oh,

6:49 maybe there's different colors cuz there was like fog and obsidian

6:53 and then there's like a sort of a reddish and a purplish one.

6:56 I forgot the names.

6:57 Uh lavender and berry, right?

6:59 Uh I think that's the new ones, yeah.

7:00 The last ones had some name like peony and porcelain or something else.

7:05 And so they like renamed the white one porcelain to fog.

7:08 But it's still it's the same color.

7:12 [laughter] And then they have this new

7:13 If you're going to change everything by like

7:15 such an imperceivable amount, why even change it?

7:18 Exactly.

7:19 Like you could you should just call it the Pixel A 2026,

7:23 Pixel A 2027 at this point.

7:26 the companies used to be a little bit more honest about it.

7:28 They'd go, oh, this is the iPhone 6S cuz

7:31 it's it's a small update from the iPhone 6.

7:33 In fact, it's the same design just a little bit

7:35 of a spec bump like a a couple small things.

7:37 This isn't even a spec bump.

7:39 Yeah, and at least with that you'd be like, all right,

7:41 I'll probably skip the S and just wait for the next one.

7:43 This one, they it's just a 10A and it's it's just the same as the last phone.

7:48 And I I ended up thinking about that for the video,

7:50 and the conclusion I came to is like

7:52 the Pixel is very much a software-defined thing.

7:56 Yeah.

7:57 Like the reason you get a Pixel, especially A-series Pixel,

7:59 like that buyer isn't going, I want the latest chip, or I want the

8:04 [clears throat]

8:04 you know, the highest resolution display or whatever.

8:06 It's this It's just a phone that works, that has the Pixel features.

8:10 And it's still that, and so that's the reason

8:13 why it's probably fine for most of those people.

8:16 But, yeah, as someone who reviews phones year over year,

8:19 this was like Huh, [snorts] I don't think I've ever seen that before.

8:22 They've talked about them having a lot

8:24 of sort of like uh friendliness with Samsung.

8:27 It seems like they're taking a lot of lessons from Samsung over here.

8:30 Yeah, this is like we've been joking about how we've um

8:33 we're on the what S23 phone plus plus plus plus [laughter] plus.

8:37 But, this is like another level of a whole lot of nothing.

8:40 Which we might see get beat in a week,

8:43 or in a couple weeks with we'll talk about it later,

8:46 but if iPhone 17E is the exact same thing,

8:50 it's going to be even funnier this year when

8:52 the the base iPhone got so good last year.

8:56 Yeah, there might be a lot of L's.

8:58 I'm just more with Marques here.

8:59 Why even release this 10A?

9:01 I think they could have just been like, you know,

9:03 the 9A is still pretty good for people that like want a cheap entry-level Pixel.

9:08 Yeah.

9:08 And everyone would have would have been like, okay.

9:10 Yeah.

9:10 Yeah.

9:10 And the iPhone SE used to just be every couple years.

9:13 Yeah.

9:13 And that was fine.

9:14 We get an iPhone SE like every 3 years, and it would be like, oh, see

9:17 Oh, the budget phone.

9:18 Apple knew how to do it.

9:18 They just called it SE so that there wasn't a confusion of like every year.

9:22 Yeah, because now they kind of had to release the 10A because

9:24 they had to have a 10 version of the A phone.

9:27 But, if they just called it like the Pixel E I think that's It would be amazing.

9:32 what they're doing.

9:33 Is somebody is going to some new shopper is going to start looking for a budget

9:37 phone and they will see that there is a 9A and no 10A and they'll go,

9:40 oh, I guess there's no 10A and they'll just go,

9:43 oh, it's no old news and move on.

9:44 But if there's a 10A, they'll consider it.

9:46 Yeah.

9:47 Apple learned that also.

9:48 They stopped doing SE and now they did 16E and possibly 17E.

9:53 Right.

9:53 So

9:54 That seems worse.

9:55 Seems like they're

9:55 I think it is worse, but they still call it SE because then they

9:57 can sell the same phone for a long time.

9:59 They can, but I think people want to see this number new number.

10:04 I want new number even if it's cheaper.

10:07 Yeah.

10:07 Which is unfortunate,

10:09 but probably the marketing is the numbers are probably proving it.

10:13 Bring back the Pixel 4A, better phone than this.

10:16 Better phone than this.

10:17 Had a headphone jack, cheaper.

