Hacker News Reader

Comment by CoolGuySteve | Hacker News Reader

For what it's worth, the Pixel 3a is the most fragile phone I've ever owned. In 12 years of carrying smartphones around, it's the only one I've ever broken.

There are two problems with it:

- Within 2 weeks the top of mine was covered in thousands of tiny scratches. It seems like maybe it was a manufacturing defect in the screen coating or something but Google wouldn't replace it. They did however do a great job of fucking around in their support emails to exhaust the 30-day return window.

- The body is plastic but the glass goes all the way to the edge. Dropping the phone on its corner caused the screen to crack and die completely (and this was with a screen protector on).

View on HN

My 3a XL has fallen many of times without an issue (in a case) usually on laminate flooring or something relatively bouncy, but the other day I dropped mine on carpet no less and the OLED screen under the glass cracked and killed the screen. The glass on top was totally fine, but the screen underneath just had big crack across it and some rainbow colors.

I tried looking for replacement screens and they are out of stock all over the place and relatively expensive starting at $100ish from places I would consider more reputable and maybe 10% less elsewhere. I'm not sure if the lack of screens lends credence to how easily they break, but it certainly can't be used to disprove it.

I had the same experience, I bought an entire Moto G7 for the price of a Pixel 3a screen replacement.

My wife got a Moto G6 two Thanksgivings ago. I got a G7 this past Thanksgiving.

I am really pleased with how well the phone works for the $150 price tag.

I don't use my phone all that much, but I can't imagine a situation where I'd justify paying 3-5x that amount for a phone. The Moto G line seems to be perfectly adequate.

I currently have a G6, after upgrading from a G4. Also have to agree the brand is a fantastic bang-for-the-buck.

G7 would be perfect for me if only it had NFC. It seems you have to go into the 300$+ range to get NFC.

Is is really that expensive to add NFC, or is it a marketing thing where it's considered a premium feature for product differentiation?

I've cracked a 3a screen and had pieces of it just fall out exposing the hardware behind it from a 6 inch drop off my lap onto my patio with one of those transparent cases on. This is the first time I've broken a phone screen in my life.

All of the used ones I've bought have huge scratches on the screen making me believe it's compromise glass at a cost reduction. I buy phones used because I like recycled instead of new, and usually there are small scratches like swirl marks in a car, but never huge scratches like all of my 3a's so far. That's fairly anecdotal however.

I keep buying them though, they're absolutely excellent value for a Pixel device and I do recommend them. A 4a is on my radar.

I'm a clumsy person and have dropped my Pixel 3a numerous times. It withstood all of those drops fairly well. The only one it couldn't withstand was the drop on concrete and I was lucky to get away with a cracked screen in the corner. The back didn't crack which is nice.

The Pixel 3a is hands down the best phone in terms of value for money. I'll get the 4a 5G later this year provided it has the headphone jack.

Completely agree. The zillion scratches happened within a week for me. My screen didn't die when I did drop it (on a carpeted floor!) but it did crack. It's the only phone I've ever had crack.

Agreed. My screen cracked on my 3a and it wasn't even being roughed up or used daily, it was a backup phone to test images/roms on and other stuff.

That's terrible. Everyone's experience varies, my Pixel 3A has been great, no problems, no noticeable scratches. The killer feature of the 3A for me has been ability to take night time sky photos and show something. I got a usable picture of the comet.

I really don't want to ever buy a phone without a headphone jack. At least the 4A still has one. Only reason to buy a 4A now would be to get 128 gig storage.

Yeah two of my daughters are very happy with the cameras on their Pixel 3As, enough that they're willing to put up with the badly cracked screens.

I've found corner drops to be the bane of all phones.

It took a lot of good drops to crack my screen, and I think I'll be able to go for a month or two before I swap in a replacement. (No screen protector or case)

I don't really see why the glass needs to go so far down. There's a large buffer of space before the screen actually starts

Reply on news.ycombinator.com