As a tech reviewer, friends and family regularly ask for my advice when buying a new gadget. One of the biggest purchasing decisions we have to make every few years is buying a new phone, so I tend to always have a go-to recommendation ready that I not only think would suit most needs and budgets, but a phone I would happily pay for and use myself.
For the past few months, the phone I’ve been recommending is the Google Pixel 8a, which is why it’s great to see the handset is currently on sale as part of Amazon’s Black Friday offers. You can get the black Pixel 8a for just £354.99, which is a 29 percent saving of £144.01.
The white and blue versions of the phone can be snapped up at a slightly higher, but still discounted, £369.
£354.99 for the Pixel 8a is a true bargain. I said in my four-star review of the device when it was released in May that it is “the easiest phone in the world to recommend”, and I stand by that. It takes all the best parts of Google’s pricier Pixels and distils them into a pocketable Android phone that anyone will get along with.
The size is relatively compact for a modern phone with a 6.1-inch OLED display that has a 120Hz refresh rate, matching the smoothness of more expensive Pixels on this budget A-series option for the first time.
The back of the phone is plastic, which makes it lighter and less likely to crack when dropped, the cameras are excellent (you can barely tell the difference between this and the £799 Pixel 9), the battery lasts all day and it will get seven years of software updates to keep it secure until 2031.
This was a good deal at £499, which makes this discount hard to ignore. Though I can’t say for certain, I think it’s unlikely the Pixel 8a will be on sale any cheaper than this through all of November and into Black Friday proper – partly because it’s a big discount already and because Google’s online store also has the phone for £369. I don’t think it’ll dip any lower.
Google’s store is the place to buy the Pixel 8a if you want the snazzy green version that’s not available from other retailers. Otherwise, the black model from Amazon offers the lowest price I’ve seen for this most capable of affordable Android phones.