Google Pixel 10 Review | Apple Beats It??

So, I've been using the Pixel 10 as my full-time smartphone for a wee while now, and I got to say, it's got me even more conflicted than that Shakira Gazelle thing in Zootopia. I guess I fancy fictional cartoon African antelopes now, and I'm also possibly falling out of love with Google's flagships. The Pixel 10 bastes my beef in many ways. From the compact design and clever-pants AI to the effortless camera experience, but it is tough to recommend for many other reasons. This is my full Pixel 10 review, and for more on the latest and greatest tech, please do poke subscribe, ding the old notification bell. Cheers.

Design and Build Quality

Now, at just 6.3 inches, the Pixel 10 is one of the most compact smartphones in 2025 along with the Samsung S25, the Xiaomi 15, the Vivo X200 FE, and the iPhone 16. Spit, spit, spit. It's not the skinniest bezels around, which does add a wee bit of extra bulk. And it is a shame that Google has phased out the curvy edges and gone with this blocky iPhone-style design in recent times because that really does knock off quite a few points for the general hand feel. But the fact that it is so miniature means that it's reasonably comfortable to clutch.

It weighs a wrist-pleasing 204 g. Not too hefty at all and one-handed operation is reasonably easy as long as you don't have to reach up to the very top of that screen, helped along by the rather useful finger shelf action around back. You've got a bit of Gorilla Glass Victus 2 slathered across that screen. And despite the lack of a screen protector, absolutely no damage so far. No nicks, scratches, or scuffs. Of course, it's only been a couple of weeks. And same goes for that rear end as well.

And Google has actually stuck with a shiny rear end for the Pixel 10 despite slapping a frosted finish on those Pro models. And you will know when it catches the light at just the right angle that it does get quite smudgy, of course. But thankfully, this frost-colored model does a pretty good job of hiding all that grime and muck. And you got a small selection of alternative hues if this one doesn't really oil your crankshaft, including Indigo, Lemongrass, and one other that I can't remember. Got to say, I rather like the subtle blue of the Frost model. Looks rather nice.

And of course, Google's design as always, pretty simple and straightforward, but rather smart. Good to see the old iconic camera bar still in place. And at least they actually went for a matte finish for that metal frame, so that doesn't get all mucky and nasty. And the Pixel 10, of course, as you would expect from a flagship, is IP68 rated, so water and dust resistant. Indigo, that's the other color, Indigo. Yes.

Biometrics

And I'm certainly a fan of the in-display ultrasonic fingerprint scanner as well. This has been reliable and fast-acting these past couple of weeks. Like all ultrasonic scanners really, because it takes a 3D print. So even if your hands are a bit grubby, bit moist, no worries. And if you happen to be wearing gloves or whatever, well, no worries. You do have a bit of face unlock action as backup, which also tends to be reliable unless you're rocking the old hat and shades.

Software Experience: Android 16

And once you're in there, you'll be greeted with a tasty bit of Android 16, complete with Google's usual 7 years of OS updates and patching shenanigans. Though, honestly, the way things are going, in 7 years' time, we'll probably be living in what remains of the London Underground eating mutant rats and having sex with mutant rats. And I, for one, can't bloody wait.

Bugs and Performance Issues

But unfortunately, while using the Pixel 10 as my full-time smartphone, I have noticed a fair bit of jank. Something you don't typically get with Pixel smartphones at launch. Issues like apps completely freezing on me just long enough for me to run up the stairs, grab my camera, get it all set up, pointed at the smartphone, and almost hit record. Or sometimes for instance the keyboard might not actually pop up on the screen when you tap on a text box and stuff that's not quite rage-inducing but it is bloody irritating like dropping warm latte on your crotch or moderate nipple chafing.

And you know as a reviewer you often see a lot of these issues when you're reviewing a phone ahead of the official launch; they then get sorted in an update before they're actually released to the public. Bit more forgivable then, but in this case, the Pixel 10 is on sale and I'm still seeing this stuff. So hopefully sorted in an update really soon.

AI Features and Gemini

And of course, as well as the 7 years of updates, Google is also offering with the Pixel 10 a free year of its AI Pro plan, which grants you full access to Gemini in the likes of Gmail. You can also create AI videos on whatever you fancy, as long as Google doesn't deem it too dodgy, which unfortunately was 95% of my suggestions. Like for instance, a man eating a bacon sandwich while riding a pig. Don't ask me how my brain works. I honestly couldn't tell you. And don't ask why the man actually turns out to be a ghost who dissolves into the ether at the end. That was all Gemini that bit. But cracking plot twist, that M. Night Shyamalan fella would have been well impressed.

