Pixel 7a may’ve used a worse packaging material for the SOC resulting in higher heat and worse performance compared to pixel 7 and pixel 6
It is a budget phone, so it’s understandable that it could be a binned chip
Binning a chip based on its performance in the silicon lottery is VERY different from deliberately shipping a chip with worse thermals, just sayin’.
It is very different at least in paper, but for the consumer it’s more or less the same. Lower price, lower performant chip. We’ll have to wait for benchmarks to know if the downgrade is newsworthy.
Till today, Pixel 6a was the best. In term of performance and value for money too!