Pixel 10/Pro Review: Good News and Bad News!

Summary

MKBHD delivers a balanced review of the Google Pixel 10 and Pixel 10 Pro, framing the entire review around a simple premise: the good news is it’s still a Pixel, and the bad news is it’s still a Pixel. The Pixel 10 represents an iterative update rather than a revolutionary leap, despite being the first Pixel with a TSMC-manufactured Tensor G5 chip. While the new chip offers improved AI performance and efficiency, it doesn’t compete with flagship processors like the Snapdragon 8 Elite in raw CPU/GPU benchmarks. The standout feature is Pixel Snap (Qi2 magnetic wireless charging), which opens up MagSafe accessory compatibility. The software remains excellent with Android 16 and new AI features like Magic Cue and conversational photo editing, though Magic Cue feels undercooked. The cameras, while still good, are losing their competitive edge, particularly in zoom performance where they fall behind Samsung and even iPhone. MKBHD concludes that if you loved previous Pixels, you’ll love this one; if you didn’t, nothing here will change your mind.

Highlights

”The Good News/Bad News Pixel Dilemma”

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“All right, I have… What do you want first? The good news, great. Good call. It’s still a Pixel. The bad news? It is still a Pixel.” — Marques Brownlee, 0:00

”The Shocking GPU Benchmark Results”

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“For some reason, Geekbench 6 OpenCL scores are literally half of the Pixel 9s and a full, like, 600% behind… Jesus.” — Marques Brownlee, 6:02

”Magic Cue’s Disappointing Reality”

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“The thing it did the most often was it just kept giving me a link back to, like, open my calendar and check for the information myself, which is still kinda helpful, but only half as helpful as advertised.” — Marques Brownlee, 11:27

”Conversational Photo Editing is a Game Changer”

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“From simple stuff like, you know, brighten up the faces… But all the way up to ‘Add a hot air balloon to the sky.’ It’ll do that. Or, ‘Delete the cars…’ And then it does it.” — Marques Brownlee, 12:58

”Pixel Zoom Gets Smoked by Samsung”

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“They kinda look like they have a cartoon filter over them, even compared to a pretty mediocre zoom like the iPhone 16 Pro. And it gets absolutely smoked by a good zoom like the S25 Ultra.” — Marques Brownlee, 16:18

”The Pixel’s Aging Problem”

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“I’m probably gonna switch to as my main daily driver phone and then I’m probably gonna with more tempting… And then I’ll probably when it starts aging poorly.” — Marques Brownlee, 18:29

Key Points

• 0:00 Introduction: Sets up the “good news/bad news” framing - it’s still a Pixel in both positive and negative ways
• 1:16 Design: Nearly identical to Pixel 9, same camera visor design, satin aluminum sides - MKBHD considers this fine since he loves the design
• 1:52 Hardware limitations persist: Still no super fast charging, no brand new camera sensors, no record-breaking displays
• 2:20 Ultrasonic fingerprint reader: New addition, faster than Pixel 9 but still slightly behind other ultrasonic flagships
• 2:37 What’s new: Triple cameras on base phone, brighter display, better color-matched speakers, larger batteries
• 3:14 Physical SIM removed: US version is eSIM only - MKBHD dislikes this as it slows down phone testing
• 3:57 Tensor G5 deep dive: First fully Google-designed chip on 3nm TSMC process, moving away from Samsung fabrication
• 5:25 Benchmark reality: CPU ~30% improved but still behind Snapdragon 8 Elite; GPU significantly weaker (half of Pixel 9, 600% behind competitors)
• 6:20 TPU strength: 60% improvement in AI/ML tasks - this is Google’s intentional focus
• 6:52 Real-world performance: Smooth with Android 16, but switching to highest graphics shows dropped frames
• 7:40 Battery life: Solid all-day battery, ~6 hours screen-on time on Pixel 10 Pro
• 8:17 Pixel Snap (Qi2): One of MKBHD’s favorite new features - Qi2 magnetic wireless charging compatible with MagSafe accessories
• 9:10 Magnet strength: Stronger than iPhone’s MagSafe with first-party accessories
• 9:40 Software praise: Android 16 with Material You customization, great haptics, colorful and clean interface
• 10:00 UI criticism: Buttons getting too massive, excessive white space in Weather app, Phone app, Gmail
• 11:10 Magic Cue: New AI feature that’s supposed to surface contextual information but rarely works as advertised
• 12:35 Magic Cue issues: Often just links back to apps instead of providing answers, sometimes gives wrong information
• 12:40 Conversational photo editing: Game-changing semantic photo editing via voice/text commands
• 13:05 Photo editing examples: From simple (“brighten faces”) to complex (“add hot air balloon to sky”, “delete the cars”)
• 13:30 Other AI features: Journal app and NotebookLM pre-installed; Daily Briefs underwhelming
• 14:05 Camera concerns: Pixels are slipping behind competition despite historically strong software processing
• 14:45 Camera specs: Base phone gets triple cameras (48MP main, ultrawide, 5x telephoto); Pros have larger, higher resolution sensors
• 15:05 Main camera results: Wide shots look great, Night Sight still elite
• 15:25 Ultrawide issues: Usually soft around edges with chromatic aberration
• 15:33 Zoom disappointment: Super res zoom past 30x produces “cartoon filter” results, beaten by iPhone 16 Pro and “smoked” by S25 Ultra
• 16:50 Video performance: Still behind iPhone; Lucid Gravity video coming to Auto Focus channel
• 17:14 Final verdict: Pixel feels like a “finished/complete thought” - Google not making major changes to their approach
• 18:05 Marketing critique: Skeptical of Jimmy Fallon celebrity endorsement strategy; prefers direct feature competition like Pixel Snap
• 18:33 Personal conclusion: Will use Pixel 10 Pro as daily driver, expects to switch back to iPhone eventually due to Pixel aging concerns

