Resurr Idk, when I bought the Pixel 8 I was surprised how small it has despisite his price. Before the pixel 8 I has the Nothing Phone 1. If you wanna see at the hardware level, the pixel 8 has some small thing than the 8a (just google it), but they are almost identical to each other.
I suggest you to bought Pixel 8 if the difference between 8a and 8 is only around 50 dollar, if they are selling with more than 70 dollar of difference let it go.