Google’s Pixel 4a was a great phone back when it came out, and it got significantly more praise than its bigger siblings, the Pixel 4 and the Pixel 4 XL. The phone was updated to Android 13 back in 2023, and it was first released in 2020, so it’s coming up at roughly five years old now. Google released a terrible update for it, but its way of handling the situation might actually be even worse.

First, the main news. Google began rolling out a surprise update for Pixel 4a users. The update was still based on Android 13 because the phone has been end-of-life (EOD) for a couple of years by now, so the fact that Google was rolling out an update at all was already surprising. The update itself was more of a maintenance critical update because Google determined that “certain Pixel 4a phones require a software update to improve the stability of their battery’s performance.” The problem with this was that, with phones being five years old by now and a lot of batteries being severely degraded, the update worsened battery life for a lot of people.

Many Pixel 4a owners complained that the update basically made their phones unusable. One user on Reddit complained that their phone went from lasting a whole day to dropping basically 1% per minute, which is pretty bad. Google realized people were complaining, and it’s actually offering compensation. Except, the compensation itself isn’t great and you might find yourself having issues trying to claim it.

One of the options provided by Google is to get a $100 credit towards a new Pixel purchase, which is painted as the better value compensation—you can also get $50 in cash or a free battery replacement. Except, a user complained on Reddit that Google wasn’t allowing them to use the credit towards phones that are “already on sale.” Basically, the credit is treated like a regular promo code, which isn’t stackable with other promotions on the Google Store. This makes the credit basically just redeemable towards new phones when they aren’t on sale. For a Pixel 9, $100 is not really a considerable discount, and if you look at a Pixel 9 Pro or a Pixel 9 Pro Fold, the discount will mostly just cancel out the sales tax in most US states.

If you get the $50 in cash, you evidently won’t have restrictions on spending that, but then again, it’s just $50 rather than $100. And the other option—a battery replacement—might not even be a guaranteed fix, since your phone will still have the borked update. And a battery replacement is around $50 anyway, so you’re just spending that towards fixing your phone. You’re not really left with a lot of options as to what to do with your phone. The logical solution would be for Google to roll out a rollback update undoing the changes (since not a lot of people are willing to get dirty downgrading their phones), but it’s not clear if they’re even willing to be doing this. If the company wants Pixel 4a users to get a new phone, they should also make it easy for them to get one.

Some users actually seem unaffected by the update, while others might even see their battery life increased. Still, the reports of Pixel 4a phones becoming basically unusable are widespread enough that we will strongly advise you against downloading if you own one of these phones. If you already updated your phone and you’re suffering the nasty consequences of the update, you might want to try your luck at Google’s compensation options and see if maybe they work for you to grab a new phone. No guarantees, though.

Source: Reddit (1, 2), ZDNet