Google Pixel 10 Pro XL review: magnetic
The design stays the same, but this is the software to beat
Some things have always been great about Google’s Pixel phones. The clean software, the computational photography, the sense that Google is using them as a canvas for forward-looking Android features.
But it’s only in the last couple of years that Google has hit its stride with the hardware. Last year’s Pixel 9 Pro refined the design to the point where it was difficult to complain about, which explains a lot about the 10 Pro XL I’ve been using for the past week.
This year, the changes are largely on the inside. The Pixel 10 Pro looks almost identical to its predecessor, and it doesn’t have any new hardware additions that will leap at you off the spec sheet. But it continues to be uniquely enjoyable to use, bolstered by a long-overdue new feature — and the software story is better than ever.
You can tell the 10 Pro XL and 9 Pro XL apart, but only if you know what you’re looking for. Google notes the symmetrical speaker mesh openings on the bottom edge as an upgrade over the previous single slot, while the “diamond-cut camera bezel” means there’s an even finer edge around the black glass in the camera bump. The SIM card slot has also been relocated from the bottom edge to the top — or removed altogether on US models — replacing the mmWave antenna window and making way for the extra speaker mesh.
That’s it for the design changes, as far as I can tell. I guess the “G” logo on the back is a little bigger? There are also some interesting new colourways, including the blue-grey Moonstone and the green-and-gold Jade, but my Porcelain review unit feels similar to the white-and-slightly-warm-silver I saw on the 9 Pro Fold last year.
The Pixel 9 Pro had the best design of any Pixel yet, so by extension the 9 Pro does as well. It is starting to feel slightly dated, though, and Google might be preparing for something more dramatic next year.
From Bloomberg, last week:
Google’s design chief, Ivy Ross, says bigger visual changes will still come. “Every two to three years we look to try and do something with a new design language,” she said, noting that the company is already finalizing its 2026 phones and has begun work on its 2027 lineup.
I would roughly put the Pixel 1, 2 and 3 in one design language bucket, the 4 and 5 in another, the 6, 7 and 8 in one more and now the 9 and 10 in the latest. Maybe we’re coming to the end of a two-year cycle.
But the Pixel 10 series does have one big — albeit invisible — design change related to usability: Pixelsnap. After what has felt like an interminable wait, these are the first major Android phones with support for Qi2 magnetic wireless charging, which works exactly like MagSafe on the iPhone — right down to cross-compatibility with the chargers.
This is such a great addition to the Pixel. I haven’t had a chance to use any of Google’s own accessories, but I haven’t really needed to — I’m already all-in on MagSafe for the iPhone, and everything I’ve tested so far works seamlessly. I’ve been using the Pixel 10 with peripherals including a desk stand, various mobile batteries and even a leather case for the Plaud Note, a slimline AI voice recorder I’ve been testing lately.
Google has built new charging display modes into the Pixel 10 Pro so it can show photos, weather conditions or a clock while you’re juicing it up. This is similar to how Google’s own Pixel Stand worked before, but the new designs apply to any wired or wireless charger, including the Pixel Stand 2 that’s been on my desk for years.
The Pixel 10 Pro XL can charge at up to 45W with a cable and up to 25W wirelessly with a compatible Qi2.2 charger, though it’s worth noting that the smaller 10 Pro (as well as the non-Pro 10) can only reach 15W over Qi2 due to thermal constraints. The 10 Pro XL’s battery capacity has been increased slightly to 5,200mAh, which is about a 3% bump — Google isn’t yet pushing the boundaries with silicon-carbon technology, unlike most Chinese phone makers.
Still, I’ve had no complaints with battery life over a week of testing. In practice, Pixelsnap makes it much easier to keep the phone topped up anyway.
The display is the same size and resolution as the 9 Pro XL’s, at 6.8” and 1344 x 2922, but it’s received a 10% nits boost in both peak brightness and HDR modes. There’s very little to complain about with this screen, although I will note the continuing lack of Dolby Vision certification for any mobile HDR enthusiasts; you’ll have to make do with HDR10+ instead in apps like Netflix.
On the audio side, the redesigned speaker setup does seem to have made a difference, because the 10 Pro XL sounds vastly better than its predecessor. There’s a dramatic increase in bass that doesn’t compromise on clarity; it’s just much deeper and crisper all around, making for a significant upgrade if you like to watch YouTube on your phone.
The Pixel 10 phones all use Google’s new Tensor G5 system-on-chip. It’s the first Tensor Pixel chip to be built on TSMC’s 3nm process — all previous iterations were manufactured by Samsung — with Google very much putting the focus on efficiency and the improved ability to run on-device AI models.
It’s difficult to assess that within a week of testing time, and it’s also impossible to know how well — or whether — this phone could run the same software on a competing chip. But year by year, Google is evidently leaning in further to on-device AI, which feels like a sensible bet.
You’re unlikely to notice the difference in traditional performance between a Tensor G5 and other chips unless you’re used to running the same high-end games on various phones at once. My perennial go-to, Monster Hunter Now, runs fine on the Pixel 10 Pro XL for a while, but I do feel like the phone throttles performance quite quickly — it doesn’t get too hot, but the frame rate eventually drops.
