The time has come 3.5mm headphone jack fans! It’s a brand new Google Pixel smartphone with a 3.5mm headphone jack. But it’s not the flagship. It’s the “a” model, the affordable model, with the Pixel 3a going for $299 right now with free US shipping at B&H Photo, while the larger Pixel 3a XL goes for $379. There are no other storage options. Only the color scheme of the phone.

They have 4GB of RAM, the modern 18.5 : 9 aspect ratio, the SnapDragon 670 processor, 64GB of on-board storage but sadly no memory card slot, Bluetooth 5.0 for those who have newer bluetooth headphones, Wifi Direct (not to be confused with the totally different protocol “Wifey Direct”), NFC [when there are connection dogfights in the air between multiple devices in your household/office], Android 9, 3-years of updates, unlimited Google Photos storage, factory unlocked with USA warranty and so forth…

Mayhaps this is the closest Google has come to making a Nexus phone in the Pixel era. If I was buying a phone right now I would consider it in this price range ~ assuming you can live with just 64GB of storage that is. Because even with streaming (eg Spotify) you have the option of downloading (frequently played) music because 5G is coming but the carriers are still hoarding data like giant corporate dragons in their lairs 😉

UPDATE: speaking of daily deals, one of the 100 Kindle e-books offered for this day is Leonard Cohen’s “The Flame: Poems Notebooks Lyrics Drawings” (288 pages) going for $4.