Introduction
Another year, another Pixel, and this time there is a distinct feeling of déjà vu in the air. We have with us today the new Pixel 10 Pro XL, and we can’t help shake the feeling we have seen it somewhere else before.
That’s because we have. The Pixel 10 Pro XL is the Pixel 9 Pro XL reincarnated with a stronger beating heart inside, but is otherwise mostly the same device. We have seen this happen before, where companies don’t bother updating the design anymore between generations, and it seems Google has finally caught the bug as well.
Google Pixel 10 Pro XL specs at a glance:
- Body: 162.8×76.6×8.5mm, 232g; Glass front (Gorilla Glass Victus 2), glass back (Gorilla Glass Victus 2), aluminum frame; IP68 dust tight and water resistant (immersible up to 1.5m for 30 min).
- Display: 6.80″ LTPO OLED, 120Hz, HDR10+, 2200 nits (HBM), 3300 nits (peak), 1344x2992px resolution, 20.04:9 aspect ratio, 486ppi.
- Chipset: Google Tensor G5 (3 nm): Octa-core (1×3.78 GHz Cortex-X4 & 5×3.05 GHz Cortex-A725 & 2×2.25 GHz Cortex-A520); PowerVR DXT-48-1536.
- Memory: 256GB 16GB RAM, 512GB 16GB RAM, 1TB 16GB RAM.
- OS/Software: Android 16, up to 7 major Android upgrades.
- Rear camera: Wide (main): 50 MP, f/1.7, 25mm, 1/1.31″, 1.2µm, dual pixel PDAF, OIS; Telephoto: 48 MP, f/2.8, 113mm, 1/2.55″, dual pixel PDAF, OIS, 5x optical zoom; Ultra wide angle: 48 MP, f/1.7, 123˚, 1/2.55″, dual pixel PDAF.
- Front camera: 42 MP, f/2.2, 17mm (ultrawide), PDAF.
- Video capture: Rear camera: 8K@30fps (via cloud-based upscaling), 4K@24/30/60fps, 1080p@24/30/60/120/240fps; gyro-EIS, OIS, 10-bit HDR; Front camera: 4K@30/60fps, 1080p@30/60fps.
- Battery: 5200mAh; 45W wired, PD3.0, PPS, 70% in 30 min, 25W wireless (magnetic), Qi2, Reverse wireless, Bypass charging.
- Connectivity: 5G; eSIM; Wi-Fi 7; BT 6.0, aptX HD; NFC.
- Misc: Fingerprint reader (under display, ultrasonic); stereo speakers; Ultra Wideband (UWB) support, Satellite SOS service, Circle to Search.
There is an easy way to do this review, which is to say the Pixel 10 Pro XL is more or less a faster Pixel 9 Pro XL, and just leave it at that. It would certainly make our lives easier. But if you’ve clicked on the link, you’re probably looking for more detail than that. So let’s leave the conclusion for later, and start from the beginning.
Unboxing
The Pixel 10 Pro XL comes in very barebones packaging. Apart from the phone, the only other thing you get is a cable. No charger, no case, and barely a box. The packaging department thinks it’s important to save the environment. The AI department might not agree.
Design
The design of the Pixel 10 Pro XL is largely identical to that of the Pixel 9 Pro XL. It’s the same basic shape with flat glass panels on the front and back, and a flat metal frame. Even the dimensions are identical.
There are some differences, however. First, the phone is about 11g heavier. The Pixel 9 Pro XL was a heavy phone to begin with, and this added bulk does not help. This is a heavy phone that is heavier than most other flagships, including some foldables. Add to that the large dimensions, and the phone feels very ungainly in hand.
Compromising the ergonomics further are the stiff volume and power buttons, which remain the same as before. The upside-down arrangement of these buttons compared to other Android phones also doesn’t help, and it’s not clear why Google continues to do it this way, as it makes switching over from literally any other phone annoying.
