EmailWhen it seemed that $1,000 was becoming the norm for smartphone prices - from the iPhone X to Samsung. And, with the advent of foldables (if they can stop them from breaking in half), at nearly twice the price, it would seem that there are probably a lot of people simply being priced out of the market.
So now Google, which has been notoriously unable to break into the smartphone business (really, have you even ever seen a Nexus phone?), has decided to go in the opposite direction.
As Richard Feynman once famously said, 'there's plenty of room at the bottom'.
So this week, Google released its latest iteration in a search for that half (or maybe more) of the market, the Pixel 3a.
Retailing at just $399, (and Verizon, it seems, will let you have one on a payment plan of $29.95.a month), the Pixel3a is going to have a lot of appeal to those who also shop at Costco and K-Mart, which would be millions of people.
Of course, the phone is a bit slower than the iPhone X, but after a while, who can tell, unless you are holding them side by side.
Same goes for the screen, which is not quite as big, but the other day I took out my old iPhone 5, and that was TINY, but when I had the 5, I did not go around all day thinking, man, this is one tiny screen. You can get used to anything.
Maybe the best thing about the Pixel 3a is that it still has a conventional mini headphone jack. First, I keep losing the adaptor for my iPhone X, so my vast collection of conventional mini plug headphones is as worthless as my collection of Blackberry chargers.
When it comes to video, the 3a has exactly the same camera as the interesting but also failed to sell Pixel 3, which retailed for $800, making it non-competitive with either Samsung or iPhone.
And because it's Googe, it has Google technology, which means the very powerful Night Sight feature that should have made the Pixel3 a big seller amongst video users... but didn't.
All in all, for $300, it's a very good deal.
