Ron Amadeo
Google’s budget behemoth, the Pixel 6a, was officially released on Thursday, but you can now score a $50 deal on it. From now until August 7 at 11:59pm PT, purchasing the smartphone for $449 at one of several retailers — including Amazon, Target, Best Buy, and Google itself — will net you a $50 gift card in store credit for respective stores.
To see the offer on Amazon, you’ll need to scroll down to the “Special Offers” section on the Pixel 6a’s store page and click the “Add Both to Cart” button. The merchant will then send a physical gift card with your purchase. You can pick up Target’s gift card in-store or online, Best Buy’s comes digitally via email, and Google Store will apply it to your Google Store account after purchase. The deal applies to the unlocked version of the phone at any retailer, with activation on major carriers through Best Buy or via Google Fi at the Google Store.
The Pixel 6a is the mid-range version of Google’s impressive flagship phones, the $599 Pixel 6 and the $899 Pixel 6 Pro, which were released in late 2021. As it does after the Pixel 3, Google followed up its flagship devices with a lower price. expensive version through its A series, which in the past has provided great value in delivering a strong taste of flagship performance (especially in camera) at a more palatable price.
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The story is no different this year with the Pixel 6a. Our review deemed it Google’s best mid-range model yet, with Ars Reviews editor Ron Amadeo calling the 6a “the device [we’ll] recommend to anyone looking for an Android phone” from now on. A big reason for that is that the Pixel 6a uses the same Google-built Tensor system-on-a-chip (SoC) as the Pixel 6 and 6 Pro. In our testing, we found that this chip is twice as fast as the Pixel 5a.
The lower price means the 6a trades the Pixel 6’s glass back for glossy plastic, flattens the rounded curves of the 6’s front, and loses wireless charging (as well as a headphone jack for the first time with an A-series phone). Its display is also smaller (6.1 inches) and slower (with a standard 60Hz refresh rate), and it technically offers slightly less RAM (at 6GB).
But, as with all of Google’s Pixel phones, you still get a clean, user-friendly take on Android with limited features, three years of major OS updates and five years of security updates guaranteed. The device also includes an in-screen fingerprint sensor, a first for the Pixel A lineup. Overall, the 6a is a good deal at the standard MSRP, but this deal should increase the value for those who need a new phone right now.
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