The year 2025 is considered to be one of the most controversial yet in terms of Western smartphone releases. With Eastern smartphone manufacturers going all out with huge camera sensors, insane battery capacities thanks to silicon-carbide tech, and even pushing the limits of foldables, it seems that the likes of Apple, Google, and Samsung have been very conservative with their updates (save for Apple, in my opinion) with their flagships.
For a bit of background, Google’s approach to making smartphones since the first Pixel was to prioritize a solid user experience, smooth software, and an outstanding camera experience over raw grunt and hardware specifications.
Then we get to Google Pixel 10, its mainline entry for 2025, which retails for USD 799 (around Php 47,000) for 128GB of storage. This one is 256GB, going for an additional USD 100 (around Php 6,000).
A fairly steep asking price for something that doesn’t carry “Pro” in its name, but there’s a caveat that specifically applies to Pixels in general. Is it worth the asking price, and going out of your way to source one since this isn’t sold locally?
Design and build
If you’ve seen the Pixel 9, then you know that this is one of the most iterative updates done to the lineup.
It sports almost exactly the same “glass sandwich” design as before, measuring 8.6mm with Corning Gorilla Glass Victus 2 covering both the front and back, with a boxy matte aluminum midframe in the middle. It rocks the distinctive Pixel “camera visor”, only this time, the glass element stretched almost to the very edge, and to accommodate a third camera sensor.
The top of the frame holds a nanoSIM slot and a microphone hole, and the right side has the inverted power and volume keys. Finally, the bottom has two symmetrical cut-outs for the microphone (left) and the bottom speaker (right), flanking the USB-C 3.2 port.
Available in four different colors (Indigo, Frost, Lemongrass, and Obsidian), it’s a fairly hefty device at 204g, but it screams quality when you hold it, and its small size compared to the massive flagships makes it comfortable to use one-handed for extended periods of time. In fact, this Indigo is a throwback to the first Pixel’s color as well.
Other bonus features include IP68 dust and water resistance, and the honor of being one of the very few Android phones to have built-in magnets to be able to use magnetic accessories without the need for a case.
Display
The Pixel features a 6.3-inch OLED display with a resolution of 1080×2424. Google calls this the Actua Display, touts up to 2,000 nits of brightness for HDR content, and up to 3,000 nits of peak brightness.
In practice, the display gets plenty bright, even brighter than the iPhone 17 Pro Max in some cases. Google allows you to pick the color space (Natural and Adaptive), depending on how saturated you want your content.
This is also not an LTPO panel, meaning that your refresh rate is only either 60Hz or 120Hz, so it isn’t as efficient in terms of battery consumption as other screens that dial down to 1Hz when not in use. Finally, it houses an ultrasonic fingerprint scanner near the bottom, which has proven to be very quick and accurate even with a tempered glass screen protector.
Camera
Compared to last year’s Pixel 9, which featured a single wide-angle lens with the large sensor from the Pro and an ultrawide, Google has decided that for the Pixel 10, it will be reallocating a few skill points into having a well-rounded setup.
This means that you now have a triple camera layout like every other premium phone out there, with a 48MP f/1.7 wide lens (25mm equivalent), a 13MP f/2.2 ultrawide lens, and a 10.8MP f/3.1 5x telephoto lens (112mm equivalent). Both the wide and telephoto have autofocus and OIS, something the ultrawide curiously lacks.
It also has a 10.5MP f/2.2 selfie shooter up front, complete with autofocus.
Google Pixels are held in high regard for the way their photos turn out, with a distinctive cool cast, a good amount of detail, and a saturated, contrasty look, and this is exactly what the Pixel 10 delivers. Combine that with Google’s software wizardry in the camera, and it also proves itself a formidable phone to use in low light.
Just don’t compare it to the more expensive phones, as the smaller sensors used across the board affect low light performance, and the camera has to compensate by increasing the ISO, and noise reduction algorithms destroy detail.
But when in broad daylight, this is one of the easiest phones to use with a “point-and-shoot” mindset, regardless of the camera lens that you’ll use. Take note that since this is a non-Pro device, it has no manual controls, but not without third-party apps, at least.
It has quick laser-assisted autofocus that is great at tracking moving objects, and it has no shutter delay issues, meaning you can catch fast-moving objects with ease. However, the ultrawide lacks any form of autofocus, but this is compensated for by how close the main sensor can focus.
As for Google’s AI magic on the Pixel 10, this has features such as Camera Coach, which gives pointers for composition by hand-holding you with what to do (zoom into this lens, move it this way, etc.). It’s great for beginners who want to improve their photography on the go.
This also has Add Me, a way for the photographer to insert themselves in a group shot after they take the first photo, and trademark features such as Night Sight, Astrophotography, Auto Best Take, Long Exposure, and my personal favorite, Action Pan, which takes out all the difficulty and guesswork in tracking shots.
As for video performance, it’s on par with most premium Android devices. It can do 4K at either 24, 30, or 60fps, and 1080p at 24, 30, 60fps, with 120 and 240fps reserved for slow motion.
It mostly has the same processing qualities as its photos, with good audio quality from the microphones, but its aggressive stabilization can tend to get floaty, and the transition between different lenses is still quite jarring. This is one of the phones that also supports the AV1 codec for videos, allowing for higher quality and smaller file sizes, but not many sites and video editors support it.
Performance
The most controversial part of the Pixel 10 series in general is its new octa-core Tensor G5 processor. For some housekeeping, it’s mated to 12GB of RAM, and either 128 or 256GB of storage. You’ll want to go for the 256GB variant, as it is also using the much faster UFS 4.0 standard.
