The perfect Android smartphone you should purchase

Google’s Pixel collection is again with the Pixel 10 Pro and Pixel 10 Pro XL. After spending a number of days utilizing the Pixel 10 Professional as my most important smartphone, it is clearly a really iterative, however stable step ahead for the Pixel line, particularly in comparison with final 12 months’s glorious Pixel 9 Pro.

On the {hardware} facet, there’s little or no distinction between the Pixel 10 Professional and its predecessor. The Pixel 10 Professional appears similar, full with the identical squared-off sides and substantial digital camera bump Google launched with the Pixel 9 collection. I favored this look final 12 months, so I am completely positive with it making a return. This time round, the important thing {hardware} upgrades embody the transition to Google’s TSMC-made Tensor G5 chip and the introduction of PixelSnap instances and equipment, which lastly brings magnetic iPhone-like MagSafe charging and equipment to Android. I am a giant fan of MagSafe and have discovered PixelSnap to be simply pretty much as good, if not higher.

In fact, there’s additionally a slew of latest AI options, together with Magic Cue, AI Digital camera Coach, Digital camera Coach, and extra. As is the case with most AI performance, not all of the Pixel 10 collection’ additions are as helpful as Google goals for them to be, and in some instances, they do not even work — no less than not but.

Worth, availability, and specs

The Pixel 10 Professional and Pixel 10 Professional XL begin at $1,000 and $1,200, respectively, and launch on August twenty eighth. This 12 months, there is no $1,099 128GB model of the Professional XL, with storage beginning at 256GB for the Pixel 10 Professional XL.

The Pixel 10 Professional incorporates a 6.3-inch 1,280 x 2,856 pixel decision (495ppi) OLED 1-120Hz Tremendous Actua display, and the Pixel 10 Professional XL features a 6.8-inch 1,344 x 2,992 pixel decision (486ppi) OLED 1-120Hz Tremendous Precise show (these are the very same screens as final 12 months). Nonetheless, peak brightness has been elevated to three,300 nits from 3,000 nits.

RAM is available in at 16GB throughout each smartphones, with storage for the Pixel 10 Professional measuring at 128GB, 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB. However, the Pixel 10 Professional XL presents 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB storage variants. On the digital camera entrance, the shooters are similar to final 12 months’s, together with a f/1.6 50-megapixel most important, a f/1.7 48-megapixel ultrawide, and a f/2.8 48-megapixel telephoto with 5x optical zoom. The selfie shooter can also be nonetheless f/2.2 42-megapixels.

Battery capability is available in at 4,700mAh (the identical because the Pixel 9 Professional) and 5,200mAh (up from 5,060mAh final 12 months), respectively. Lastly, the Pixel 10 Professional is able to 30W wi-fi charging, whereas the Pixel 10 Professional XL can deal with 45W. Each telephones can be found in obsidian, moonstone, porcelain, and jade.

• 	Google Pixel 10 Professional	Google Pixel 10 Professional XL
  Model	Google	Google
  SoC	Tensor G5	Tensor G5
  Show	6.3-inch Tremendous Actua show 1280 x 2856 pixel decision OLED (1-120Hz)	6.8-inch Tremendous Actua show 1344 x 2992 pixel decision OLED (1-120Hz)
  RAM	16GB	16GB
  Storage	128GB, 256GB, 512GB, 1TB	256GB, 512GB, 1TB
  Battery	4,870mAh, 30+ hours of battery life	5,200mAh, 30+ hours of battery life
  Ports	USB-C	USB-C
  Working System	Android 16	Android 16
  Entrance digital camera	42-megapixel f/2.2 selfie digital camera	f/2.2 42-megapixel
  Rear digital camera	50-megapixel f/1.68 broad digital camera, 48-megapixel f/1.7 ultrawide digital camera, 48-megapixel f/2.8, telephoto digital camera with 5x optical zoom	Large f/1.68 50-megapixel, ultrawide f/1.7 48-megapixel, telephoto f/2.8 48-megapixel
  Dimensions	6 x 2.8 x 0.3-inches (152.8 x 72 x 8.6mm)	6.4 x 3.0 x 0.3-inches (162.8 x 76.6 x 8.5mm)
  Weight	7.3oz (207g)	8.2oz (232g)
  Cost velocity	30+ hour battery life As much as 100-hour battery life with Excessive Battery Saver	Quick charging – as much as 70% in about 30 minutes7 – utilizing 45W USB-C, Pixelsnap wi-fi charging (Qi2.2-certified) as much as 25W

