The Google Pixel 10a is a tricky phone to evaluate. I was genuinely blown away by last year’s Google Pixel 9a, which made shockingly few sacrifices for a $500 phone while managing to look even nicer (and last even longer) than its pricier Pixel 9 counterpart. As such, Google didn’t mess with the formula for the Pixel 10a — almost to a fault.

Folks new to team Pixel or long overdue for an upgrade will likely love the 10a’s snappy performance, sleek design, long battery life and Google’s signature suite of software tricks that largely match what you’ll find on the company’s more expensive phones. But if you’re an annual upgrader or Pixel enthusiast hoping for something truly new, you won’t find much of it here.

Is the Pixel 10a more of a great thing or just another derivative update? And is it the best smartphone for folks on a budget? Here’s what I think after a week of scrolling, messaging, gaming and taking an absurd number of photos on Google’s latest $500 phone.

What we liked about it

It’s still the best-looking Pixel

Last year’s Pixel 9a was a rare case of the budget model looking better than its premium counterpart, thanks to an extra-minimal design that lacks the big, bulky camera modules of the pricier Pixels. That’s why I can’t be too upset that Google barely changed a thing for the Pixel 10a’s design, aside from refining the Pixel 9a’s “barely there” camera bump down to one that’s completely flush with the back of the phone. Sure, it might not have the same super-sturdy aluminum feel as the regular Pixel 10, but unlike almost every other major smartphone, the 10a can actually be laid flat on a table and isn’t prone to knocking around. It also just feels great to hold, with matte edges and an airy 6.5-ounce body that’s marginally lighter than the 9a.

Google managed to shave down the Pixel 10a’s display bezels a bit too. I could just barely notice the difference when putting it side-by-side with last year’s phone, but thinner borders are always a win. The colors on this year’s model have a bit more pop to them too. I really dig the Lavender model I’ve been testing and especially love the bright-red Berry that my colleague Henry T. Casey’s been using, both of which are richer than their Iris and Peony counterparts from the Pixel 9a. There’s also Obsidian black and light green Fog if you prefer something more subtle.

One of the best screens in a budget phone

Google’s A-series continues to have one of the best displays I’ve used on a budget phone, as its 6.3-inch pOLED panel looked crisp and colorful no matter what I threw at it. As I geeked out over the “Mortal Kombat II” trailer, I noticed plenty of detail in the beaten-up faces of Liu Kang and Kitana, as well as the neon green of Jade’s staff and blistering red of Kano’s eye lasers, which had an especially nice pop to them.

Even just scrolling the home screen and catching up on articles was a delight, thanks to a super-silky 120Hz refresh rate that makes everything look extra fluid and continues to make the iPhone 16e’s 60Hz screen look sluggish by comparison. You’ll have to manually enable 120Hz mode in the settings menu, and Google does warn that it can eat up extra battery, but I think it’s a worthy exchange for supersmooth navigation.

Google says the Pixel 10a screen can get even brighter than the 9a’s with a peak brightness of 3,000 nits over last year’s 2,700 nits. I had a hard time noticing a difference in real-world use, though the aforementioned movie trailer was ever so slightly easier to see when I played it on both phones and set them side by side in bright sunlight. The Pixel 10a also promises a more shatterproof display with its upgrade from Gorilla Glass 3 to Gorilla Glass 7i, which is an improvement I hope I never have to test (though given my habit of cracking phones, it’s not impossible). And while it’s not new for the Pixel 10a, I love that this phone has an in-screen fingerprint sensor. It works instantaneously and is something I’d love to have on my iPhone for those times when Face ID just won’t work.

Dependable (if not mind-blowing) performance

Phone nerds might balk at the fact that the Pixel 10a packs the same Google Tensor G4 processor as last year’s model, forgoing the speedier G5 chip that debuted on the regular Pixel 10 series. For the vast majority of people, though, it’s not going to matter.

The Pixel 10a performs wonderfully at most things you need a phone for. Apps loaded just as snappily as they did on my Pixel 10, and the chaotic, visually rich racing action of Asphalt Legends ran near-flawlessly on the highest graphical settings (though my 10a did get a tad warm here). Google’s affordable phone stayed rock-solid during multitasking, never skipping a beat as I opened a dozen apps (including Chrome with way too many tabs open) and generated goofy images in Gemini.

