The Google Pixel 6a and the Tech Enthusiast Divide

A good phone, skewed expectations, and a misunderstanding of who it is for

Tech review videos are kind of a funny concept. They are positioned as a sort of the north star of guidance for buying decisions. They will often mention “average consumers” and gimmick features that most people will not care about. The irony of this is that the majority of people that watch these review videos are tech fans, a subset of people that would not fall under the umbrella of average consumers. Tech reviewers and the people that enjoy consuming their content fall on the outer realms of most people’s scope of interest when it comes to tech, which is why many of these channels review Chinese phones that will never see a retail store in the US. This lens often leads to looking at a phone that was designed for the everyday American and simply not getting its purpose.

This happened when the newest iPhone SE was released with many reviewers pointing out its dated design, lack of camera lenses, and overall unimpressive specs. This commentary was colored by phones in a similar price range from the likes of Xiaomi and IQOO but they missed the point that many people upgrading from an iPhone 7 or 8 would likely find this phone familiar and a good fit for them. It seems that this has happened again with the newly released Google Pixel 6a, a phone that is designed to be appealing to a simpler phone user in America that wants a good phone experience and does not have to worry about extra settings or a high price tag. The Pixel 6a is a phone that has been designed to compete with the iPhone SE (2022), primarily in the United States. And viewed from that lens, it accomplishes its goals incredibly well.

The Criticisms of a Perfectly Fine Phone

The most important thing to note about the Pixel 6a is just how much it is designed to compete with the latest iPhone SE. The phones are priced similarly with the 128GB Pixel costing $449 and the 128GB version of the iPhone SE costing $479. Both are more on the compact side of phone sizing in 2022 (the iPhone is quite a bit smaller in this regard). Both use tried…