The camera bar on the back has the same basic design. However, it is bigger this generation; a difference you are unlikely to notice unless you have both this phone and the 9 Pro XL side by side.
What you will notice is the new loudspeaker placement on the bottom. The Pixel 9 Pro XL placed the SIM tray on the right of the USB port and the speaker on the left, which resulted in the speaker getting covered when you held the phone sideways. The Pixel 10 Pro XL moves the SIM tray to the top of the phone, and the speaker is now on the right side of the USB port, where it belongs. Its old spot has now been taken up by the microphone.
Google has three new colors for this year, which include Obsidian, Jade, and Moonstone, as seen here, which is a bluish gray.
The overall design of the phone is undeniably still attractive. The polished metal frame looks beautiful, at least until it comes in contact with skin, and the smooth finish of the glass back is delightful. The camera bar on the back remains a very distinctive design element, even if it isn’t as cool as the visor on older Pixel generations. Google also gets the basics right, such as having uniform bezels around the display, having the corner radius of the display match that of the phone, and maintaining symmetry with the ports on the bottom and the antenna lines on the side.
However, underneath the pleasing exterior lie several ergonomic issues, and the design isn’t fresh enough anymore to have to deal with them two generations in a row.
Display
The Pixel 10 Pro XL uses the same display as its predecessor. It’s a 6.8-inch LTPO OLED panel with a resolution of 2992 x 1344. It can refresh anywhere between 1-120Hz and is covered with Corning’s Gorilla Glass Victus 2.
The display on the Pixel 10 Pro XL remains one of its strong suits. For starters, it’s a flat panel, so you don’t have to worry about the curved edges distorting the image and attracting glare. Second, it has excellent colors and resolution, and can also get quite bright. In fact, the Pixel 10 Pro XL gets 10% brighter at 2200 nits max and 3300 nits peak compared to the 9 Pro XL, a difference too small to notice at those values, but it’s nice to have.
The variable 1-120Hz refresh rate also works really well. When not being interacted with, the display will rapidly drop down to 1Hz if nothing is moving on the screen. It can also match the frame rate of whatever you are viewing, so if it’s a 24fps video, the display will maintain 24Hz, and if it’s a 90Hz game, the display will maintain 90Hz. If the game were to, say, drop to 47fps or 53fps, then the display will change its refresh rate to match those figures. This ensures correct frame pacing while conserving battery.
The phone also supports HDR10 and HDR10+ content. The lack of Dolby Vision felt like a sore point last year, but with Netflix and other services now offering HDR10+ as an alternative, it’s no longer a noteworthy omission.
As before, the display has an integrated ultrasonic fingerprint sensor. And just as before, it works really well, with even a quick, light tap being sufficient to unlock, and it continues to work well even if your finger or the display is wet.
On a related note, the phone also has excellent haptics, with firm taps and adjustable strength.
So overall, the display on the Pixel 10 Pro XL continued to be excellent this year.
Battery and charging
The Pixel 10 Pro XL has a 5200mAh battery, a mere 3% improvement over the already underwhelming 9 Pro XL battery. At a time when phones that are considerably smaller and lighter (not to mention cheaper) are shipping with much larger batteries, Google continues to join Apple and Samsung in shipping unremarkable numbers on outdated technology.
Equally disappointing are the charging speeds. The Pixel 10 Pro XL ups the wattage from 37W to 45W this year. Despite that, we somehow got worse charging speeds on this year’s model. It’s not clear if these numbers are on track, as Google does not publish any charging speed figures, and if they are indeed off track, then what could have caused for them to be this way. Perhaps the phone did not agree with the 65W USB-PD charger we used for testing. We will have to run the test a few more times with different chargers to find out.