But how does that compare to the competition? The Geekbench 6 benchmark wasn’t available for the Pixel 10a as of this writing (a common quirk with new Google phones pre-release), but based on the Tensor G4 numbers we got from the previous model, you can expect speeds that aren’t far off from the flagship Pixels but notably far behind comparable rivals from Apple and Samsung.

The Tensor G4’s multi-core performance scores, which are good indicators of multitasking chops, were about 31% behind the standard Pixel 10 and its Tensor G5 chip, while the iPhone 16e and its Apple A18 chip nearly doubled those numbers. That’s not to mention the incoming iPhone 17e, which packs the newer A19 chip that turned in scores more than twice as high as the G4’s. That’s a lot of jargon and numbers to say that the Pixel 10a will be fine for everyday tasks, but folks who truly push their phones to the limit with advanced photo and video editing or tend to use a ton of apps at once may want to consider something more powerful.

Solid battery life

While far from the longest-lasting phone we’ve tested, the Google Pixel 10a gets you plenty of juice for a long day away from your charger. Google’s new phone lasted through 16 hours and 34 minutes of nonstop video playback on our battery test, which consists of nonstop 4K video playback at 50% screen brightness. That’s almost an exact tie with the iPhone 16e (16 hours and 32 minutes), better than the standard iPhone 16 (15 hours and 17 minutes) and notably higher than the much more expensive Pixel 10 Pro and Pixel 10 Pro XL that both clocked in at a little over 13 hours. The standard Pixel 10 reigned supreme here, with a stellar time of 19 hours and 24 minutes.

Curiously, the Pixel 10a didn’t last nearly as long as the 9a, which netted an incredible 23 hours and 32 minutes on the same test when we ran it last year. This could be a technical oddity on our end, so we’ll be retesting and reporting back as we learn more. Either way, you can expect to juice back up quickly, as we got an impressive 56% battery boost after just 30 minutes of 30W wired fast charging.

Good camera performance for the price

Last year in my Pixel 9a review, I said that “camera quality is perhaps the one area where the Pixel 9a performs true to its price” rather than punching above it, and that remains the case with the Pixel 10a’s near-identical setup. It’s still a strong $500 camera phone that got me plenty of sharp, colorful photos of everyday life, but its shortcomings start to show when you pit it against the competition.

The new budget Pixel proved to be a trustworthy companion for a sunny morning stroll around my local park, capturing the blanket of white snow covering the grass and the baby blue of the sky with satisfying brightness and color. The Pixel 10a produced very similar results to the pricier Pixel 10 and Galaxy S25 FE in this scene, though the latter phones captured more detail in the trees and buildings that lined the background. Same goes for everything from a bed of red twigs to a colorful, multi-fabric art piece hanging on a tree, the latter of which had the most overall pop on Apple’s iPhone 16e.

The Pixel 10a is more than capable of taking profile-picture-worthy portrait shots, making my pal Casey look particularly dapper against some natural-looking background blur. The Pixel 10 shot had better contrast and detail, and the iPhone 16e produced warmer, more true-to-life skin tones, but these are relatively small nitpicks considering the Pixel 10a’s lower price.

Selfies were a similar story. The Pixel 10a, Pixel 10, iPhone 16e and Galaxy S25 FE all captured my big, bald noggin similarly well, though my facial scruff was noticeably blurry compared with the more detailed shots from the competition. Google’s budget phone took impressively bright low-light selfies indoors, though I preferred the S25 FE’s more neutral colors here (the iPhone 16e was a bit too saturated for my liking).

I brought my stack of phones to the buzzing Unrivaled basketball semifinals in Brooklyn, New York, where the Pixel 10a took a nice wide shot of the court that compared well with the competition. Same goes for the photos I grabbed of a basket of chicken fingers, though the food looked richer in color (and more appetizing) on the iPhone 16e. After leaving the arena, I snapped a photo of my friend admiring a sign on a busy Brooklyn street that looked acceptably clear for a nighttime shot (though again, I found the iPhone 16e to offer better brightness and color here).

The Pixel 10a gains a pair of new camera tools starting with Camera Coach, a feature that uses AI to generate tips on framing and shooting whatever you have your camera pointed at. I personally don’t have much use for this sort of thing, but it does work as advertised and was quick to give me some tips on framing a shot of the Vessel at Hudson Yards in Manhattan that was a bit more zoomed in and less cluttered by pedestrians. And while I’m not the biggest fan of AI being used to influence images, I appreciate that this feature is built around encouraging you to take a decent photo yourself.

