The Pixel 10, Pixel 10 Pro and Pixel 10 Pro XL all arrive with a souped-up Tensor G5 chip and Google's latest Gemini Nano brain, promising smarter features and more intrusive help than ever. There's a shiny new design, slightly beefier hardware, and what Google calls its most "personalised, proactive and helpful" Pixels yet.
Design-wise, they’ve tidied up the camera bar and slapped on something called Pixelsnap, a glorified Qi2 wireless charging setup complete with magnetic accessories. The phones are being sold as their most recyclable yet, which is supposed to make you feel better about replacing your still-working phone.
They're the first devices to run Google's new Material 3 Expressive UI, which includes bouncy animations and smoother interaction if that’s what you’ve been missing. Seven years of updates are promised too, so at least you’ll be stuck with the phone for a while.
The standard Pixel 10 has a 6.3-inch Actua screen that hits 3000 nits and comes in four colours: Obsidian, Frost, Indigo and Lemongrass. There’s improved sound too, including extra bass, which should make doomscrolling TikTok a bit punchier.
Camera-wise, it finally gets a 5x telephoto lens with 10x optical quality and 20x Super Res Zoom. It also claims faster autofocus, although we’ll believe that when we see it in dim lighting.
The Pixel 10 Pro and Pro XL ramp things up with 6.3-inch and 6.8-inch Super Actua displays, a triple camera array, and something called Pro Res Zoom that pushes up to 100x with the help of Google's generative imaging model. It isn’t just cropping and guessing either, according to Google, but the largest AI model ever crammed into a Pixel shooter.
They come in Obsidian and Porcelain, with Moonstone and Jade added for those tired of black slabs. Inside you’ll find the biggest batteries yet, more RAM at 16 GB, faster wired charging and, in the case of the XL, 25W wireless charging through the latest Qi2.2 spec.
The Tensor G5 is Google's fifth-gen custom silicon and finally looks like a proper upgrade. Co-developed with DeepMind, it makes the latest Gemini Nano model run locally, powering some shiny new features like Magic Cue. That one lives inside your messages and calls, digging through your stuff and serving up whatever info it thinks you need before you even ask.
If you ask cat photos and it’ll find them. Call an airline and it surfaces your flight details from Gmail mid-call. All this happens on-device, they claim, assuming you’ve ticked all the right permission boxes.
The camera app gets Gemini too. A new trick called Camera Coach uses AI to give feedback while you shoot, from framing to composition, and even claims to teach beginners the basics. Google reckons it’ll turn you into a photographer. We’ll see.
The Pro Res Zoom feature is exclusive to the Pro models and claims to deliver detail at 100x with help from the Tensor G5 and new imaging model. It’s not just puffery either, apparently, but something that uses generative AI to “recover and refine” pixels so your digital zoom doesn’t look like a blurry mess.
Preorders are open now at $799, $999 and $1199 for the Pixel 10, Pro and Pro XL respectively. Shipping starts 28 August through the Google Store and the usual retailers. If you go for one of the Pro models, you’ll also get a year of Google AI Pro, whatever that ends up meaning.