But most people should be perfectly happy with the regular AI experience here on the Google Pixel 10. You got all of the usual bangers, including of course good old Gemini screenshots and Google's new stuff as well, including the Magic Cue. What I would say is they really need an AI section in the settings or something to gather all this stuff together because it's kind of all just spread around at the moment.

Magic Cue

And of course, the big new addition for the Pixel 10 series is Magic Cue, which is supposed to pop up handy relevant bits of information whenever somebody asks you a question about something. So, you don't actually have to bother thinking about it or going out and finding the information yourself. And this seems to work well when I test it out. The Pixel 10 can pluck information from my calendar for me or at the very least send me there so I can quickly check it.

But the problem is I've only seen it in action in specific tests that I've purposefully set up because a lot of the chatting I do happens in WhatsApp and it doesn't seem to do bugger all in there. It's only if you're using the messaging app or whatever. And even if it did work in WhatsApp, it's not very often I get asked what time are dinner reservations tonight or anything specific like that. So, as it is, I haven't organically used Magic Cue a single time on the Pixel 10, but I'm sure it will expand in usefulness and hopefully over the coming months or possibly years become an integral part of our everyday smartphone experience.

Gemini Utility

But thankfully, Google's regular AI shiz is still fantastic. Gemini is excellent for planning out a weekend or an evening or working out what that weird bit of mold in the corner of the room is or discovering if it's actually wise to consume that month-old scotch egg that you just found lurking behind the Babybels. I mean, honestly, Gemini is about 50 times smarter than bloody Siri. It's kind of like comparing Gary Kasparov to Gary Neville.

Pixel Exclusive Features

And of course, you got a whole bunch of fantastic Pixel exclusive features, including some banging safety shenanigans, the likes of car crash detection and Pixel satellite SOS. You got that VPN on the go as usual. And my own personal favorites, good old screenshots, which is fantastically helpful again, specifically if you're planning an event or a trip or something like that. You can capture lots of screenshots of important information. This will then be processed by screenshots and you can then search for that information later. You can drag information out of it, put it straight into your calendar, etc. So, while I'm not yet convinced by the new stuff, the Pixel 10 still absolutely packed to the nipples with fantastic features.

Connectivity and Storage

But got a few more grumbles before we move on. First of all, if you live in America, well, it's eSIM only. There's no physical SIM support on here. No love for Wi-Fi 7 either, which is quite surprising for a modern flagship. Though thankfully with the Wi-Fi 6E connectivity, I've had absolutely no issues whatsoever. It's been nice and nippy. Mobile connectivity fine as well. You do get millimeter wave 5G support if you happen to live in a region that supports it. But there is sod all ultra-wideband support on the regular Pixel 10 as well. You'll have to upgrade to the Pros for that. So you can't use this to unlock your shiny lovely Tesla. Boohoo. Maybe just use a key like regular folk.

And I, Google has once again taken the miserly route of chucking just 128 gigs of storage into its base model of its flagship, which come on guys, it's 2025 now. 256 gigs of UFS 4.0 storage should be standard right now. I mean, even Apple has chucked 256 gigs into its iPhone 17. That's bloody Apple, the stingiest around. So, yes, here on the Pixel 10, I have had to uninstall apps because I've run out of friggin' space. And that's using the thing for what, like a week and a half, two weeks. At least the storage that you do get is pretty nippy. Games tend to load up nice and quick. Although, yeah, more on the awesome gaming experience later.

Display Quality

Uh, not much of an upgrade when it comes to that 6.3 in actual display either. Practically the same panel as last year's effort. It's once again OLED tech with HDR10 plus streaming support. And at this sort of size, the full HD plus resolution is perfectly sharp for a bit of photo editing, watching movies, gaming, whatever you fancy. And Google has boosted the peak brightness ever so slightly to 3,000 nits, which isn't far off those Pro models. And yeah, absolutely no issues seeing what was going on outdoors, even when it was proper full-on sunshine.

Now, unfortunately, once again, some disappointments here. For one, it's not an LTPO display, so the refresh rate can scale all the way up to 120 Hz for a lovely silky smooth experience when you are zipping through the UI or using supported apps. But unfortunately, it won't drop as low as one hertz when you're just viewing a static image or whatever to preserve battery life. And for a flagship, that is rather regrettable, especially as again, Apple just announced that the iPhone 17 will use an LTPO display. Come on, Google. You can't let Apple overtake you like this. And also that PWM dimming can't be doubled to 480 Hz like it can on the Pro models. So it is stuck at just 240 Hz. So if you are sensitive to OLED flicker, well the Pixel 10 might literally do your head in.