Pixel 10 Professional construct and design

When you’ve used the Pixel 9 Professional, you will know what to anticipate

When capturing photos of the Pixel 10 Professional and Pixel 9 Professional for this overview, I briefly acquired the telephones confused — they appear actually related. This is not essentially a foul factor because the Pixel 9 Professional is a great-looking smartphone. I like its squared off-sides and sizable digital camera bump. In an trade stuffed with slab-shaped smartphones, the Pixel 10 Professional’s rear digital camera island offers the cellphone a much-needed dose of individuality that stands out. Initially, I did not just like the digital camera bump final 12 months, however over the previous few months, it is grown on me significantly.

Final 12 months, I mentioned the Pixel 9 Professional borrowed a couple of design cues from the iPhone 15 Professional after which put its personal spin on it. I’ve related emotions in regards to the Pixel 10 Professional, but when current rumors are correct, it appears like Apple is poised to borrow from Google with the iPhone 17 Pro’s look this coming September. It appears Google is onto one thing with its sizable horizontal-oriented digital camera bump and has began a pattern.

Nonetheless, similar to final 12 months, I want the Pixel 10 Professional featured the identical coloured matte sides because the Pixel 10 as an alternative of the shiny, jewelry-like edges which might be mud and smudge magnets. They give the impression of being fairly garish, particularly in direct daylight, and are removed from my vibe. On the plus facet, the cellphone options the identical great-feeling matte Corning Gorilla Glass Victus 2 again as final 12 months, which repels smudges and mud extra successfully than the Pixel 10’s shiny again. I all the time put my smartphones in instances, so this is not a giant deal to me, nevertheless it’s nonetheless one among my key gripes with the Pixel 10 Professional’s design. The colours are just a little low-key once more this 12 months, with jade (you may see the colour all through this overview) and moonstone being the standout choices.

It is value mentioning that within the US, the Pixel 10 Professional is eSIM solely, which might make switching to the smartphone simpler or harder, relying in your service. The Canadian model of the smartphone nonetheless has a bodily SIM card slot.

Lastly, there’s PixelSnap, Google’s magnetic Qi2-powered line of instances and chargers. I have been ready for Qi2’s MagSafe-like tech to come back to Android for years, so it is nice to see Google lastly make it occur. The PixelSnap Charger ($40) sits firmly on the again of the Pixel 10 Professional, whether or not you will have a case on it or not, and the PixelSnap Charger with Stand ($69) seems like a high-quality dock to your smartphone.

Fortunately, all iPhone MagSafe equipment appear to work with the Pixel 10 Professional, together with my beloved MagSafe PopSocket and varied MagSafe chargers. Because of this regardless of there solely being a couple of official PixelSnap equipment obtainable proper now, the Pixel 10 Professional will work with each MagSafe accent already on the market. PixelSnap is a long-overdue step in the fitting course for the Pixel line and one among Google’s newest flagship’s key promoting options.

Pixel 10 Professional show

Final 12 months’s spectacular display is again and brighter

The Pixel 10 Professional’s show appears nice and is just rivaled by Samsung’s Galaxy S25 Ultra and Apple’s iPhone 16 Pro. Colours are vibrant and movement is {smooth}, due to its variable 1-120Hz refresh charge. Actually, I am unable to ask way more from a smartphone display — every thing appears nice on it, whether or not I am watching the most recent season of King of the Hill on Disney+ or researching retro handhelds I need to stop buying on Reddit.

New this 12 months is the leap to three,300 nits of peak brightness, up from the Pixel 9 Professional’s 3,000 nits. This won’t look like a leap on paper, however if you’re wanting on the Pixel 10 Professional’s show in direct daylight, you may undoubtedly see the distinction. I’ve additionally discovered that I have to decrease the show brightness at evening, as it may be blinding.

It will have been good to see Google cut back the Pixel 9 Professional’s show bezels a bit, as they seem considerably substantial in comparison with the Galaxy S25 Extremely, however this can be a minor subject. Plus, the bezels form of disappear if you put the smartphone in a PixelSnap case, anyway.

Pixel 10 Professional digital camera

Final 12 months’s cameras are again with an AI twist

On paper, the Pixel 10 Professional’s cameras are similar to final 12 months, together with a f/1.6 50-megapixel most important, f/1.7 48-megapixel ultrawide, and f/2.8 48-megapixel telephoto with 5x optical zoom. The selfie shooter can also be nonetheless f/2.2 42-megapixels. As anticipated, I’ve discovered the pictures efficiency to be glorious, providing true-to-life images that rival the very best smartphone cameras obtainable.

