In the ‘90s, the term “smartphone” emerged to denote devices with “advanced computing” features that allowed you to do more than just make calls. But if we’re being honest, applying that label to pocket-sized gadgets that ran cut-down versions of desktop PC apps with half-baked UIs was kind of overselling it. More recently though, we’ve seen handsets like those from Google come with sophisticated features that simply aren’t available anywhere else, due in no small part to the rise of AI. And now with the arrival of the Pixel 10 Pro and Pixel 10 Pro XL, these devices feel like they are redefining the “smart” in smartphone as we know it.
Design and display: Bringing the polish
The overall look and feel of the Pixel 10 Pro and Pro XL haven’t changed much since last year. You still get polished aluminum sides sandwiched by slabs of Gorilla Glass Victus 2 and an IP68 rating for dust and water resistance. The main differences are a slightly updated lineup of colors (moonstone, jade, porcelain and obsidian) and a switch from a matte to shiny finish on the back. This is a small bummer for me as I prefer the soft-touch feel of its predecessors. The pale gold frame on the jade model is a nice touch, even if I would have preferred a richer shade of green.
The Pixel 10 Pro and Pro XL’s 120Hz OLED screens have gotten a touch brighter, now topping out at 3,300 nits (up from 3,000). This makes them a bit easier to see outside in direct sunlight while retaining the gorgeous vivid colors we’ve enjoyed on Google’s phones since switching to its Super Actua-branded displays. And with the screens themselves coming in at 6.3- and 6.8-inches, there’s no deviation in sizing either.
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My one small gripe is that at least in the US, the Pixel 10 family is now eSIM-only. As someone who prefers the convenience of being able to swap mobile networks at a moment’s notice, I really wish Google hadn’t. But ever since Apple made a similar switch back on the iPhone 14, this was bound to happen at some point. Like microSD card expandability and 3.5mm audio, physical sims have become another endangered feature on the brink of extinction.
Performance: The Tensor G5 is faster but not quite peak
With Google’s focus on AI performance, the everyday speed of its phones has always lagged a touch behind other Android flagships. However, thanks to the Tensor G5, the Pixel 10 line has closed that gap considerably due to CPUs that are more than 30 percent faster than before. Even without the ability to run some of our traditional tests like Geekbench 6 (which on Pixels often can’t be installed prior to a device’s official on-sale date), I noticed significantly shorter loading times in some of my favorite games.
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Booting up Sword of Convallaria only took 14 seconds, which is just one second longer than what I got recently from the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 and its Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy chip. I recently clocked the Pixel 9 Pro Fold and its Tensor G4 processor taking 18 seconds to do the same task, so that’s a very encouraging improvement. And holding everything together is Google’s Material 3 Expressive UI for Android 16, which makes the whole OS feel snappier and more alive.
Software: This is where the magic happens
The most tantalizing new feature on the Pixel 10 family is Magic Cue, because when it works, it really does feel like magic. If you allow it, it will look through your screenshots, calendar events, contacts, Gmail and Messages. So when someone texts you “Where are we getting dinner on Thursday?” that info appears in its own little animated rainbow bubble, exactly where you need it, instead of you needing to flip back and forth between multiple apps. It’s like your phone is actually looking out for you and wants to simplify things by cutting out tedious steps. Plus, all of this happens on device, so there’s no need to send your data into the wild wild web.
You can see that Magic Cue can’t answer every question and doesn’t work for events more than 10 days out, but when it does you’ll see little rainbow buttons pop up with pertinent info or links to helpful apps.
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In addition to reservations, if someone asks if you’re free, Magic Cue will pull up a shortcut to your calendar to make sure there aren’t any conflicts. It can also retrieve flight info (or call the airline directly), phone numbers and more. And sometime later in September, Google is adding the ability for Magic Cue to send photos of a specific person or pet when they come up in conversation.
