The Pixel 10 has just launched, and it’s already turning out to be everyone’s darling. The phone feels like a big step up from its predecessor on nearly every front, so much so that Google’s budget champ, the Pixel 9a, feels like it’s been left further behind. And honestly, it doesn’t even look like part of the family either without that recognizable camera visor. It’s a close cousin at best.
With their apparent differences, you already sort of expect that I’d prefer the Pixel 10 over the 9a, with budget no bar. While it’s generally true that the Pixel 10 is just a better phone, my reasons go beyond the specs.
Would you buy the Pixel 10 over the Pixel 9a? 2 votes For sure! 50 % Nah, I'll stick to my budget 50 %
Better internals
Rita El Khoury / Android Authority Pixel 9 (left) vs Pixel 10 (right)
You must have guessed this already. The Pixel 9a comes with ‘only’ 8GB of RAM, while the Pixel 10 gets a more generous 12GB as standard across the board. On top of that, being the latest flagship, it comes with the all-new and much-hyped Tensor G5 processor that’s much more capable, with a better TPU. In real life, that means the actual AI stuff runs much better on the Pixel 10.
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The TPU is basically what handles your AI tasks locally, and a beefier unit means far more efficiency on the 10th-gen Pixels. The A-series will only see this chip next year with the Pixel 10a. Another often-ignored fact: the Pixel 9a comes with a much scaled-down version of the Gemini Nano model for on-device calculations compared to its flagship peers. So, while it may seem that the Pixel 9a offers the same Gemini capabilities as the Pixel 9, things were vastly different under the hood from the get-go.
Cameras are a step up
Rita El Khoury / Android Authority
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