In the past, Tensor chips weren’t exactly renowned for their performance, often being two generations behind whatever is currently being offered in from Qualcomm or Apple. In fact, most of these ran hot and were inefficient (since they were fabricated by Samsung, who had a history of similarly performing Exynos chips), leading people to question whether these were worth their asking prices.
The whole internet was abuzz with how Google was going to switch over to having TSMC fabricate the new generation of chips, with people expecting a huge jump to Snapdragon-like power and efficiency, especially thanks to being on a 3nm node just like the Snapdragon 8 Elite.
That wasn’t exactly the case, as early tests and benchmarks showed the Tensor G5 to perform… almost exactly the same as the Tensor G4, and sometimes, even slower than it, especially in gaming, since the switch to a new GPU architecture (PowerVR vs Mali) meant that optimizations had to be made.
A few months and updates later, Google has rectified most, if not all, of these issues, but that isn’t the point of a Pixel.
The whole reason people prefer these phones is because of the clean, optimized software experience that is straight from Google itself. In day-to-day usage, the Pixel 10 flies through tasks with ease, be it doomscrolling through various apps, light photo and video editing tasks, and even some office work.
For gaming, it’s a bit of a mixed bag. With light games and retro console emulation, it breezes through it with no sweat. However, I play titles like Honkai: Star Rail and Zenless Zone Zero, two games notorious for being taxing on phone hardware.
Upon initial launch, these games exhibit unusual amounts of stuttering, but after the phone has processed all these shaders, it can play them comfortably at 60fps, just with a lot of reduced graphics settings. The screens have good touch response; however, this will cause the phone to get warm to the touch.
Just remember, most buyers of this won’t be pushing it with heavy video processing or editing multiple RAW photos in the first place, so the generous amount of RAM and Google’s optimizations will ensure a very smooth experience.
Software experience (OS and Apps)
Just as I’ve mentioned before, this is the cleanest build of Android you can get on a modern phone outside of custom ROMs. This means that you get zero bloatware on the phone and no redundant applications like in other Android devices.
However, the amount of AI features (the phone’s key selling point, ironically) depends on where you live. If you use it in an unsupported country like the Philippines, most features like Call Screening, Live Translate, and Magic Cue, too name a few, won’t work at all, or I haven’t gotten them to kick in as expected.
Those that do end up working function very well, such as notification summaries, Now Playing (a function that uses on-device libraries to recognize a song playing in the background), the Pixel Screenshots app, the amazing transcription accuracy in the Pixel Recorder app, and all the camera features I’ve mentioned above.
Gemini is supposed to work better on the Pixel 10 compared to other phones, but in my experience, it has been mostly the same.
This phone also comes with one magic trick not seen in other phones (yet, as of this writing), and that’s native AirDrop support via Quick Share. You have to do a few things, such as setting the visibility on the Apple device to “Everyone for 10 minutes”, but other than that, it just works.
The Pixel Experience features an amazing attention to detail across the OS, like smooth, bouncy animations with some of the best haptic feedback from any phone on the market, a surprising amount of customization thanks to Android 16’s Material 3 Expressive, and you’re first in line to get the latest OS updates and features, and Google will support the phone (feature and security updates) for seven years.
Of course, being a phone that isn’t sold locally, cellular signal strength is a concern, and at least from my experience, the phone latches onto 5G and 4G signals from Smart with ease, but just not as strongly as something sold with NTC approval for the Philippines. It’s definitely a big improvement compared to previous Pixels, too, with WiFi 7 and Bluetooth 6.0 support, and both have strong connections without any issues.
Calls are clear enough without sounding robotic or distorted. The stereo speaker setup can get plenty loud with good clarity, but it lacks the bass that larger phones have.
Battery
The Pixel 10 features a 4,970mAh battery with 30W fast wired charging and 15W Qi2 wireless charging. Compared to Chinese phones with massive batteries and ultra-fast charging, these specs are pedestrian.
But in practice, it’s a solid battery. I get about half a day’s worth of heavy usage (gaming, camera, streaming via cellular data), and lightening up my load would see me plugging the phone in by 7:00 to 8:00 pm after around a solid 12 to 13 hours of usage.
It’s not the fastest charging, but the sheer convenience of being able to plop the phone down on any of my existing wireless MagSafe chargers overrides most of the complaints I have about charging.
Verdict
Google has hit a point where the Pixel lineup has matured, and they are ready to expand to a bigger audience that’s more than just tech enthusiasts.
Most of the efficiency problems of Tensor have been resolved, and the software experience is something most users swear by. While the camera is a bit of a downgrade versus the Pixel 9, it’s still a very well-rounded system that can trade blows with flagships out there.
Remember what I mentioned about there being a caveat that applies to Pixel devices in general? The phone’s SRP (at least based on the US prices) is a bit of a tall ask, especially when compared to the likes of the iPhone 17.
However, if you love the Pixel brand and have the budget for one of these, it’s one of the best premium, non-flagship Android experiences out there. If you want to use this as your secondary device or are concerned about the lack of after-sales support, then wait for discounts, or consider lurking around Facebook Marketplace for a used example.
I’m just hoping that Google finally decides to sell their phones officially in the Philippines, as after-sales and repairs are nonexistent without you having to book a trip to the country where your Pixel is from, and there is a genuinely sizable amount of interest from the population for these devices.
Photos by the author
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