On the flipside, for all the times when Magic Cue feels like wizardry, there are just as many limitations. For example, if an event hasn’t been entered into your calendar (like a work event planned in Slack) , Google’s AI may not be able to find it. Magic Cue also doesn’t work on appointments that are more than 10 days away. And perhaps my biggest issue is that even within Google’s own first-party software, Magic Cue isn’t supported in Google Chat, not to mention the vast sea of third-party messaging apps like Discord, Line, etc. That’s a problem because those services have largely replaced texting for me. Now I’m sure Google will expand Magic Cue support to more apps in the future, but this is how it works right now.
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It’s a similar situation for another new feature: natural sounding on-the-fly voice translation in calls. I rarely answer calls in general nowadays, let alone calls in a language I can’t speak. But when this works, it’s damn impressive and my relatives said the AI-generated voice sounded a bit like me (though the lack of support for Chinese seems like a strange omission). Same goes for Take a Message, which can create real-time transcripts (similar to Live Voicemail on iPhone) when you miss a call that you might have otherwise wanted to answer. To me, it’s a more modern take on voicemail, the difference being that Google will send the transcript to you as a text message as well. But once again, how often do people do that? For me, it’s become increasingly rare, but your mileage may vary.
That said, I do like the new Daily Hub as a way to make the far left panel on the Pixel 10 Pro’s homescreen more useful. It puts upcoming events, the forecast and interesting videos and articles (tailored to me, of course) all in one place, but I wish the box for it was a bit larger. On the flipside, I’m still kind of out on the Pixel Journal app. I’ve never been a big Dear Diary person and I’m not sure a digital version will get me to pick up the habit. But I do appreciate that it tries to surface things like the coolest photos you took on a certain day while encouraging you to be more introspective, or prompting you to keep track of things like fitness goals. Plus, you can lock it behind a PIN or biometrics to keep prying eyes away from your inner thoughts.
Cameras: Enhance mode activated
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While the physical hardware behind the Pixel 10 Pro’s 50MP main, 48MP ultrawide and 48MP telephoto cameras hasn’t changed much, its photo skills got a bump thanks to improved software. Now with support for full resolution portrait shots, the Pixel 10 Pros can capture a new level of detail which is generally great, unless you’re like me and you instantly cringe when you can see every single pore on your face. That said, all those pixels put more strain on processing power. I noticed that anytime I shot more than three max-res pics in a row, the phone has to pause while it cleared out its buffer before letting me snap any more. That isn’t great if you’re trying to capture candid reactions.
If you’re looking for guidance, Camera Coach does a surprisingly good job providing step-by-step instructions on how to improve your pics. Or, if you need inspiration, it can also suggest some more outside-the-box compositions. The downside to all this is that it does ask more of the user. Instead of just opening the camera app when you want to snap a quick pic, you need to carve out time to see how far Camera Coach’s AI-powered advice can really take you. This may result in more trial and error than some folks will really want to deal with. But considering this is a very optional learning tool, that last part isn’t a big deal.
This brings us to the new natural language editing powers in Google Photos. Instead of needing to fool around with sliders or figure out how to use an app like Lightroom or Photoshop, you can simply tell the Pixel 10 what changes to make and it will do it. This might be the most powerful new tool on the entire phone, because instead of needing to know about things like levels, curves or exposure, I was able to simply ask the Pixel 10 Pro to brighten my photo and voila, suddenly (well, after a few seconds of waiting) I had a low-light picture that was easier to see.
As a fan of telephoto photography, my favorite new camera feature is easily Pro Res Zoom. By taking the 5x optical lens and combining it with the power of on-device generative AI, the Pixel 10 Pro line can shoot at up to 100x. Sure, it’s not perfect and the results aren’t as good as real glass, but that’s not really an option for phones. And when I compared what Pro Res Zoom captured at 100x compared to what a Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra produced at the same magnification, the Pixel 10 Pro XL’s shot was sharper, more detailed and just better looking in almost every way. However, there are some limitations on Pro Res Zoom when taking long range shots of people that may cause you to fall back on 20x Super Res Zoom in certain situations.