Charging speed
- in 15 min
- in 30 min
- Time to full charge (from 0%)
Red Magic 7 Pro
100%
5000 mAh65W Power Delivery 3.0
Galaxy S25 Ultra
72%
5000 mAh45W
Xiaomi 15 Ultra
72%
5410 mAh90W Xiaomi HyperCharge
Pixel 9 Pro XL
67%
5060 mAh45W PD
vivo X200 Ultra
64%
6000 mAh90W FlashCharge
Pixel 10 Pro XL
57%
5200 mAhCMF 65W GaN
Sony Xperia 1 VII
51%
5000 mAh30W PD
But wired charging is only part of the story. The main news this year is the inclusion of Qi2 25W wireless charging. This brings with it a magnetic attachment that is part of the standard, but Google has decided to brand it Pixelsnap. Much like MagSafe, you would be able to purchase magnetic chargers that would latch onto the back of the phone or even use non-charging accessories with the magnetic back, like car holders. Moreover, the standard also works with existing MagSafe accessories, but you won’t get the full 25W charging speeds as MagSafe is limited to 15W.
We did not have any compatible chargers to test this feature with at the time of writing, but it’s certainly something to look forward to in the future.
Speakers
The Pixel 10 Pro XL has a pair of stereo speakers that are seemingly unchanged from last year’s model. As mentioned before, the bottom loudspeaker has been repositioned, so you are far less likely to block it with your hand when you hold the phone.
In terms of audio quality, the Pixel 10 Pro XL seems to perform similarly to the 9 Pro XL. The sound is bassy and full-bodied at lower volumes, but thins out as you go higher. Also, as before, the volume bar seems to have far too many steps, and the first several seem to do very little. This somewhat logarithmic volume adjustment scale feels annoying compared to typical linear scales found on other devices, and once again, Google just seems to do things differently for no obvious reason.
Software
The Pixel 10 Pro XL ships with Android 16 out of the box. It also gets the new Material 3 Expressive user interface that Google has yet to ship on other devices. As is now standard for Pixel devices, the Pixel 10 Pro XL will get seven years of software and security updates.
Material 3 Expressive is the first major UI update to Android in the past several years. As the name suggests, this update brings a livelier, more expressive UI that reacts to other things around it. Animations are springier, and interacting with items on screen can cause other things around it to react accordingly. There is also an extensive overhaul of the UI elements, such as menus, buttons, and sliders. And finally, there are new colors, icons, and typefaces everywhere.
This gives the default Android user interface a much-needed fresh coat of paint. It also makes it less boring, as the previous design was much less reactive with simple transitions and animations. It brings in line with the efforts you see across the industry on other brands, which all have their own version of a reactive user interface that interacts with surrounding elements instead of being isolated. Some of the design choices are questionable, and not everyone will be on board with a bouncy, springy design with animations galore, but it’s also where the industry is headed currently, and Google is just keeping up.
At present, the core UI for the phone has been updated to Material 3 Expressive. However, several of the pre-installed Google apps had yet to get the new design at the time of writing. Those updates should arrive at a later date.
Android 16 Material 3 Expressive
User interface aside, the Pixel 10 Pro XL also packs a bunch of the usual Google software tricks, along with a healthy dose of AI-assisted gimmicks running on the new Gemini Nano model. New for this year is Magic Cue, which perpetually runs in the background locally on your device and scans all the relevant apps for information, which can be used elsewhere. It can, for example, bring up a calendar entry as a suggestion if it comes up while messaging someone, or a flight itinerary on screen if you’re on a call with the airline.
There is also a Camera Coach featured, powered by Gemini, for people who are apparently so bad at taking pictures that they need AI to guide them. You can just point your phone at the subject and fire up the feature, and it will give step-by-step instructions on how to frame your shot. It doesn’t actually know when you’ve done what it asked you to do based on the viewfinder information, so you just have to assume you’re doing the right thing and go with the instructions.
These new features join the existing list of Pixel-exclusive features, such as Pixel Call Assist, which includes Call Screen, Hold For Me, and Direct My Calls, Add Me in the Camera app, Magic Eraser, Video Boost, and more. Google also keeps adding more features with its Pixel Drop updates, so the list will only keep growing.
