Pixel 4a (1 Viewer)

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I ordered the Pixel 4a on 9/19, with an estimated delivery date of 10/10. Not really sure what could take so long to ship? I'm assuming it has something to do with filling preorders first. Once I discovered that they were going to release a Pixel 4a 5g and a Pixel 5 soon after, I thought about canceling the order and going with one of those, but the price of the 4a is what caught my eye to be quite honest. I'll be switching out my practically indestructible Galaxy S5 Active because I finally did enough damage to it after all these years to justify the switch. I broke the power button off and if it ever gets shut down, I have to use a tiny screwdriver to power it back on. Not the most practical situations. I'm also switching off AT&T's super expensive service and testing out Google Fi. Considering I average less than 2gigs a month in data usage, I should be saving about $30-$40 a month vs AT&T (with even the teacher's discount added to that), even with the cost of the phone wrapped into the price for a bit.

Update: It shipped 9/29, with an expected FedEx delivery date of 10/5.
 
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xpuma20x said:
I ordered the Pixel 4a on 9/19, with an estimated delivery date of 10/10. Not really sure what could take so long to ship? I'm assuming it has something to do with filling preorders first. Once I discovered that they were going to release a Pixel 4a 5g and a Pixel 5 soon after, I thought about canceling the order and going with one of those, but the price of the 4a is what caught my eye to be quite honest. I'll be switching out my practically indestructible Galaxy S5 Active because I finally did enough damage to it after all these years to justify the switch. I broke the power button off and if it ever gets shut down, I have to use a tiny screwdriver to power it back on. Not the most practical situations. I'm also switching off AT&T's super expensive service and testing out Google Fi. Considering I average less than 2gigs a month in data usage, I should be saving about $30-$40 a month vs AT&T (with even the teacher's discount added to that), even with the cost of the phone wrapped into the price for a bit.

Update: It shipped 9/29, with an expected FedEx delivery date of 10/5.
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Great news. I think you'll like it. It's not flashy but is a very solid and smooth experience. And for the price you cannot go wrong.
 
Brennan77 said:
Great news. I think you'll like it. It's not flashy but is a very solid and smooth experience. And for the price you cannot go wrong.
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I just got an email saying it's already been delivered. So that's a full week before the initial date, though it was mailed a few days ago with a 10/5-10/10 deliver day. So it got here even faster than that. Once I get home from work, its time to unwrap the new toy. I'll try to post a general short term review after a few days, especially since I'm also switching over to the new service.
 
xpuma20x said:
I just got an email saying it's already been delivered. So that's a full week before the initial date, though it was mailed a few days ago with a 10/5-10/10 deliver day. So it got here even faster than that. Once I get home from work, its time to unwrap the new toy. I'll try to post a general short term review after a few days, especially since I'm also switching over to the new service.
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If you like a minimalist case, this is the one.

case
 
i love my 4a. excellent phone, especially at price point. going on two months and no complaints (though android 11 is kinda quirky, but easy learning curve). upgraded from 3a (nexus prior) and totally in love.
 
Alright after having a weekend to play around with the phone, here are some initial thoughts. As Zeetes said above, Android 11 is a little wonky. While I was using Android 6 before, this one seems to be missing some upfront intuitive structure to it. Simple things like clocks and contacts, I had to drag out from the settings to even make an option. Those two things seem like something that should be just right there on the screen already. The phone itself is doing great though. Smooth running, ease of use overall (once I got over the hurdle of jumping 5 generations of operating systems), and some cool features. I've enjoyed the back fingerprint reader more than I initially thought. There seems to be about 100 different sounds/ringtones that are already preloaded, though most of them are rather quirky sounding or just barely more than a tiny noise. The loudest sounds are all based on novelty audio of various kinds and it makes me long for just a normal, but loud, ring/alert. Something that I did not realize, and I suppose this could prove how far behind the times I am, was that it only uses the USB-C lighting charge cable. So now I have a whole house and work office full of micro USB cords. However, I did jump on Amazon (when I ordered the case that Brennan77 suggested) and bought a couple of new cords and a few USB-C to micro-USB adapters, so that I could spread out the usage some. The screen itself is nice and bright and comes with multiple features for autodimming, night light and even changing the color for bedtime to help assist you going to sleep. The one thing I'm disappointed with so far though is the lack of speakers. While I'm in my office I use the speaker phone a lot while I'm typing at a keyboard, and it went almost silent when I set the phone speaker down. Some of the unique features of the phone also seem to come already turned on, some you have to go digging for. The text capture for conversations and the automatic Shazaam style song lookup work well. However, I had to dive into the settings because every time I set the phone down too fast, it'd think I was driving and then put the phone in Do Not Disturb mode. Which isn't the best when you are expecting texts and suddenly you're not getting them because its quiet. Overall though, for the money, I'm very pleased on the short term so far.
 
I have found one thing that I can't figure out on the Pixel 4a. Even though it always says I'm only connected to LTE speed mobile data, it runs at normal 4G. Im unsure if this is a problem or if I'm just using a very fast LTE and can't connect to 4G. Internet searches show there was an issue with LTE showing as 4G but not the other way around. Perhaps I'm missing a setting somewhere? Or another thought which shows my ignorance...are 4G and LTE the same thing?
 
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xpuma20x said:
I have found one thing that I can't figure out on the Pixel 4a. Even though it always says I'm only connected to LTE speed mobile data, it runs at normal 4G. Im unsure if this is a problem or if I'm just using a very fast LTE and can't connect to 4G. Internet searches show there was an issue with LTE showing as 4G but not the other way around. Perhaps I'm missing a setting somewhere? Or another thought which shows my ignorance...are 4G and LTE the same thing?
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I'm pretty LTE, for all intents and purposes, is in fact the current standard of 4g used. I never show anything other than LTE unless I'm dropping down to 3g in the sticks.
 

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