I Got My Hands on the Pixel 10: The Impressive Triple-Camera Setup Isn’t Its Only Wow Factor

The Google Pixel 10 stole the highlight throughout my weekend journey to San Luis Obispo, California — and never simply due to its eye-catching yellow-green design. As my pals and I marveled on the beachside cliffs, swanky mansions and swaying palm timber, we additionally gawked on the footage I snapped at every zoom stage, together with 20x digital zoom — one thing I would sometimes by no means dare to do for concern of grainy pictures.

However removed from grainy, the pictures of Barbie pink mansions and secluded coves got here out a lot clearer and extra vivid than I would anticipated, because of Google’s Super Res Zoom characteristic, which makes use of AI to spruce up pictures. This, paired with a standout fundamental digital camera and a brand new 5x telephoto lens, makes the baseline Pixel a worthy alternative for anybody who’s probably to decide on a cellphone primarily based on digital camera capabilities, even when it is not as souped-up because the high-end Pixel 10 Pro and Pro XL.

It isn’t simply the digital camera that helps the Pixel 10 stand out, but additionally its long-lasting battery and built-in AI options that make every little thing from monitoring down your reservations to snapping an honest group picture a lot simpler. I spent every week with Google’s newest baseline cellphone and was happy with how effortlessly succesful and dependable it’s — which is strictly what a $799 gadget in the end must be. 

Pixel 10 look and sturdiness

The Pixel 10 feels sturdy in my hand, with an aluminum body and Corning’s Gorilla Glass Victus 2 on the back and front. The cellphone is available in a enjoyable vary of colours: indigo, obsidian (black), frost (a light-weight lavender-blue coloration) and lemongrass (a brilliant yellow-green). I acquired the lemongrass model, which seems to be daring with out being too overpowering; the glass backing additionally provides it a pleasingly polished feel and look. The edges of the cellphone carry over a extra subdued model of that green-ish tone for a extra cohesive look. 

The Pixel 10 has an IP68 rating for mud and water resistance, that means it may possibly survive being submerged beneath 1.5 meters of water for half-hour. I by chance carried out a drop take a look at on concrete, although I fortunately had an identical inexperienced Pixelsnap case (extra on that later), which protected the cellphone from scuffs and scratches, and I am joyful to report the display screen didn’t crack. 

The cellphone arrives with Android 16 and the brand new Material 3 Expressive design overhaul, which revamps the appear and feel of apps just like the clock, climate and cellphone. It provides a welcome playfulness and springiness throughout the cellphone’s features, and allows you to personalize every little thing out of your cellphone’s contacts to the lock display screen, making them much more enjoyable and versatile. There is a satisfying jiggle and haptic suggestions when doing even mundane features like swiping by way of open apps and adjusting the on-screen quantity slider. The Pixel 10 comes with seven years of software program and safety updates. 

Just like the Pixel 9, this 12 months’s mannequin has a 6.3-inch OLED show with a 60-120Hz variable refresh charge. The Pixel 10’s 3,000-nit peak brightness makes it simple to see what’s on the display screen even in direct daylight. With the ability to customise Fast Settings means I can immediately entry generally used features like my cellular hotspot and Focus mode.  

As for the digital camera bar, It is about as obtrusive as earlier Pixel telephones and undoubtedly instructions consideration, however that is grow to be the norm throughout many flagship units. Slapping on a case helps to reduce that bump, however the ungainly protrusion can also be the worth you pay for nice photographs. Which leads us to the digital camera. 

Pixel 10 cameras deliver a triple-wow issue

The Pixel 10 Professional has a 48-megapixel wide-angle, 13-megapixel ultrawide and 10.8-megapixel 5x telephoto digital camera — a brand new addition to the baseline model and one which locations the Pixel 10 on par with the equally priced Samsung Galaxy S25 with regards to digital camera {hardware}. There’s additionally a ten.5-megapixel front-facing digital camera.  

There was no higher place to check the telephoto lens for me than a backyard, and it undoubtedly delivered. The Pixel preserved particulars just like the ombre pink petals of roses and the ridges of hydrangea leaves. The main focus was good and sharp.

Tremendous Res Zoom turns out to be useful for punching in even nearer. It is definitely not corresponding to a picture taken on the lens’ native 5x optical zoom; wanting intently, you may see an general blurriness and lack of element within the picture. Punching in at 20x additionally pales compared to the 100x Professional Res Zoom characteristic on the Pixel 10 and 10 Professional XL. However I am glad the baseline Pixel not less than has one thing to supply in that realm for if you’d like a better shot that does not look completely muddled.

Portrait photographs have lengthy been my favourite digital camera characteristic on the Pixel lineup, and the Pixel 10 is not any exception. This picture of my pal Raneem balances coloration, lighting and focus and has a pleasant easy overtone.

