Google Pixel 10 Series Review: These Flagship Phones Impress

As you’d expect, the Pixel 10 lineup runs Android 16. We’ve always enjoyed Google’s take on Android. It’s wonderfully clean, refined, and responsive. Plus, it delivers a tasty serving of helpful Google-y features like Call Screen, Hold For Me, Recorder, Now Playing, and Personal Safety (to name a few) – not to mention AI-infused goodies like Circle to Search, Gemini, Gemini Live, and Google Photos’ suite of AI-based image editing tools.

Pixel 10 Series Software, User Experience, And AI

We highly suggest you read our Pixel 9 Pro Fold review for a more detailed rundown of these features. That way, we can focus on the functionality that’s new and specific to the Pixel 10 lineup.

For starters, both the Pixel Camera and Google Photos gain a few interesting new features, including built-in support for C2PA Content Credentials.

• Camera Coach uses Gemini to help you frame and compose shots by offering step-by-step instructions.
• Guided Frame with Descriptions uses Gemini to describe scenes for blind or low-vision photographers, by providing audio hints, visuals, and vibrations.
• Auto Best Take builds on Top Shot – an existing feature that picks the perfect moment to take a picture – by capturing the best moment in group photos, and even merges images, if necessary, to make sure everyone looks their best.
• Ask Photos uses Gemini to let you edit photos in Google Photos by simply describing your desired changes. It works pretty well for simple edits, but struggles with more complicated things, like making perspective adjustments, for example.

• Daily Hub is a personalized digest that shows calendar events, relevant topics, recommended playlists, and Magic Cue reminders. Daily Hub appears in the top left corner of the Discover feed, and it worked fine for us.

• Magic Cue proactively suggests relevant information and actions based on current context from Gmail, Calendar, Messages, Keep notes, Screenshots, and Contacts. It integrates with chats, calls, and system-wide apps like Weather and Daily Hub, and provides suggestions when searching in Maps, streaming, and shopping apps.

• Voice Translate breaks down language barriers during phone calls by translating conversations in real-time, using on-device processing for privacy. It currently supports English to Spanish, German, Japanese, Italian, French, Portuguese, Swedish, Russian, Indonesian, and Hindi.
• Take a Message provides real-time transcripts for missed or declined calls and identifies post-message next steps using advanced AI.
• Pixel Journal is a secure app for documenting thoughts and feelings. It offers AI-generated prompts to help you track progress and provide insights into emotional trends.
• Pixel Screenshots help you save, organize, and recall information from screenshots, with NotebookLM integration.
• Pixel Studio lets you be creative and bring ideas to life from scratch with Imagen 4. It offers upgraded editing tools, custom font-packs, and the ability to add prompted stickers and images to your creations.
• Writing Tools in Gboard helps you check and fix writing errors (grammar, typos, punctuation) and rewrite text in specified styles (rephrase, professional, friendly, emojify, elaborate, shorten), right inside Google’s keyboard.
• Smart Edit/Voice Writing in Gboard lets you edit voice-dictated messages using natural voice commands (like "change X to Y," "insert X after Y," "delete X," and "capitalize X") and invoke the aforementioned writing tools (like "rephrase this," "make it friendly," "make it longer").
• Create Music in Recorder lets you add a generative music layer to a recording of yourself singing. The generated music is based on a musical vibe of your choice, and on the beat and musicality of your recording.

Pixel 10 Series Review Summary

With the Pixel 10 lineup, Google has taken last year’s excellent Pixel 9 series, and made it significantly better. Tensor G5 is more efficient and performs better than Tensor G4 across the board. Qi2 with magnets gives these phones access to Apple’s vast MagSafe ecosystem of accessories. Pixel 10's brighter displays, upgraded speakers, larger batteries, and faster charging speeds are all welcome improvements.

The Pixel 10 now also packs a telephoto camera that enables 20x magnification, and Pro Res Zoom allows the Pixel 10 Pro and 10 Pro XL to zoom up to 100x -- with spectacular results. Add Google’s outstanding software and AI features to the mix, and you have all the ingredients for a winning recipe. The only thing leaving a bitter taste behind is the lack of SIM trays on the US models. And it’s a real shame.