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It seems that history will repeat itself this year. There have already been rumors about how the Pixel 4’s lackluster reception and sales are causing problems within Google. That may be a bit of a deja vu when the Pixel 3 duo got it wrong last year, too. The Pixel’s reputation was revived when it launched the Pixel 3a and 3a XL around the same time last year. It looks like the Pixel 4a (not 4a XL this time) could do the same thing, at least based on benchmarks from a pre-launch device.
To be clear, the Pixel 4a will be a mid-range phone and will run on a Snapdragon 730 processor. That’s not Qualcomm’s latest mid-range offering, which is the Snapdragon 765 and 768 5G chips. Still, the processor is a big step up from the Snapdragon 670 used by Pixel 3a and 3a XL, so its performance gains over last year’s mid-range pixels shouldn’t come as a big surprise.
The benchmarks shared by Julio Lusson of TecnoLike Plus with XDA, however, also show something encouraging for those looking at the Pixel 4a. Once again, the Snapdragon 730 naturally falls short compared to the Snapdragon 800 series, but its performance is quite similar to the Pixel 4 and its Snapdragon 855 and in some cases it even outperforms the Pixel 3 and its Snapdragon 845.
Of course, that doesn’t mean the Pixel 4a will rub shoulders with the high-end, but given its expected price, it will serve users well. It won’t have all the amenities the Pixel 4a has, either, but that could be seen as an advantage rather than a disadvantage.
The Pixel 4 was met with a fairly lukewarm reception despite all or even because of all those bells and whistles. Project Soli’s radar-powered gesture-based controls were seen primarily as an impractical novelty and a reason for their high price. Going back to basics, including a headphone jack, with acceptable performance, there could be more consumers looking for a Pixel 4a.