Getting to the experience of using the software, the Pixel remains clean, concise, and effortless, despite the new design flourishes. Even basic things like the size and spacing of menus, toast notifications, fonts, etc., feel correct. This isn’t something you can take for granted on many of the Chinese smartphones, where things seem like they got lost in translation, often literally, as sometimes even basic things like fitting the English text for buttons and menus aren’t correct. There is a reason the Pixel remains the premier Android experience and the only other brand that comes close (and, in some ways, supersedes) is Nothing.
That said, one thing that has always remained consistent with using new Pixel devices is the sheer bugginess of the software. A lot of things didn’t work correctly, and even basic gestures like swiping from the right edge to go back were ignored by the software. You may have also noticed there is no description of how the new feature, Magic Cue, worked above. That’s because it didn’t work as it kept telling us to sign into our Google account, even though we were. It seems we might need to do a factory reset to get some of these things to start working properly again, but that should never be the solution.
Performance
The Pixel 10 Pro XL runs on the new Google Tensor G5. Google says the G5 is the most significant upgrade to the Tensor lineup since its debut. Built on the TSMC 3nm process, the new chip is said to have a 34% faster CPU and 60% faster TPU. It also includes a new ISP to improve camera performance, but more on that later.
Our review unit came with 16GB of memory, which is now standard for the Pixel 10 Pro series. It also came with 256GB of storage, which is now the minimum capacity that you can get. Unless you live in countries like India, where it is also the only capacity you can get.
In synthetic benchmarks, the Pixel 10 Pro XL performed more or less as expected. In the multi-core Geekbench run, the new model scored 34% faster than the G4 on the 9 Pro XL, just as advertised. However, the single-core improvement is closer to 16%. Improvement in graphics and gaming performance was closer to a more impressive 28%, as seen in 3DMark.
These numbers put the new Tensor G5 in roughly the same league as the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 when it comes to CPU performance. However, the Snapdragon chip is still vastly superior when it comes to gaming performance, and the G5 tracks closer to the Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 in that respect.
GeekBench 6
- Multi-core
- Single-core
Galaxy S25 Ultra
9846
SD 8 Elite for Galaxy512GB, 12GB RAM
Honor Magic7 Pro
9291
Snapdragon 8 Elite512GB, 12GB RAM
OnePlus 13
9278
Snapdragon 8 Elite512GB, 16GB RAM
Motorola Razr 60 Ultra
6796
Snapdragon 8 Elite512GB, 16GB RAM
Pixel 10 Pro XL
6497
Google Tensor G5256GB, 16GB RAM
Pixel 9 Pro XL
4854
Google Tensor G4128GB, 16GB RAM
Huawei Pura 80 Ultra
4363
Kirin 9020512GB, 16GB RAM
AnTuTu 10
vivo X200 Ultra
2914061
Snapdragon 8 Elite1TB, 16GB RAM1440 x 3168 px
Galaxy S25 Ultra
2207809
SD 8 Elite for Galaxy512GB, 12GB RAM1440 x 3120 px
Sony Xperia 1 VII
2062177
Snapdragon 8 Elite256GB, 12GB RAM1080 x 2340 px
Motorola Razr 60 Ultra
1831189
Snapdragon 8 Elite512GB, 16GB RAM1224 x 2992 px
Pixel 10 Pro XL
1423216
Google Tensor G5256GB, 16GB RAM1344 x 2992 px
Pixel 9 Pro XL
1380138
Google Tensor G4128GB, 16GB RAM1280 x 2856 px
Huawei Pura 80 Ultra
1160268
Kirin 9020512GB, 16GB RAM1276 x 2848 px
3DMark – Wild Life Extreme (2160p)
vivo X200 Ultra
6816
Snapdragon 8 EliteAdreno 8301440 x 3168 px
Sony Xperia 1 VII
6276
Snapdragon 8 EliteAdreno 8301080 x 2340 px
Xiaomi 15 Ultra
6265
Snapdragon 8 EliteAdreno 8301440 x 3200 px
Motorola Razr 60 Ultra
5938
Snapdragon 8 EliteAdreno 8301224 x 2992 px
Pixel 10 Pro XL
3332
Google Tensor G5PowerVR DXT-48-15361344 x 2992 px
Pixel 9 Pro XL
2540
Google Tensor G4Mali-G715 MC71280 x 2856 px
Huawei Pura 80 Ultra
1850
Kirin 9020Maleoon 9201276 x 2848 px
In real-world performance, the Pixel 10 Pro XL feels snappy, just as the Pixel 9 Pro XL did before it. It does not have the same lightning-fast response of the latest Snapdragon 8 Elite chips, but you’re rarely left wanting for more urgency.