10:19 Wait, can I just confirm really fast?

10:20 The you so you said they told you 30

10:23 W wireless charging cuz all they say in here

10:24 is fast charging up to 50% in 30 minutes

10:27 using 45 W USB-C charger or higher sold separately.

10:32 Yeah, they will sell you separately a 45 W charger and if you use that one,

10:35 then it can peak at 30 W instead of 23 like last year.

10:39 This is putting this in the the briefing document

10:43 that they send you for as a reviewer's guide is

10:46 And isn't that 45 W charger like pretty expensive, too?

10:49 It's a thing that I'm sure a lot of Pixel A buyers won't buy.

10:52 Yeah.

10:52 They'll just use whatever one they have.

10:53 Yeah.

10:54 I would not be surprised if a bunch of day of reviews today get

10:58 this part wrong because of how poorly this is worded in the reviewer's guide.

11:02 Yeah.

11:02 Yeah.

11:03 It's a lot of deciphering.

11:04 I mean, at a a certain point, these just become Gemini boxes.

11:07 That's what Google wants.

11:08 That's their end game.

11:09 They just want them to be magical Gemini boxes that do the thing.

11:13 They're not going to do this with the 11, are they?

11:15 Uh They can't make it look the same, you mean?

11:17 They can't have it be the same spec sheet as the 10, right?

11:20 They're just going to add new Tensor accelerators and that's it.

11:24 Yeah.

11:24 That's actually kind of God, that's That's all that matters.

11:27 They're already doing.

11:28 Yeah, it's like that's all that matters now.

11:29 The the raw horsepower, GPU power,

11:31 all that of Tensor has never been the reason you buy it.

11:34 Yeah.

11:34 And so, it's just going to be more Tensor cores and more AI chops.

11:38 I mean, kind of the same specs, anyway.

11:40 With the acceleration of AI that we've seen in the last year,

11:43 I imagine that IO is going to be pretty crazy this year.

11:46 Yep.

11:46 Uh which we did get a uh date for, officially, as of yesterday.

11:51 Summer.

11:51 Jumping ahead a little bit, but that is happening in May.

11:53 It's May 19th and 20th.

11:55 Um so, we'll see if that stacks up.

11:57 But, I imagine there is so much competition in the AI race.

12:00 It's not even about the phones anymore.

12:02 It's just about Gemini and what they can do with Gemini.

12:05 So.

12:05 Yeah.

12:05 They already have the Pixel experience pretty laid out.

12:07 That's what makes a Pixel a Pixel, I guess.

12:09 That's what makes it.

12:10 Yeah, and 128 gig base storage.

12:12 Yeah.

12:13 Still.

12:13 So.

12:15 I don't know how we even talked about that for that long,

12:17 but [laughter] honestly.

12:19 Cuz we had we had our segues going really nicely.

12:21 We just kind of moved through a bunch of topics effortlessly,

12:24 cuz we're so good at that.

12:25 Speaking of a lot of topics that you

12:28 may or may not get correctly or incorrectly.

12:32 I see what you did there.

12:33 May be trivia time.

12:39 By the way, audience, I promise it will get more interesting.

12:42 We have more We have stuff nothing of the sort.

12:45 I I thought that was super interesting.

12:47 We have a lot more interesting That's interesting.

12:49 Actually, if you don't know what if you didn't look at our thumbnail

12:52 for the main channel and also look

12:54 at the Pixel 9A thumbnail, you should go look.

12:57 Because I think it's one of the It

12:59 was the most interesting thing about our video.

13:01 That's And it is not a Photoshop, by the way.

13:03 Some people are thinking we photoshopped the Pixel 9A thumbnail

13:06 to change the color of the phone in it.

13:08 No, we reshot.

13:10 I wore the same jacket.

13:12 We actually got a new shot.

13:14 That was more effort than Google put into the phone.

13:18 [laughter] Tim did change your shirt color.

13:19 Yes.

13:19 Cuz you wore the exact same one,

13:21 but the phone colors were different, so Tim swapped your shirt.

13:24 Hey, thanks for watching this clip.

13:26 Uh I have a feeling that whatever I said in that clip was kind of a hot take,

13:29 so do me a favor and if you agree with my take in the clip,

13:32 give us a thumbs up on this video.

13:34 If you don't agree with my take, leave a comment down below.

13:39 Thanks.

13:42 [music]