The Pixel has all the time provided a mixture between Galaxy machine’s extra ethereal type and the iPhone’s grounded method to pictures, and that is still true with the Pixel 10 Professional. Colours are brilliant, photos are clear, and the optical zoom is spectacular throughout the board.

This 12 months, the 50-megapixel most important digital camera options improved picture stabilization, however I did not discover a notable distinction throughout my time with the cellphone thus far. The important thing digital camera improve comes within the type of baked-in, AI-powered 100x Professional Res Zoom. This additionally brings up the query of what a photograph even is anymore if AI algorithms are altering images instantly in your digital camera position as you are taking them. Nonetheless, reasonably than dive into that ethical conundrum, I am specializing in the characteristic’s typically spectacular efficiency.

While you jack Professional Res Zoom as much as 50x-100x, images simply do not look good. Pictures are over-sharpened, textual content is unreadable, and customarily, these aren’t images I would wish to share on social media and even save in my Photographs app. However, Professional Res Zoom appears respectable from about 30x-40x, relying on what you are capturing.

Within the 30x Tremendous Res Zoom images above, each the sailboat and the geese are considerably sharper, but in addition noisier. I discover that at 30x, Tremendous Res Zoom images look fairly good and considerably resemble the magical characteristic Google is positioning it as.

While you flip Tremendous Res Zoom as much as 100x (or significantly much less most often), the artifacting is wild. The writing on the ship within the picture could be very odd, and so is the rear of the sailboat — it is virtually just like the water within the background melts into the boat. The identical may be mentioned in regards to the symbols on the life ring’s signal. What are they even alleged to be? They are not there in actual life.

General, Tremendous Res Zoom is spectacular, nevertheless it simply seems like a barely extra succesful model of Samsung’s 100x Area Zoom. It really works fairly properly at nearer focal lengths, however at 50-100x, images are too processed and odd-looking for my style.

It is value noting that Tremendous Res Zoom has a number of limitations, together with that it would not work on folks. I’ve additionally noticed that it could possibly’t deal with textual content or transferring objects very properly. In my expertise, it really works finest with stationary topics like a constructing or a panorama.

Pixel 10 Professional efficiency

Google’s Tensor G5 is not the quickest chip round, however that does not matter

There’s numerous chatter on the web in regards to the Tensor G5 chip’s lackluster benchmarks. Smartphone chips have been overkill for years, whether or not it is Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8s Gen 4, Apple’s A16 Bionic, or, on this case, Google’s Tensor G5 chip. In line with Google, the G5 presents roughly 34% sooner efficiency in comparison with the G4. I am unsure if that is correct, however in my expertise, the Pixel 10 Professional and the Tensor G5 provide greater than sufficient energy. All the pieces I threw on the smartphone, together with picture modifying with Lightroom Basic CC, listening to music on Spotify, doom-scrolling on TikTok, and enjoying a few video games all ran easily with no cases of lag.

By way of Geekbench 6 benchmarks, the Pixel 10 Professional achieves 2,294 for single-core and 6,163 for multi-core, inserting it above smartphones that characteristic the Snapdragon 8 Gen like final 12 months’s Galaxy S24 Extremely, in single-core efficiency, however considerably behind it in multi-core. When you’re a specs nerd, this decrease rating in all probability bothers you, however in on a regular basis use, the Pixel 10 Professional presents buttery-smooth efficiency, no matter what you are doing.

By way of battery life, I discovered I skilled outcomes much like final 12 months’s Pixel 10 Professional. The battery lasted properly into the night, so long as I saved my utilization average all through the day, together with a couple of hours of listening to music/podcasts, scrolling on social media, and enjoying the occasional recreation. If I did something extra intensive, like watching a few episodes of a TV present, the battery drained extra rapidly than I had anticipated.

Whereas not a significant subject, it is nonetheless value noting as a result of I did not encounter this downside with the Pixel 9 final 12 months. I am unsure if that is tied to the Tensor G5 drawing extra energy than the G4 with sure duties, however one thing like that appears to be occurring.