In gaming tests, the phone was able to hit consistently high frame rates in titles like BGMI and Call of Duty: Mobile. These games really only enable their high frame rate modes at their lowest settings, so it’s not really a major workout for your hardware, especially in this price range. However, a visually demanding title such as Genshin Impact cannot maintain 60fps on the Pixel 10 Pro XL at its maximum settings, and the phone would routinely drop into the 50s or even the 40s.
As you can see, Google’s latest chip is still two or even three generations behind the competition. We feel that if the company is going to insist on charging the same or more than its rivals, then it needs to start offering the same level of performance. We are especially concerned with the long-term performance of these chips; Google promises seven years of software updates, but we have very little confidence in the performance of these Tensor chips seven years from now. Thankfully, the phone has 16GB of memory, so while you may be computationally starved in the future, you are unlikely to be running out of memory any time soon.
Moving on to the thermal performance, the Pixel 10 Pro XL didn’t do so great. The phone did well in the 3DMark graphics stress test, but the CPU test saw the phone throttle down considerably, not too long after the test was started. This means that as long as you’re playing games in a cool-enough environment, then you should be fine, but CPU-demanding tasks will see the phone rapidly lose performance.
Camera
The Pixel 10 Pro XL has a triple camera system on the back and a single camera on the front. On the back is a 50MP wide, a 48MP ultra-wide that doubles as a macro, and a 48MP 5x telephoto. On the front is a 42MP selfie camera with autofocus. The hardware here should seem familiar, as it’s the same set of cameras as those found on the Pixel 9 Pro XL.
The camera application on the Pixel remains challenging, for lack of a better word. As we have seen with other aspects in the review, Google likes to do things differently from others, seemingly just for the sake of it.
The camera app UI is quite different from other phones. The mode bar is below the shutter button, and below that is a toggle for photo and video. This causes the shutter button to be quite high up on the screen, which is severely annoying if you come from any other smartphone, as it challenges your muscle memory and causes you to tap on the mode switcher instead of the shutter if you aren’t used to it. The layout for other menu options below is also unconventional and feels fiddly when you have to change something quickly in the middle of a shoot.
Still, once you get used to its weird way of doing things, you will find that the camera app is quite feature-rich. Some options are especially handy, such as the one to force the camera to use specific lenses instead of having it auto-switch based on distance from the lens, which, as you’ll see, comes in handy.
Now, moving on to the camera quality. Google claims that the new ISP on the Tensor G5 chip improves several aspects of the image quality across the board, which should technically improve the image quality over the Pixel 9 Pro XL despite having the same set of cameras. Well, we don’t really have a 9 Pro XL to compare with us here so we will just have to assess the Pixel 10 Pro XL camera on its own.
Starting with the main camera, the images impress with excellent quality overall. Of particular notice is the impressive rendition of fine detail, but even other aspects, such as exposure, color, white balance, and dynamic range, are beautifully captured. Overall, the main camera leaves very little room to complain about.
The phone also offers a 2x toggle, which enables digital zoom on the main camera. These look really good on the phone’s display but only okay when viewed up close on a monitor. They are still perfectly usable for everyday use.
