Google Pixel 10 Pro review: Why all smartphones have to measure up to it

The Google Pixel 10 Pro has changed only minimally compared to the Pixel 9 Pro. On paper, it is better display brightness, a slightly bigger battery and more processor performance. The actual changes are in the fine print, and there they have quite an impact.

Hardware: heavier, but with Pixel Snap

There are minimal design tweaks to the camera bar. Nothing about slim, light, airy: since last year, the Pixel Pro has put on a whopping 8 g, going against the industry’s obsession with slimness. I find that likable.

One small hardware novelty has a massive impact, though: Pixel Snap. The Pixel 10 series brings, happily in all models, what we know as MagSafe and what Android users had to do without so far, unless they bought a third-party case with magnets. I totally celebrate this. Car mounts, wallets, stands, pop sockets, power banks: the range of compatible accessories is huge, and now it works without a case. I hope the other Android manufacturers finally follow suit.

New storage technology

With the Pixel 9 Pro, Google still relied on UFS 3.1 from 2020, which drew a lot of criticism because many new smartphones the year before already had UFS 4.0. The Pixel 10 Pro and 10 Pro XL use UFS 4.0 for the first time. It is not the newest version: the Galaxy S25 Ultra, for example, has UFS 4.1. And be careful: UFS 4.0 only comes from 512 GB. The regular Pixel 10 and the smaller variants of the Pixel 10 Pro still have UFS 3.1.

Unfortunately, I only got the small storage variant of the Pixel 10 Pro and the XL for testing. I would have liked to test the faster performance.

Why this matters: the new technology brings double the read speed, 50% higher write speed and up to 46% less battery drain, because the system finds data faster. It is also better optimized for growing AI features like Magic Editor or Live Translate. Still, my Pixel 10 Pro with UFS 3.1 runs super fast, and the AI applications run smoothly.

Tensor G5

All the new Pixels have the Tensor G5. The Snapdragon 8 Elite is not better across the board. It is ideal for gaming, multitasking and graphics-intensive applications. The Tensor G5 is better optimized for AI features and efficiency in the camera, Gemini and live translation. Compared to the Tensor G4 of the Pixel 9, it delivers 22 to 100% more performance in all areas, especially for AI and large language models.

AI in the camera and photo editing

Nothing has changed in the camera hardware compared to the Pixel 9 Pro, Google was not in a hardware mood this year. On the software side, though, quite a lot has happened. I took the Pixel 10 Pro with me on a short trip to London.

• 100x Pro Zoom: The AI edits the shot afterward so that, despite 100x zoom, the result looks as if it had been taken without zoom using the main camera. That is impressive. No telephoto lens, however good, comes close to this AI image quality. The shots look realistic, which AI often fails to achieve.
• Camera Coach: It guides you on what to adjust and how to position the camera. That happens at the moment you point the camera at a subject. The AI recognizes it and gives you the matching guidance within seconds.
• Magic Editor 2.0: You can remove distracting objects, change colors and move image content around. With the optimized generative AI, entire areas of an image can be redesigned, theoretically even by voice command. I did not find the feature on my Pixel 10 Pro. Maybe it is because of the missing UFS 4.0.

Call Translator

When translating, the call interpreter clones my voice instead of using a computer voice. For the person on the other end, it sounds as if I were really speaking that language. First, it is creepy that my voice can be cloned like this. Second, it happens within a fraction of a second on a smartphone, and the computing power behind it is wild.

Verdict

We are still at the beginning of AI development. I believe the topic of hardware is maxed out at the moment: smartphones are beautiful and high-quality. Now what matters is bringing AI into these small housings, with all the opportunities and risks. Google is the pioneer here, and it proved that with the Pixel 10 Pro. All other smartphones released now will have to be measured against the Pixel 10 Pro when it comes to AI. Maybe that does not play a big role in 2025 yet, but in a year or two it will show who took the first steps in the right direction.