Also arriving to Google’s budget series is the Best Take feature that can composite several group shots to create one where everyone looks good, because there’s always that one person who has their eyes closed or isn’t looking at the camera. It’s a great idea in theory and worked reliably in testing, but I felt too much like I was creating a fake shot rather than letting an organic moment be, flaws and all.

Satellite SOS is a welcome new perk

The Pixel 10a brings Satellite SOS to Google’s budget phone line, allowing you to get emergency help when you’re without cellular service or Wi-Fi. Like on the standard Pixel 10, you’ll fill out a short questionnaire about your emergency, which will then be shared with first responders (and if you choose, select contacts) so that you can be assisted as soon as possible. It’s the kind of feature I hope I never have to use, but I’m happy to see it here, especially since it brings the Pixel 10a closer to parity with the iPhone 16e and its own Emergency SOS via Satellite feature.

What we didn’t like about it

Zoom photography is still weak

If you’re a fan of capturing live events or scenery from a distance, the Pixel 10a probably isn’t for you. Zoom photography continues to be a weak spot for Google’s budget phone, and you could do much better if you’re willing to spend a little more.

The Pixel 10a lacks true optical zoom and tops out at 8x when it comes to digital zoom. When I maxed out to 8x to punch in on a distant billboard, the result was still fairly distant and pretty much illegible. The iPhone 16e wasn’t any better in this department, getting a bit closer to the sign at 10x but creating an even blurrier image. These both contrasted starkly against what I got from the standard Pixel 10, which let me get nice and close via 20x digital zoom while still preserving all the text on the sign (though it’s obvious that there was some AI-based smoothing going on here). The Galaxy S25 FE got the closest of the bunch at 30x, but it didn’t capture text nearly as clear as the standard Pixel 10 did. All that said, if zoom matters to you, get the Pixel 10 instead.

It’s basically the same phone as last year

While it’s hard to fault Google for sticking to what works, the Pixel 10a is one of the most iterative product updates I’ve gotten my hands on in a very long time. While features like Satellite SOS and new AI camera tools may be appealing to some, you’re ultimately getting the same processor, cameras and core features in virtually the same design as last year’s Google Pixel 9a. You’re also not getting the mega-handy PixelSnap feature introduced in the standard Pixel 10 range, which allows you to use magnetic accessories including MagSafe wallets and MagSafe battery packs.

Apple isn’t exactly leagues ahead in this department (the new iPhone 17e looks identical to the 16e), but at least its annual budget update gets you a faster processor, double the starting storage and, unlike the Pixel 10a, the addition of magnetic accessory support. That’s all to say that the Pixel 10a is an easy skip for anyone who already has a 9a, and that if you manage to score a good deal on last year’s phone, you won’t be missing out on much.

Bottom line

Taken on its own, the Google Pixel 10a is one of the best budget phones ever made. For $500, you’re getting nearly the full Google Pixel experience, complete with a great display, reliable performance, long battery life and the promise of seven years of software. It doesn’t hurt that it looks even sleeker than the standard Pixel 10 and comes in some great colors, to boot.

The thing is, I could say the same exact thing about the Pixel 9a. Even the most upgrade-happy Pixel fans will have almost no reason to jump ship from last year’s model, unless features like Emergency SOS or Camera Coach sound like they could be critical to you. There’s also the fact that the standard Pixel 10 has gone on sale for close to the 10a’s price in the past, and if you want a superior camera experience and faster performance, you may want to wait for that phone to drop again. But if you’re a new Pixel fan or upgrading for the first time in a while and are on a tight budget, you’d be hard-pressed to find a better sub-$500 phone than the Pixel 10a.

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CNN Underscored has a team of skilled writers and editors who have many years of experience testing, researching and recommending products, and we ensure each article is carefully edited and products are properly vetted. We talk to top experts when relevant to make certain our product testing is accurate as we speak to the pros and cons of each item.

Senior tech editor Mike Andronico has been writing product reviews of smartphones for more than a decade and has been one of CNN Underscored’s lead Pixel phone testers for the past several years. For this review, he took no less than four phones out with him at all times for comparison purposes, raising plenty of eyebrows from his friends in the process.