The Pixel 4a is already one of the sweetest deals in smartphones right now, and that's without 5G support. But Google's not one to be outdone, especially by Apple, and so it's readying a 5G version of its budget phone to give Pixel fans a way to experience faster mobile internet... in theory, anyway.
The Pixel 4a 5G launches on Oct. 29, and we've been able to test it out ahead of time to see if that new 5G support really justifies the price jump from $349 to $499. So here are the three most important takeaways from our first couple of days with the Pixel 4a 5G.
Google Fi's 5G service makes a good first impression...
The first thing to note is that while the Pixel 4a 5G does support coverage from all the major U.S. mobile carriers, our testing was done using Google's Fi mobile service. I had personally never used Google Fi before, so I was pleasantly surprised to find that it has reasonably comprehensive 5G coverage in the United States, at least in the most populous parts of it.
Coverage maps can be misleading, but I'll commend Google, which mainly relies upon T-Mobile to provide the network for Fi, for blanketing most of New York City with promised 5G support. Around this time a year ago, a major carrier like Sprint (which formerly provided network support for Fi) had only small blotches of 5G coverage on the island of Manhattan and basically nowhere else. Google Fi, on the other hand, promises support for my entire neighborhood.
Setting up a Google Fi 5G plan on an unlocked Pixel 4a 5G is also impressively simple. You can do it through the Google Fi Android app using your Gmail account in just a few minutes. Google only offers one unlimited data plan, which comes out to $70 per month for a single line. For what it's worth, that's $10 cheaper than the price of an individual 5G-enabled Verizon plan.
On paper, Google Fi seems like a rock solid way to unlock 5G internet on the Pixel 4a 5G. In practice, well, nobody's perfect.
... but first impressions can be misleading
Image: ookla / alex perry
Let's get a few basic facts out of the way: 5G is still a new and evolving technology. Networks to support it are constantly expanding. Device support is still not always a given, and it's just not as reliable as 4G LTE, a seasoned veteran of wireless internet at this point.
With all that being said, 5G on the new Pixel 4a has been more miss than hit in my short-term testing so far. Merely walking within a 20-minute radius of my apartment in Brooklyn produced wildly different results from street corner to street corner. I ran several Ookla speed tests (which I am ethically required to note is owned by the same parent company as Mashable), getting astronomical results at times and disappointing ones at others.
Before we get to that, though, I'll mention that 5G has always struggled to work indoors in my experiences with it, and that is still true with the Pixel 4a 5G. Sometimes, if I'm lucky, I can snag a 5G connection from my street-facing bedroom and produce a download speed of more than 300Mbps. For reference, my home WiFi tops out at around 200Mbps, so that's pretty nice for a sub-6GHz connection.
However, more often than not, the phone jumps back down to LTE before the speed test is even over. I can't get it to stay connected to 5G while indoors to save my life. I had planned on tethering other devices to the Pixel to try working on a 5G connection, but that wasn't happening.
Outdoor speed testing is better, but only marginally. The Pixel 4a 5G holds onto a 5G connection somewhat consistently outside, but download speeds range anywhere from 20Mbps to that 300Mbps high mark. Every now and then, that damned "LTE" symbol would rear its ugly head, signaling a loss of 5G altogether depending on which block I walked down.
In terms of practical applications for 5G, I wasn't especially blown away by anything I tried. Streaming and downloading HD videos should be a walk in the park for a 5G connection, but Netflix streaming wasn't noticeably better than it would be over LTE. What's worse is that downloading a single episode of The Last Dance, which is merely a 211MB file, took nearly 20 minutes over 5G. When I deleted the download and tried again over home WiFi, it took about 30 seconds.
Image: netflix
Cloud gaming over Google Stadia, on the other hand, made a solid showing during testing. I spent some time playing quick-response games like Rage 2 and GRID while sitting in a park, and it worked shockingly well. I didn't notice any more latency than Stadia usually produces over WiFi, and the games held up visually aside from a couple of very brief resolution dips. It's hard to tell how much of that is due to the underlying tech behind Stadia and how much of that is due to 5G, but the end result left a positive impression on me.
It's just unfortunate that not everything worked as well over 5G on the new Pixel 4a as Stadia did.
It's not a terrible deal in the long-term
Listen, it's no secret that 5G is a work in progress that probably won't be reliable or useful enough for most Americans for at least a couple of years. The fact that it still can't really penetrate walls is a testament to that. Maybe it's too early for most people to think about investing in 5G. But if you must, the Pixel 4a 5G is one of the better ways to do that right now.
We've already established that the Pixel 4a is an excellent Android phone for such a cheap price. But adding another $150 onto that price just for the privilege of accessing spotty 5G networks during a pandemic doesn't sound like a great deal, right? However, consider that those 5G networks will only get better over time, making the Pixel 4a 5G a more enticing prospect.
Think of it as future-proofing your phone. You might not even pay for a 5G plan yet, but the Pixel 4a 5G will be there for you when you're ready to start doing that. Those who are understandably wary of 5G can stick with the regular Pixel 4a. But if you want to keep the same phone around for at least two or three years, the Pixel 4a 5G might just be a smart investment.
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