Then we get to the 5x telephoto camera. This camera also captures reasonably detailed images, although they are a bit softer compared to the main camera. Other aspects, such as colors, dynamic range, white balance, etc., are also quite good.
The main issue with the telephoto camera is the long minimum focusing distance. The actual focusing distance for the telephoto camera is about a foot from the lens, but this is only achievable using the manual lens selection mode with manual focus set to the minimum. The autofocus will never let you get this close to the subject for whatever reason, even in manual lens selection mode. And if you’re in the default auto selection mode, the camera will only be capturing 5x zoomed-in images from the main lens unless the subject is several feet away. It’s not clear why the phone does this, but it does make shooting with the 5x camera a bit frustrating.
One of the Pixel 10 Pro XL’s party tricks is being able to capture images at 100x. The camera uses data from the sensors and then uses a local upscaling and image reconstruction algorithm to recreate a convincing-looking image. At first glance, these images look quite good until you realize you are mostly just looking at AI hallucinations. The AI can reconstitute details that it is aware of, but if you try capturing text from a distance that it cannot recognize, you get the typical AI garbling. At the end of the day, it is up to you to decide just how much impressed you should be with an image that is a digital painting masquerading as a photograph.
The phone saves both the unprocessed image from the camera as well as the fully AI processed image in the gallery, so you can compare both.
100x samples: Original • Processed
Finally, we have the ultra-wide camera. As we have seen before, this camera performs quite well, with detailed images and good colors. There is a bit more noise in these images, but it’s not distracting by any means.
The ultra-wide camera also does double duty as the macro lens. These images look okay as they tend to push the camera to the limit of what it can resolve, especially with a digital zoom always active. The perspective is also not ideal, as it provides a rather wide frame and the associated distortion that you then need to eliminate by getting quite close to the subject. We really think more companies need to abandon the idea of the ultra-wide camera as a makeshift macro and switch to using a telephoto with a shorter focusing distance instead.
The Pixel 10 Pro XL can capture 4K video from all four of its cameras at 60fps. Starting with the main camera, we noticed a surprising amount of camera shake while recording a simple walking video. We have seen much better stabilization elsewhere, and Google should look into improving this, as the rest of the image is otherwise quite good.https://www.youtube.com/embed/videoseries?list=PLCkV_iAGP7i-AB2897AWndBG0j_J6_ny4
The ultra-wide video, on the other hand, is incredibly stable and almost looks as if the camera is floating. However, the image from the ultra-wide camera isn’t particularly impressive, with noticeable noise in the shadow areas even when shooting in broad daylight.
The telephoto camera also captures good-looking video, but don’t expect to move much at this magnification.
Conclusion
The Google Pixel 10 Pro XL is a faster and more refined version of the phone it’s replacing. If that sounds boring, that’s because it is, but you can hardly blame only Google for doing it, as it has pretty much become the industry standard.
The list of improvements really is quite minor. You get better performance from the new Tensor G5 chip and some niceties in the form of the magnetic Qi2 charging and Pixelsnap accessories, but that’s really about it.
As a phone, the Pixel 10 Pro XL has a lot going for it. The design looks quite attractive, the display is incredible, the software is clean and functional, and the cameras work really well. As for the downsides, the phone is quite cumbersome to use because of its weight and stiff buttons, the G5 chip is lacking compared to rivals with questionable long-term performance, and the charging speeds and battery life remain unimpressive. The software was also quite buggy in our testing. Google’s hardware and software design choices can also be quite idiosyncratic, which makes switching over more difficult compared to other Android rivals.
Overall, the Pixel 10 Pro XL comes across as a good smartphone. But for the asking price, good simply isn’t good enough.
| 256GB 16GB RAM | $ 1,199.00 | € 1,299.00 |
| 512GB 16GB RAM | $ 1,319.00 | € 1,429.00 |
| 1TB 16GB RAM | $ 1,549.00 | € 1,689.00 |