Of the three colors, the Sage Pixel 6a is the most exciting variant hands down as Chalk and Charcoal are just par for the course. Overall, while the 6a can’t quite match the cameras on the Pixel 6, it really isn’t that far off in beating smartphones costing more than twice the price and trouncing the mid-range competition. Price The Pixel 6a is the best mid-range phone you can buy and a fantastic option if you’re looking for a smaller Android. The camera app has many of the features as Google’s other phones, including the object eraser or camouflage tools, which recolours distracting and unwanted elements of a photo to make them less obvious. While pixels do need to be calibrated after screen repairs, this is usually just for the fingerprint sensor.

Google Pixel 6a review: Still the best value Android phone

It's a handset we recommend to not only Android purists but also anyone tempted to make the jump from an Apple iPhone SE and even from the 6a's latest successor, the Pixel 7a. The Google Pixel 6a offers good value for money, though it's not as competitive as many Chinese phones. We like that the 6a is thin and less chunky than the 6 or 7 Pro, sitting flush when on flat surfaces. Even after months of use, we're continually impressed with the sleek design. The phone comes with all the standard Google-built apps like GMail, Photos, the Play Store and Maps, but there aren’t any pre-installed extras, saving you from that stint of deleting half the pre-installed tools. The battery is 4,410mAh, which isn’t even small for a phone of this size, so we can’t get our heads around why it doesn’t last longer.

As we’ve mentioned, the phone is smaller than its siblings, making it easier to hold and use without stretching your fingers. It’s also got a snappy and intuitive fingerprint scanner, fixing an issue that many people had with the Pixel 6 and 6 Pro. Video recording goes up to 4K and 60fps - which is all anyone really needs, if we’re being honest - with a range of modes like time lapse and slow motion. The front camera maxes out at 1080p though, a side effect of its 8MP sensor.

Google Pixel 6a review: Still the best value Android phone Google Pixel 6a review: Still the best value Android phone

Google is on a roll. After years of good but not great phones, the Pixel 6a is another excellent model bringing the Android-maker’s magic down to a more affordable price. On the front there’s an 8MP f/2.0 selfie snapper, which is a little low-res compared to front cameras on rival devices, but the camera performs just fine. Perhaps Google is hoping you won’t be using the phone much, because it’ll be plugged in and charging for so long each day. The 18W powering here means the phone takes nearly two hours to power up to full, which is impressively slow for a handset at this price. The Android software you get out of the box is simple to use and easy to navigate. There are neat customisation options, like the ability to match the colour of your icons to your wallpaper, plus the return of live translation that helps you converse in 11 languages or read text you don't understand from photos — perfect for your next jaunt abroad. Pictures are good. Sure, they won’t match snaps taken on the standard Pixel 6 in terms of vibrancy or detail, but they’ll beat out nearly any other handset at this price.The new Pixel 7a boasts the latest 2nd-gen version of this chip, but our long-term use hasn't changed our opinion on its performance: It's smooth and speedy to use, and we haven't encountered crashes or shuttering when taking snaps. It’s a real shame, then, that the Google Pixel 6a’s battery life is such an Achilles’ heel, because if the phone lasted even just a little bit longer, it’d be a really great budget handset. The secret sauce, as always, is Google's machine learning, powered by its in-house Tensor chip. As in the Pixel 6, here, it powers a handful of impressive computational photography and video modes. Our favourite is 'Magic Eraser', which instantly removes unwanted subjects from images — perfect if you're taking pictures of busier city landmarks on holiday or you want to remove household items from your latest baby photo. The battery life issue won’t ruin the phone for everyone, but it does make you stop and think “can I use a phone that needs charging multiple times per day?” If you can, that’s great. But we imagine lots of people will rule out the phone based on this simple issue. Smartphone battery life is often hard to quantity. A device might perform well in lab-based tests but struggle in everyday use, given the huge variance of screen-on time that you’ll use day-to-day, and as such testers can be hesitant to provide decisive verdicts on a phone’s lasting power.