Save $100: The Google Pixel 9A (128GB) is available for $399 on Amazon, with Best Buy at $499 as of August 13, the lowest price to date is 20%.
When it comes to budgeting smartphones, shoppers have many options in 2025. Even Apple manages to cook a not bad $600 iPhone. But after a lot of deliberation, we found the overall winner in the Google Pixel 9a: it quickly, continued, and took great photos.
Now, the best budget smartphones for 2025 have fallen to their best prices so far. The 128GB Pixel 9A base model costs just $399, and at Amazon and Best Buy, its usual list price is $499, an unprecedented 20% discount. Choose from four colors: obsidian, porcelain, peony or iris. (Note that the latter is marked on Amazon and is only available to third-party sellers; if you want a specific color, head to Best Buy.)
Fighting with mid-range phones: Google Pixel 9A vs iPhone 16e
The Pixel 9A has a 6.3-inch display with a 120Hz refresh rate, Google Tensor G4 chip, 8GB of RAM and a 5,100mAh battery. In fact, it’s almost the same as Google’s flagship Pixel 9, which starts at $799, with only slightly lower RAM, half the starting storage space and a poorer camera – but longer battery life. According to Mashable’s Alex Perry, “you start to wonder why the Pixel 9 exists in full” because of their similarities; he added that the Pixel 9a “makes the Pixel 9 look obsolete.”
For its value, the Pixel 9a’s display is also better than the $599 iPhone 16e, although Apple’s model scores better on our performance benchmarks and lasts longer in daily use.
Mixable transactions
The biggest sin of Pixel 9a is that it looks boring – it doesn’t have rear cameras like Pixel 9, Pixel 9 Pro, and Pixel 9 Pro XL. As a result, it looks “very universal…like a prop phone that doesn’t want to do anything in the movie. ” But it feels like a fair confiscation for only $400.
