So far, I haven't run into any of the troubling memory management issues I had with last year's Pixel 3. Users frequently complained about lag and apps in the background being killed but I didn't struggle with either problem during my week of testing. Then again, that just might be because I knew I was using a phone that cost less than $500 and kept my expectations low. In any case, the 3a XL more than fast enough for most people, and even now, I'm still confused by how few performance issues I ran into. If Google could make a phone that seemed this solid, why did the Pixel 3 turn out the way it did?

Well, it's at least partially because of timing. Because the original 3 and 3 XL launched so soon after Android 9.0 became available, it seems like the Pixel team didn't necessarily have the time to iron out underlying issues before the phones went on sale in October 2018. No wonder the company pushed out so many performance improvement updates after launch. This time, though, Google said it had "the luxury of time" on their side — Android Pie has been out for over a year now, which meant the Pixel team had more experience and a more stable foundation to work with. As someone who very quickly grew disappointed with last year's Pixels, I can honestly say the Pixel 3a XL has been worlds different where stability is concerned.

The pleasant twists don't end there, either. If you're dead-set on owning a Google Pixel and really care about battery life, then you don't have a choice. The 3a XL is the phone you need to buy. There's a 3,700mAh cell inside the phone's plastic frame, up from the relatively paltry 3,430mAh battery found in the original Pixel 3 XL. To be clear, that's still not an amazingly big battery — the Galaxy S10+ has a 4,000mAh cell tucked away inside of it — but it's enough to make the 3a XL the longest-lasting Pixel we've tested. With fairly consistent use, it'll easily stick around for more than a day, and if you're really judicious, you could pretty easily get the phone to hit two days off a single charge. With the original Pixel 3 XL, such a feat seems nearly impossible.

Naturally, screen-on time has improved, too. My original Pixel 3 would report between three and four hours of dedicated screen use right as it died, but the 3a XL routine hits between four and six hours. Google's choice of chipset and screen might not be the most thrilling, but when you combine them with this bigger battery, it's no wonder that the 3a XL can stick around for so much longer without a recharge.

And then there's the camera.

The Pixel 2 and 3 proved that it doesn't really matter what kind of camera a phone has if machine learning can improve the photos after they're taken. Still, going into all of this, I had one big question on my mind: How would the Pixel 3a's camera stack up to the fantastic one we got in the Pixel 3?