Audio Performance

And Google has slightly upgraded its stereo speaker setup. That top speaker is a bit more beefy now. So that audio is quite balanced. It's a pretty good volume when you max it out, so you can clearly hear what's going on in your telly show or whatever, even if your family is screaming blue murder in the background. And no distortion. It doesn't get all crackly or anything when you do max out that volume.

Unfortunately, the Bluetooth streaming on the Pixel 10 has been rather cack. Whether I'm streaming to headphones when I'm out and about or using Android Auto in the car, I found that the connection can be rather juddery at times, especially if the Pixel 10 is in low power mode. Although it has happened outside of low power mode as well and sometimes you just get frequent little pauses which of course completely ruins the listening experience. So again hopefully that's just some weird little bug that'll get ironed out really soon.

Performance and Gaming

Now performance comes courtesy of Google's fresh Tensor G5 backed by a not considerably enormous amount of RAM, 12 gigs in total. We find that the everyday experience is absolutely fine, of course, but gamers will probably want to look elsewhere because playing the likes of Wuthering Waves on higher graphics settings is about as enjoyable as making love to a live plug socket. Literally, as soon as any kind of onscreen fisticuffs erupts, that frame rate will drop into single digits. If anything, the performance appears to be worse on the Pixel 10 than it was on the older Pixel 9. I'm just praying that this is because some tweaking and optimization is needed and the situation will improve pretty bloody soon. But for a flagship experience, this is rather dire.

Thankfully, Wuthering Waves isn't quite so bad on low to medium settings, although again still hardly flagship performance. The likes of Genshin Impact did fare slightly better than Wuthering Waves on the higher graphics settings, but the frame rate once again mostly hovered around the 20 to 30 FPS mark rather than 60 as expected. But mercifully, the Pixel 10 didn't heat up much at all while I was gaming or absolutely rinsing that camera. The screen has dimmed occasionally when I've been shooting a lot of 4K resolution video at 60 frames per second, especially outdoors. And on one occasion, the camera did just decide, "No, I'm not going to do this anymore." Stopped recording in the middle of a clip. But that was when I was literally using this thing for about half an hour non-stop to record some hands-on action at IFA. So, kind of understandable.

Battery Life and Charging

And Google has managed to stuff a 4,970 mAh capacity battery inside of the Pixel 10, which actually ain't far off the Pro XL model, despite the fact that obviously you've got a significantly reduced stature here. And at first when I was testing the Pixel 10, I did find that when I was out and about using cellular networks rather than Wi-Fi, that battery did seem to drain a lot quicker than expected. But thankfully, this seems to have calmed down in recent days. And so now I find that the Pixel 10's battery life is absolutely fine. If I am out for a good chunk of the day, using the camera quite a lot, streaming a lot of audio, plenty of screen on time and everything as well. It'll happily survive the day. Although quite often in the evenings, I am just about dipping into power saver mode before I'm all tucked up with Teddy.

And if you are gaming on more intensive stuff like Wuthering Waves or Genshin Impact, you can expect around three and a half hours of action from a single charge. That does wipe out the battery pretty quick. And then when you need to juice it back up again, well, the Pixel 10 supports 30 W charging support, which ain't horrifically slow, but it certainly can be described as fast. And then you've got a bit of Qi2 support for the wireless charging. So, that tops off at 15 W. Again, not particularly nippy, but it does support the Pixel Snap accessories, which sadly Google didn't send me, so I haven't actually tested those out.

Camera Review

All right, kitties. Well, your uncle Spurt needs to bugger off for a bowl of Weetabix and a tall glass of whiskey. So, let's round off this lovely Pixel 10 review. The squint of the old camera tech.

Main Camera

And what you've got slapped on the back end of the Pixel 10 is a 48-megapixel main shooter. It's a 1 over 2 in sensor, so much smaller than the 50-meg main shooter of the Pro Siblings. And it's actually the exact same sensor you'll find stuffed into the far cheaper Pixel 9a. And yet, despite this, the upgraded ISP of the Pixel 10 makes it superior to the Pixel 9a for low light and high contrast photography. You can see more on that in my Pixel 9 versus 10 comparison video, though, which is live right now, and an absolute banger, if I do say so myself.

