My Pixel 8a
I picked up a Google Pixel 8a recently in the beautiful bay blue color. I’ve been in a "blue vibe" this year as I wanted to get away from the standard black or white colors. I have a blue iPhone 15 and blue Apple Watch Series 9 for my second phone.
I was using a Google Pixel 7 with GrapheneOS before this purchase. I have been testing it since last November 2023. It has been a great journey using a non-Google phone setup, but that is a story for another day.
I was curious to see what I was missing using a GrapheneOS Pixel, so I picked up the Pixel 8a. The color and size is what pulled me in to buying it at first. I downsized for the first time in awhile to the iPhone 15 and loved the smaller size. Using that phone for over a month, I did not miss the extra Pro / Plus size. So when this was announced, I loved the shape of it, the size, how flush the camera bump was compared to my Pixel 7 and blue color, I knew I would love it.
Using Google Android with a throwaway account has been nice. I’ve turned off as many permissions and services on the phone. It functions very well still. I have been testing out the DuckDuckGo browsers on my Mac, iPhone and Android phones for over a month. I like the app tracker blocker, ad blocker, email account and other features it includes. If it can block most trackers from the apps installed, that’s pretty good. It runs like a firewall / vpn service to block these trackers.
I’ve slowly moved over from the iPhone for my daily. I keep the iPhone for family with my old phone number for FaceTime and iMessage. Both are small phones so it is easy to carry at the same time. I’ll keep updating my journey here so hope you keep visiting. Thanks for reading.