Google’s focus on AI performance extends to the camera, where the hardware has remained identical year-on-year. The biggest new feature is the deployment of a one-billion-parameter on-device AI model — a roughly gigabyte download that you have to invoke yourself — which is devoted to improving camera zoom performance up to 100x. It activates at 30x and above and is applied automatically, unlike last year’s Zoom Enhance that was activated in the editing options and only worked up to 30x.
I would say the appeal of this feature, now known as Pro Res Zoom, is situational at best. Google itself mostly recommends it for landscapes and buildings, and won’t apply it to people in the frame. But even with buildings, it’s not always a straight improvement.
Take a look at these three shots, in order from the Pixel 9 Pro XL at 30x (its max), the Pixel 10 Pro XL at 30x (where AI processing kicks in) and the 10 Pro XL at 29x:
Japanese kanji characters may well be a stress test for this technology. The 野 in 住友中野坂 is totally garbled in the 10 Pro XL’s shot in telltale AI fashion; the 9 Pro XL is softer across the frame, but all of the characters are actually readable. Step back to 29x on the new phone and the quality is essentially a wash, cooler white balance aside.
But the AI enhancements do work pretty well outside of the characters. The details on top of the building don’t look too artificial unless you look closely.
You also generally get finer details the further you zoom in, demonstrating that a lot of real-time processing is happening around the moment you press the shutter button, rather than the results having much to do with the actual focal length of the lens. These photos were taken at 50x and 100x:
So, if you can’t read a billboard that’s a kilometre away, the problem might be that you’re not zooming in enough. Which I suppose makes sense on paper, but is still sort of counterintuitive for what you might still think of as “digital zoom”.
Google is by no means the first company to implement this sort of AI-powered zoom. Here’s (in order) the Pixel 10 Pro XL, the Xiaomi 15 Ultra and the Oppo Find X8 Ultra, all taken at 100x:
Colour science aside, Xiaomi’s image is the most visually garbled, Oppo’s looks the most artificially over-sharpened and Google’s is the cleanest, most coherent overall — though that might have been helped by punting on some visual information. It sure looks like something’s going on in those red rings based on the Oppo and Xiaomi photos, but who can say. This building was really far away.
It’s also worth noting that Google is doing this with comparatively modest hardware. The 1/2.55” telephoto sensor was competitive when it was introduced with the Pixel 7 Pro, but three years on it’s a lot less impressive. Xiaomi is working with a 200-megapixel 1/1.4” sensor, for example, so I can believe that Google’s AI prowess is putting in the work here; the 15 Ultra is certainly going to give you better results at conventional zoom range.
The default camera processing is also not personally to my taste, but you know what you’re getting out of a Pixel at this point. The 10 Pro XL delivers reliably punchy, social media-ready HDR photos that a whole lot of people swear by, and you may well be one of them.
One unequivocally great addition is that you can now use the 5x lens in the Pixel’s class-leading panorama mode, which is awesome for landscapes and skylines. Google’s interface is incredibly easy to use and it almost always stitches and straightens everything perfectly after the fact, far better than any other phone I’ve seen.
This is postcard-worthy stuff, and it took me about 20 seconds to take:
Another big new feature this year is Camera Coach, which is not something that I would personally want to use, but it does seem smart enough to be useful for people who are less particular or simply less experienced with their own photography. Tap the button in the top right of the camera app and it’ll analyse the frame and give you some suggestions on how best to compose your shots.
Even just pointing it at my desk as I type this, it offers up hyper-specific ideas like “Organised Chaos” and “Closeup of Can”; choose one, and Camera Coach then walks you through the process of capturing the photo in multiple steps by explaining why you should get closer to your subject or make sure something else is or isn’t in the frame.
Honestly, I thought it mostly provided sensible advice and backed it up well enough, so it’s probably worth a try for anyone who doesn’t ever want to read a photography textbook.
I’ve been using it in beta form for months, but I still can’t say enough good things about Material 3 Expressive, Google’s new take on Pixel software that’s shipping on every new phone this fall. The combination of animations, typography and haptic feedback is gorgeous and refreshing — the rare visual overhaul that I can’t imagine anyone complaining about. It’s immediately become my favourite phone software.
Google is also shipping some ambitious new AI-powered features, but it’s too soon to pass judgement on most of them. Magic Cue, for example, is perhaps the biggest new addition, but it’s all about surfacing context-relevant information by scanning your Google apps, and I simply haven’t been chatting enough about flights that might be in my Gmail. Some capabilities won’t be available until next month, so I’ll need to check back in on this.
Overall, though, the Pixel 10 Pro is genuinely a delight to use. I’ve always loved Google’s Pixel software for the clean take on Android and seamless features like real-time translation or automatic background song detection, but Material 3 Expressive is the first time where I’ve really been on board with it from a design direction. I think this is straight-up the most attractive and functional software on a phone you can buy today.
The Pixel 10 Pro XL has not blown my mind from any particular direction, but it is a very good phone that I’ve been more than happy to use as my main device and will more than likely continue to do so for the foreseeable future. (Admittedly, the Pixel 10 Pro Fold may change this.)
There’s something to be said for a new Pixel that’s a little boring in the best way. I’m ready to see what’s next design-wise, but between the mature hardware and fantastic software, Google has brought the Pixel to a really solid place.