Now, long story short, the Pixel 10 is a blinder for everyday shooting. You might not get a high-res capture mode here, but I was perfectly happy with the detail-dense photos that it sped out, even in softer light. As with the Pixel 10 Pro phones, you can expect those images to stick close to what you'll actually see with your eyeballs. Even in extreme low light, the Pixel 10 captured realistic tones while also cutting down all that nasty noise and grain to quite an impressive degree. Living subjects don't pose much of a problem as long as they're not bouncing around like their ass is on fire and as long as the lighting isn't cack. So in the evenings, expect plenty of blur, especially where booze is involved. So basically every evening for me at least.

Unlike the pro models, this main shooter is also used for macro shots rather than the ultra-wide snapper and it's merely fine. You can't get too close to your subject, otherwise you'll just get told off. And honestly, you're better off usually just swap into that telephoto shooter. But more on that in a wee bit.

Ultrawide and Telephoto

For the ultrawide camera, Google has once again recycled the Pixel 9 hardware for the flagship Pixel 10. But again, this does a decent enough job when needed with respectable low-light results once again. But I think the major change for this year's regular Pixel flagship smartphone is the addition of a 10.8 megapixel telephoto shooter using a compact 1 over 3.2 in sensor. This serves up a five times optical zoom and maxes out at a 20 times super res zoom so you don't get any ProRes 100 time zoomy shenanigans here. But it's certainly a big upgrade over the digital zoom action on the Pixel 9 and 9a capturing much sharper shots with a lot more finer detail over a long distance. Although swapping to the shooter does result in less accurate tones more often than not, and it is less than stellar in low light.

Camera Software and Video

One of the big new camera AI features for the Pixel 10 series is Camera Coach, which complete photography noobs might enjoy because it basically just offers up simple advice on how to get a better shot. Not talking anything particularly mind-blowing here. Just, you know, get it to fill the frame, rule of 2/3, all that shenanigans. And you've got the usual excellent photo editing smarts slapped on here as well. For instance, banishing other disgusting humans to some kind of limbo. You can sharpen and denoise photos. Not that I've really needed to do that on this bad boy. The unblur sadly doesn't really do much. Although perhaps I'm asking a bit too much with shots like this.

And for your video type shenanigans, you can shoot 4K resolution footage with HDR10 support as long as you limit that frame rate to 30 frames per second. Consider it at 60 fps with HDR, so it's not quite as capable as some flagship rivals from Huawei, Oppo, Xiaomi, etc. There's also no video boost support here, which mostly makes a difference when the lighting isn't brilliant or you're zooming a lot while recording. Got to say, the night results with the Pixel 10 are pretty balls in general. So, I would try and avoid shooting video at night. The stabilization could be better and the zoom in could be smoother, but as long as you're not moving too much and the lighting isn't bollocks, you can actually get some really nice footage at times.

And as I mentioned before, I have done a lot of video shooting with the Pixel 10. I used it to record pretty much all of my hands-on footage at IFA last week, and only the once did it overheat and actually stop recording, which uh is better than I expected.

Selfie Camera

And last up around the front of the Pixel 10, you have yourself a 10.5 megapixel selfie shooter with autofocus as well. And this can again record 4K resolution footage with HDR smarts as long as you limit it to 30 frames per second. Otherwise, you can bump it up to 60fps. And here's a couple of absolutely banging selfies that I took. Um, yeah.

Verdict

And there you have it, my lovelies. That in a delicious wee nutshell is my Google Pixel 10 review after using it as my full-time smartphone. And got to say, not a hugely convincing argument for upgrading to this bad boy if you're already rocking a Pixel 9 or perhaps even a Pixel 8. You know, having the zoom shooter on the camera now is a very welcome addition indeed. But unless you're absolutely dripping for a bit of Pixel Snap action, it's not a particularly inspiring package. Quite a few little issues still going on with this thing, including the Bluetooth shenanigans and occasional just app freezes and stuff like that.

So, I've got to say for the first time in a while, the Pixel 10 is a Google flagship that I'm rather ambivalent about. I don't know, maybe they should have got Shakira to do the voice and then I would have been rock hard for it. Anyway, that's what this sazz old reckons. As I say, I have compared the Pixel 10 side by side with the Pixel 9, which is half the price and still a bit of a banger, frankly, at that mid-range price point. So, go check that out if you are intrigued by that. In the meantime, please do poke subscribe, ding the notifications bell, and have yourselves a ruddy wonderful rest of the week. Cheers everybody. Love you.