Maybe my favourite picture I took on the Pixel 10 is that this one in every of a golden sundown, which balances highlights and shadows for a shocking end result.

Low-light photos are fairly strong, too. I snapped these pictures of my pal Dana quickly after the solar dipped past the horizon. The primary one triggered Evening Sight to brighten the general picture, which particularly helps to showcase the pink skies and waves within the background. The second picture was taken with Portrait mode and helps to make her the main focus, even when the background will get darkened consequently. I admire what every setting has to supply.

I like to consider myself as a fairly respectable photographer, however I swallowed my pleasure and took the brand new Digicam Coach characteristic for a spin. This makes use of Gemini fashions to present you a step-by-step walkthrough of the best way to take a extra spectacular shot. 

I needed to stick with it the Abrar custom of photographing a teacup for this assessment, and Digicam Coach walked me by way of the best way to take a extra commanding picture, prompting me to zoom in, place the cup barely off-center and angle the digital camera to incorporate much less of the inexperienced sofa within the background. Then I snapped the picture, and was happy with the end result. I believe this can be a nice characteristic for anybody, however particularly anybody who believes they don’t seem to be suited to take good pictures — no extra excuses for taking subpar footage of somebody! There are often about 4 to 5 steps that take lower than a minute to finish.

With the Pixel 10 sequence, Best Take turns into Auto Finest Take. Snap a bunch picture and let AI create a merged picture the place everybody is definitely wanting on the digital camera and smiling (earlier than, you needed to manually select faces to mix throughout completely different photographs). And also you solely should faucet the shutter button as soon as, quite than ensuring you are taking a number of pictures. 

Add Me makes use of augmented actuality and AI to layer two separate photographs so everybody can seemingly be in a single picture. The photographer can snap a picture, then soar in body and have another person take a second image that merges the 2, so it seems to be like everybody was standing collectively. (Consider it as a real-time “Photoshop me in.”) 

The characteristic now works on greater group pictures and likewise will get higher at recognizing gestures for a extra natural-looking picture. For instance, if Individual A holds their arm out and Individual B stands in entrance for the second shot, Add Me will now perceive that arm must be moved to the again, quite than awkwardly splayed across someone’s torso. It is nonetheless not excellent, although. This shot of me and CNET’s Patrick Holland has a cardboard-cutout high quality to it that does not make it fairly as convincing as simply taking a traditional picture, however it’s nonetheless a neat characteristic for when nobody’s round to take your group image.

And if you would like an excellent chortle, Add Me is an effective way to clone somebody, as we did right here with Patrick, who’s clearly having a really deep dialog with himself.

AI galore, with a lens for practicality

AI options are baked into nearly every little thing on the Pixel 10. The cellphone is powered by a Tensor G5 chip, which runs the latest Gemini Nano mannequin for on-device generative AI capabilities. 

Voice Translate is definitely one of the vital spectacular generative AI options I’ve seen on a cellphone. In the event you’re on a name and the particular person on the opposite line is talking in a unique language, it’s going to translate what that particular person is saying whereas mimicking the sound of their voice, quite than superimposing a robotic one. 

I attempted it out with CNET’s Vanessa Hand Orellana, and he or she agreed it did an honest job appropriately translating the overwhelming majority of what she was saying in Spanish into English — though it sometimes gave her an accent, regardless of her not having one when talking English in actual life. Voice Translate at the moment helps translations from English to Spanish, German, Japanese, Italian, French, Portuguese, Swedish, Russian, Indonesian and Hindi.

Magic Cue is one in every of Google’s newest AI methods. It is designed to routinely counsel info and actions associated to what you are doing or saying. For example, if somebody texts you asking for the dinner reservation info for tonight, it’s going to routinely floor these particulars so that you can ship, pulling from sources like your Calendar or Gmail. In the event you name your airline and have an upcoming flight, that reserving info also needs to pop up. 

It takes a while for Magic Cue to course of all the knowledge throughout your Google apps, so in my restricted assessment window, I had a mixture of successes and failures. It pulled up my flight info when a pal texted to ask for it and my Monday night time dinner reservation when prompted, “The place was the dinner yesterday?”, however it wasn’t in a position to floor my United reserving when calling the airline, since I would booked it some time again. It additionally struggled with some textual content message prompts like “What time is the assembly at the moment,” typically merely displaying a “View Calendar” popup and different occasions nothing in any respect. This could enhance with time, and I will share extra as soon as it is actually up and working, however it’s one of many options I believe might be most useful ought to it stay as much as Google’s guarantees.

Every day Hub provides an summary of upcoming occasions, a climate breakdown and really helpful movies. It succinctly summarized my Tuesday by noting, “You’ve a content material planning assembly and are watching Harry Potter later at the moment.” I discovered the customized suggestions to be far more helpful than Samsung’s model of this, known as the Now Transient, which, in my expertise, persistently serves up articles that don’t have anything to do with my pursuits. Every day Hub, however, suggests Conan O’Brien YouTube movies and Taylor Swift playlists, providing a peek at simply how effectively Google can get to know you thru your use of its many companies and platforms. 

