1. The price.

Hollis Johnson/Business Insider

That we as a society refer to the $700 iPhone 11 as the "cheap" version of the iPhone says it all — there are nearly no major smartphones being made for people who don't want or can't afford bleeding-edge $1,000 devices. The "cheap" version of Samsung's Galaxy line, the S10e, is also $750.

As flagship smartphones drop headphone jacks, remove bezels, and use your face as a login, the price keeps going up. The latest iPhone, the iPhone 11, looks great and has some cool tricks. But $700? Seven hundred American dollars for a device that gets maybe two years of use and does essentially the same things as the previous model, albeit in a sexier form factor?

The Pixel 3a is perhaps the greatest example yet that smartphones don't need to cost so much money. If nothing else, it's a tremendously strong example of the power of utilitarian design in smartphones — not since Google's excellent Nexus line and the iPhone SE has a smartphone so directly appealed to the huge market of smartphone owners who don't want the bleeding edge of tech (or the price that usually comes with it).

Better yet: As of this Friday, the Pixel 3a is going for as low as $250 at some retailers.