Google Pixel 10 review

Pure Android 16 as Google intended

Maybe "pure" isn't the right word to describe Android OS running on Pixels, since it offers a handful of proprietary features, but it's quite close to stock in terms of looks. As usual, you can expect 7 major OS upgrades and 7 years of security patches, just like the older Pixel generations.

Design and usability-wise, there are no major changes on Android 16. If you've used Pixels in the past, your experience with the OS will feel familiar. Pretty much all novelties are AI-related for yet another year.

Still, the new OS comes with Material 3 Expressive UI that offers more dynamic and fluid animations.

Home screen • Recent apps • App drawer

The Notification shade now provides real-time updates on things like food delivery or ride status. The system also groups notifications more easily to de-clutter your notification shade.

Notification shade • Quick toggles • Settings menu

Pixels have been pioneering AI features for some years now, and the latest Magic Cue is one of the most useful ones so far. Google's AI tracks your information across apps and connects the dots. It will provide relevant information no matter which app you are using. It's something like Samsung's Now Brief, but instead of just providing contextual information, it offers you to take action.

For instance, Magic Cue will pull up flight data while you are on a call with the airline, or it will offer to send the photos your friend requested from last weekend over chat. It collects information from various apps like Calendar, Photos, chat apps, etc.

Gemini Live is not necessarily a new feature, but it does feel like one with the latest updates from Google. Gemini Live now gains the ability to understand what's on your camera feed and provide visual guidance. It can even highlight objects and provide contextual info. The speech model has been enhanced as well with more expressive audio.

Gemini Live

A new AI editing tool built into the Google Photos app allows you to "vibe edit", similar to "AI vibe coding". Simply describe what you want to edit or remove from the photo, and the AI will handle the rest. Unfortunately, this feature is currently limited to the US only.

As always, the software experience is impeccable. Even though the benchmarks may not indicate it, day-to-day performance is excellent.

Benchmark performance

As is usually the case, the Pixel 10 series comes with a brand new SoC, designed by Google. The new chip is the Tensor G5 based on the 3nm manufacturing process, but this time it comes from TSMC's fabs, not Samsung's.

Unfortunately, Google doesn't share the CPU and GPU specs officially, but independent sources claim that the Tensor G5 features an octa-core CPU with 1x3.78 GHz Cortex-X4 & 5x3.05 GHz Cortex-A725 & 2x2.25 GHz Cortex-A520 configuration, while the GPU is PowerVR DXT-48-1536.

Google doesn't usually brag about performance gains and focuses more on the "user experience". This is evident by the company's focus on improving the G5 in other areas like AI and camera performance. For instance, the Tensor G5 boasts 60% more powerful TPU, making it the first chip capable of running Gemini Nano fully on-device.

The Image Signal Processor unit (ISP) is also new and improved, supporting high-end features like motion deblur, 10-bit video recording at both 1080p and 4K by default, etc.

As far as memory is concerned, the Pixel 10 comes in just two flavors - 12GB/128GB and 12GB/256GB. Going for the larger storage will give you UFS 4.0, while the 128GB version settles for dated UFS 3.1 chips. Not to mention 128GB doesn't sit well with us as base storage for a flagship-level phone. Unfortunately, it's also the one we have for review in this case.

Now off to the benchmarks.

As evidenced by the benchmark results, the Tensor G5 underperforms in certain scenarios, such as AnTuTu 10. The Pixel 10 shows a lower result than its predecessor running on the Tensor G4 SoC. In the pure CPU and GPU workloads, however, the G5 outperforms the G4 by a significant margin.

The Tensor G4 aside, Google's latest chipset lags behind the competition from other brands when it comes to synthetic benchmark performance. It's slower by nearly 50% in some cases, compared to the popular flagship chip, the Snapdragon 8 Elite.

Sustained performance

Updated, 28 Oct: We've updated the analysis of the thermal performance of the Google Pixel 10 Pro XL after some further retesting. Our new tests show positive development with far less throttling - possibly due to some newly introduced software changes by Google. The screenshots below reflect our latest test findings.

The Pixel 10 did okay in our regular CPU Throttling test. It maintained its CPU and GPU performance level above 50% at all times. It has to be noted that the Pixel 10 Pro performed better in this test despite having the exact same chipset and body size.

CPU and GPU stress tests

The outer temperatures were pretty high. Both the back and the side frame were hot to the touch. Interestingly, the phone felt pretty warm almost all the time, even sometimes when it was idle for a while, and it takes time to cool down as well.

External temperatures