Pixel Studio is an instance of a neat characteristic I will most likely by no means use. You’ll be able to immediate AI to generate no matter you need in a picture; I swapped the view exterior my window to a seaside view that definitely would not exist. I am nonetheless unsure in regards to the objective of options like this, however it’s not less than enjoyable to play with and certain beats the billboard for cremation companies that is really exterior my condo. 

You may additionally discover options which have basically grow to be staples on Android telephones, like Gemini Live, which helps you to have a back-and-forth dialog with the AI mannequin, and Circle to Search, which may immediately pull up extra details about something in your display screen with a few faucets. I usually use Circle to Search to search out hyperlinks to merchandise I see and like on Instagram, as an illustration. 

General, the Pixel 10’s AI options really feel largely sensible and helpful, and flex the ability and comfort of Google’s ecosystem.

Battery life and storage

The Pixel 10 will get a battery enhance to 4,970mAh, up from 4,700mAh on the Pixel 9. It is a formidable capability for a standard-size cellphone. (As compared, the Galaxy S25 has a 4,000-mAh battery.) After a full day of texting, navigating, scrolling by way of TikTok, calling an Uber, sending emails and snapping footage, my Pixel 10 dropped from full cost at 10:36 a.m. to 49% precisely 12 hours later.

In CNET’s 45-minute endurance take a look at, which entails a mix of streaming, scrolling by way of social media, becoming a member of a video name and enjoying video games, the Pixel 10’s battery went from full to 96%. 

In an extended, 3-hour streaming take a look at over Wi-Fi, through which I watched a YouTube video in full-screen mode at full brightness, the Pixel dropped from 100% to 82%.

The Pixel 10 helps 30-watt quick charging. In a 30-minute charging take a look at, the cellphone went from 0% to 54%, and reached a full cost in 85 minutes.

The cellphone additionally helps Qi2 wi-fi charging. Magnets embedded within the Pixel make it simpler to snap on wi-fi chargers, stands and different equipment as a part of a system Google calls Pixelsnap — basically its personal tackle the iPhone’s MagSafe connector. (And sure, MagSafe equipment are appropriate with Pixelsnap.)

The Pixel 10 comes with 12GB of RAM and both 128GB ($799) or 256GB ($899) of storage. 

Last ideas: Must you purchase the Pixel 10?

The Pixel 10 is a baseline cellphone that borrows from its pricier Professional counterparts by packing a formidable triple digital camera system, long-lasting battery and loads of AI capabilities. I am thrilled the worth did not go up in comparison with final 12 months’s mannequin, however $799 remains to be an honest chunk of change. Fortunately, the Pixel 10 proves its worth from a {hardware} and software program standpoint, notably by baking in AI in a manner that feels intuitive quite than overly flashy, even when there are nonetheless some hiccups.  

Does that imply it is best to improve? You probably have a Pixel 8 or 9, you are most likely fantastic holding onto your gadget for just a few extra years. However when you’ve got an older cellphone, the AI integrations and upgrades throughout the digital camera, battery and processor could make the swap worthwhile. 

The Pixel 10 Professional and 10 Professional XL are interesting choices for pictures fans and anybody on the lookout for a barely higher-end gadget. However for anybody wanting to save lots of a number of hundred {dollars}, the Pixel 10 makes for a convincing alternative with most of the identical options and minimal compromises. 

How we take a look at telephones

Every phone CNET’s reviews team tests is utilized in the actual world. We take a look at a cellphone’s options, play video games and take pictures. We study the show to see if it is brilliant, sharp and vibrant. We analyze the design and construct to see how it’s to carry and whether or not it has an IP score for water resistance. We push the processor’s efficiency to the extremes utilizing standardized benchmark instruments like GeekBench and 3DMark, together with our personal anecdotal observations navigating the interface, recording high-resolution movies and enjoying graphically intense video games at excessive refresh charges.

All of the cameras are examined in a wide range of circumstances, from brilliant daylight to darkish indoor scenes. We check out particular options like night time mode and portrait mode, and evaluate our findings in opposition to equally priced competing telephones. We additionally take a look at the battery life through the use of it every day, in addition to working a sequence of battery drain assessments.

We take into consideration extra options like assist for 5G, satellite tv for pc connectivity, fingerprint and face sensors, stylus assist, quick charging speeds and foldable shows, amongst others that may be helpful. We stability all of this in opposition to the worth to provide the verdict on whether or not that cellphone, no matter worth it’s, really represents good worth. Whereas these assessments could not at all times be mirrored in CNET’s preliminary assessment, we conduct follow-up and long-term testing in most circumstances.