Pixel 10 Professional software program

Questionably helpful new AI options

Earlier than delving into the Pixel 10 Professional’s varied AI options, I wish to give Google credit score for attempting one thing totally different with Material 3 Expressive. It is brilliant, colourful, and most significantly playful, giving the Pixel 10 collection a singular identification so far as UI is worried. There are a number of refined animations I’ve grown to understand, and I am a giant fan of the brand new dynamic theming choices. I am wanting ahead to this total look coming to extra Google apps and third-party apps sooner or later, and I am hoping the ultimate model of Apple’s iOS 17 Liquid Glass evokes an analogous design.

On the AI facet, there’s quite a bit to unpack, together with Magic Cue, the largest disappointment on this 12 months’s Gemini-powered lineup. Throughout my 5 days with the smartphone thus far, its contextual strategies have solely proven up a few occasions, and even then, just one was helpful (it concerned robotically slicing a portion of Hold notice to Messages).

The frequency Magic Cue exhibits up might change over the following few weeks, however the truth that it solely makes use of knowledge from particular Google apps, together with Pixel Screenshots, Gmail, Messages, Hold, Contacts, and Calendar, severely limits its usefulness. You have to be firmly planted in Google’s app ecosystem for Magic Cue to make sense.

Google has additionally launched a brand new Day by day Hub recap of related data. It is supposed to take a seat simply above your Uncover feed, which is offered if you swipe proper on the house display. Sadly, I have never been in a position to get the Day by day Hub to point out up on my Pixel 10. I will proceed utilizing Magic Cue and Day by day Hub over the following few weeks and replace this overview because the expertise evolves. Each of those options might doubtlessly be helpful for many Pixel 10 customers, supplied you are snug sharing a major quantity of your knowledge with Google.

Digital camera Coach appears a bit foolish since I already perceive the fundamentals of pictures, however I can see it being genuinely helpful for individuals who aren’t conversant in the topic. It helps you to choose what you need within the picture after which presents strategies, corresponding to rotating your cellphone to portrait orientation or getting a bit nearer to what you are capturing — it is surprisingly cool and intuitive. Sticking with images, Ask Photographs, which lets you make picture edits via voice instructions, looks as if a very helpful strategy to make fast edits and, in a manner, the way forward for picture modifying. Sadly, Google confirmed to me it is not obtainable in Canada at launch, so I have never been in a position to try it out but.

Options that we first noticed final 12 months on the Pixel 9 Professional, like Pixel Screenshots, Pixel Studio, and the surprisingly nice Add Me (it makes use of AI so as to add topics to group images), are again once more. The important thing subject with all of the Pixel 10’s most fascinating and doubtlessly helpful Gemini options is that they both flat out do not work or require extra time to assemble my private knowledge for them to really be helpful.

Do you have to purchase the Pixel 10 Professional?

It depends upon what Pixel you are utilizing now

The Pixel 10 Professional is a formidable smartphone with stable video and pictures capabilities, nevertheless it’s not a major leap over the Pixel 9 Professional. That is in all probability essentially the most incremental smartphone replace Google has launched in its long-running Pixel line. With that in thoughts, should you’re a hardcore Pixel fan that already owns the Pixel 9 Professional, you may skip this 12 months with out worry of lacking something main.

Nonetheless, should you’re utilizing a Pixel 7, Pixel 8, or Pixel 9, now could be the time to improve. The one key draw back is that a lot of the Pixel 10 Professional’s new AI options, together with Magic Cue and Day by day Hub, aren’t very helpful but. Will they get higher in a couple of weeks as soon as Google pulls extra of my knowledge? Probably, however I do not know for positive. There’s additionally the query of why Ask Photographs is not obtainable in Canada but and when or if it would launch?

So far as Android units go, the Pixel 10 Professional is by far my favourite that I’ve used this 12 months, partly as a result of I actually like Materials 3 Expressive — it is simply a lot extra enjoyable than the Galaxy S25 Extremely’s usually complicated One UI 8. When you’re firmly planted on the planet of Android and on the lookout for a brand new smartphone, you will not be disillusioned within the Pixel 10 Professional.

The Pixel 10 Professional and Pixel 10 Professional XL begin at $1,100 USD ($1,349 CAD) and $1,200 USD ($1,629), respectively, and launch on August twenty eighth.

This machine was supplied to Pocket-lint by Google.

Model

Google

SoC

Tensor G5

Show

6.3-inch Tremendous Actua show 1280 x 2856 pixel decision OLED (1-120Hz)

RAM

16GB

The Pixel 10 Professional options Google’s new Tensor G5 chip, 16GB of RAM, and 128GB, 256GB, 512GB or 1TB of storage. The smartphone’s total design appears similar to its predecessor, together with its sprawling digital camera bump.