Some #Pixel4a thoughts:

Google is a software company. It tried to make premium hardware. It had a hard time with that.

Pixel 2XL - bad display. Pixel 3 - not enough RAM. Pixel 4 - some of the worst battery life last year.

But it's still important Google makes a premium Pixel

Premium products demand premium features to sell. Google is good at features. That's software.

Assistant, Now Playing, Call Screening, Recorder, Live Transcribe, more. ALL features of premium Pixel devices.

Also, failing at certain things forced them to be WAY better next time.

Google clearly excels in the midrange. It is REALLY good at optimizing a UI for Android because well, it makes Android. Even on the Snapdragon 730G, I had zero slowdowns, stuttering. The experience delta between a premium and mid-ranged processor is very small on good software

Not only that, but most of Google's AI features are trying to help you use your phone.. less.

Assistant - saves tons of time/taps
Now Playing - ambient information
Call Screening - Takes/transcribes calls for you

The less you interact w/your phone, the less power it needs

So then Google can pass down the premium features it developed for premium Pixels to the mid-range, and you've hit the sweet spot.

Premium hardware doesn't matter much when you're just trying to make a portal to the Pixel experience. And that experience has gotten so, so good.

That being said, when you are interacting with your phone, Google is ensuring the experience is great.

In a $350 phone:

Fantastic display
Enough RAM for keeping apps in memory
Enough storage to download all your songs/videos

And the hardware on the 4a feels good too. Win/win.