Last night I got an email from Google: My Pixel 4a would be receiving a new update in the coming days.

Bit weird I thought, considering this device has been end-of-life since August 2023.

It turns out that this update is supposed to improve battery life for the Pixel 4a, but for “some” “impacted devices” this update will “reduce your battery’s runtime and charging performance”. And mine’s apparently impacted.

Honestly it’s a bummer, and to be frank it feels like planned obsolescence¹. Despite being end-of-life it’s still a good phone and [without a battery-breaking update] I could happily hold onto it. But of course, that doesn’t drive up new sales, and I’m sure Big Goog would find ways to discourage further use.

There is a rather slim silver lining to this. For oopsy daisy we’re breaking your phone teehee :3c, they’re offering one of the following as recourse:

• $50
• a $100 discount on another Google Pixel
• a free battery replacement at a walk-in repair centre (which no-one knows the locations of)

I can’t say any of those particularly excite me, and none of them feel enough for we are knowingly going to disrupt your device, but I’ll probably fold and take that $100 discount. It could bag me a Pixel 8a for the same price I paid for this, although it feels like a deal with the devil… I can’t wait for another battery-breaking update in a few years.

Again, feels weird they’re pushing another update despite it being EOL. Even if it’s apparently for beneficial reasons, it still feels sketchy.

Edit 2025/01/08: So it turns out that no-one knows who’s impacted yet, and the page to enter your IMEI number accepts anything (depending on location). There seems to be a ~3 week wait before they will do anything.

In the meantime, they’ve jacked the prices of the other Pixels way up. On the night of this email a Pixel 8a was going for £379, now it’s going for £499. The absolute scum.

The good stuff

To sum up Pixel 4a in a single word, it’s humble.
It’s a medium size budget phone with no visible bells or whistles, but it’s been an absolute beast for me. Not once have I suffered with incessant app crashes, nor have I faced shutdowns and slowdowns. The battery life has been excellent for a phone of its size, and years down the line it still holds strong.

But above everything else is the camera, as vain as it is to admit that. It’s phenomenal for a budget phone. The default camera app was the first I’ve used with an auto-tracking focus (something which I can never go back from), and I couldn’t have asked for a better phone to document my cat’s life with.

Did I mention astrophotography?
Actually I have. It’s impressive what you can get out of it, light pollution be damned.

On top of this it’s the first phone I’ve owned with an OLED screen, and also the first with NFC/Wallet features – as daft as it sounds I still can’t get over tapping my phone to make payments.

There are some features I’ve missed compared to the phones I owned before it, namely a notification light and IR Blaster, but in the grand scheme these omissions haven’t mattered much.

Now I can’t say it’s all been smooth sailing, the phone is barely visible in sunlight and the update to Android 12 wasn’t fun in the slightest², but as a whole, this budget phone from 2020 absolutely punches above its weight, even to this day.

End of an era

I can’t say I frequently change smartphones, but when I do there’s usually an eagerness to it. The old device is often on its knees, incapable to deal with the increasing requirements of new app updates, or maybe a core part of just breaks. Either way the prospect of upgrading a new one which vastly outperforms the old, alongside a few new gizmos and trinkets, is inherently appealing.

But in this case, it’s not.

The 4a is still standing tall, but an external force will tank it and force me to change it. It’s not the same. Even if I was considering changing it in the next few years, this situation puts a sour taste in my mouth.

It’s not only the phone itself that I’m upset about, but more so what it represents. It released at a key transition period for smartphones, while everything else was gunning to be larger, grander, and sleeker, the 4a was content to keep one foot in the past. From its size to its headphone jack³, the 4a knew its niche and stuck to it.

When I look at the phones on the market today, I can’t see anything speaks to me. I get why trends change, why phones are monolithic slabs impossible to use with a single hand. I get why we stopped having replaceable batteries, MicroSD slots, etc.

The Pixel 4a hit the sweet spot in the middle of two eras, and I wish there was something like that available now.

I’m sure I’ll be content wherever I go next, but it’s just sad when something like this happens, yknow?