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Still, all this feels weird because I remember a time when scenes from CSI where people yelling “Enhance” at a computer in order to create magically crystal clear zoom images from extreme digital crops felt like a meme. But now, that’s not very far off from what the latest round of Google’s AI-powered enhancements have given us.
When it comes to standard daytime and low-light shots, Google’s image processing remains unmatched. Nighttime pics are brighter and more accurate while the Pixel 10 Pro XL more capably preserved things like highlights in my photo of some garden-raised tomatoes.
Battery life and charging
The Pixel 10 Pro and Pro XL feature 4,870mAh and 5,200mAh batteries respectively, which are up from the 4,700mAh and 5,060mAh cells on last year’s phones. This translated into runtimes of 27 hours and 24 minutes for the 10 Pro and 28:01 for the 10 Pro XL — both healthy increases from the 25 hours of life we saw previously from the Pixel 9 Pro. And in the real world, Google’s latest handsets felt even more efficient than that, often ending the day with upwards of 35 percent juice left in the tank.
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As for charging, wired speeds for both phones have gotten a small boost with the 10 Pro now topping out at 30 watts (up from 27W) or 40 watts (up from 37W) for the 10 Pro XL. However, the biggest upgrade when it comes to charging convenience is the addition of official magnetic Qi2 wireless support, or what Google is calling Pixelsnap. This means the entire Pixel 10 line now works with a huge range of accessories (including most MagSafe peripherals for the iPhone) that makes it easy to slap a wireless puck on the back without having to worry about if it’s properly aligned or not.
Furthermore, while wireless charging speeds for the 10 Pro are staying the same at 15 watts, the 10 Pro XL can now go up to 25 watts. Unfortunately, there still aren’t that many compatible accessories that support charging at that speed. But between Google’s new family of Pixelsnap peripherals and increased adoption for Qi2 as a whole, that won’t be the case for long. So if you care about getting the Pixel with the fastest charging speeds, the 10 Pro XL is what you want.
Thanks to the addition of Pixelsnap magnetic charging, Pixel 10 Pro and Pixel 10 Pro XL are now compatible with the vast majority of Qi2 wireless charging accessories including this previously available battery pack from Anker.
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The one small downgrade for 2025 is that the Pixel 10 family no longer supports reverse wireless powersharing (aka Battery Share), which is a feature that has been available on several previous generations of Google phones. I will fully admit that this feature was never something I used everyday. But every now and then I would find myself with a gadget that needed some juice, and even if it was slow, it was really nice to be able to bestow some excess energy upon a device without a cable.
Wrap-up
Now that we can look back at 10 generations of devices, Google’s overarching strategy is more convincing than ever. For the Pixel 10 Pro and 10 Pro XL, the company has combined iterative hardware upgrades with a solid (and attractive) design while its software and AI continues to outpace its rivals. Even though Magic Cue doesn’t work for everything and is limited to a handful of first-party apps, it feels like the omniscient computers from sci-fi shows and movies have finally been beamed into a device to help us organize our lives. Then you tack on support for high-res portraits and an AI-powered zoom that produces results better than the base optics ever could on their own and you get what might be the most versatile mobile cameras around. And let’s not forget all the great existing Google tools and features like the Pixel Recorder, Call Screener and more.
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For the past couple years, my wife has been asking me if this is the year to upgrade. And up until now, I’ve said she’s better off waiting. But with the Pixel 10 Pro and Pro XL, unless you’re a hardcore gamer or high-level mobile creator who might actually notice a difference in performance, or have need for a stylus, Google’s latest handsets are the smartest picks.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/mobile/smartphones/google-pixel-10-pro-and-pro-xl-review-redefining-the-smart-in-smartphone-170031073.html?src=rss