Mentions

Companies

• Google - Pixel manufacturer, repeatedly mentioned throughout
• TSMC - Manufactures the new Tensor G5 chip on 3nm process
• Samsung - Previously fabricated Tensor chips; S25 Ultra mentioned as camera comparison
• Apple/iPhone - Competitor comparison for A18 chip, camera zoom, MagSafe
• Qualcomm - Snapdragon 8 Elite mentioned as benchmark comparison
• Nothing - Nothing Phone 3 mentioned with 8S Gen 4 chip
• Ridge - Sponsor, magnetic power bank
• Lucid - Lucid Gravity SUV video coming to Auto Focus channel

Products

• Pixel 10 - Main review subject
• Pixel 10 Pro - Primary test device
• Pixel 10 Pro XL - Mentioned as part of lineup
• Pixel 9 - Previous generation comparison
• Pixel 6 - First phone with in-house Tensor chip
• Tensor G5 - New processor
• Snapdragon 8 Elite - Competitor chip
• Snapdragon 8S Gen 4 - Mid-range competitor chip
• iPhone 16 Pro - Camera comparison
• S25 Ultra - Camera zoom comparison
• Android 16 - Operating system
• MagSafe - Apple’s magnetic accessory system, now compatible via Qi2

Features/Technologies

• Pixel Snap - Qi2 magnetic wireless charging feature
• Qi2 - Wireless charging standard with magnets
• Magic Cue - New AI assistant feature
• Conversational Editing - Voice-controlled photo editing
• Night Sight - Pixel’s low-light photo mode
• Super Res Zoom - AI-enhanced zoom feature
• Material You - Android design language
• Call Screen - Pixel-exclusive call filtering feature
• NotebookLM - Google AI note-taking app
• Daily Briefs - Personalized daily summary feature
• eSIM - Electronic SIM card technology

People

• Jimmy Fallon - Celebrity used in Google’s marketing presentation
• Andrew - Person mentioned in Magic Cue demo example

Channels/Shows

• Auto Focus - MKBHD’s car-focused YouTube channel

Surprising Quotes

“The good news? It’s still a Pixel. The bad news? It is still a Pixel.” - Sets up the entire review’s thesis with this clever framing

“For some reason, Geekbench 6 OpenCL scores are literally half of the Pixel 9s and a full, like, 600% behind… Jesus.” - Expressing shock at how far behind the GPU performance is compared to competitors

“The thing it did the most often was it just kept giving me a link back to, like, open my calendar and check for the information myself, which is still kinda helpful, but only half as helpful as advertised.” - On Magic Cue’s disappointing real-world performance

“Google, genuine question, is video editing next? Is that even possible? Should I be concerned? Excited?” - Pondering the implications of conversational photo editing advancing to video

“And it gets absolutely smoked by a good zoom like the S25 Ultra” - Stark assessment of Pixel’s zoom camera falling behind Samsung

“It feels like the Pixel is a finished slash complete thought for now” - Suggesting Google has stopped innovating on the Pixel formula

“I’m probably gonna switch to [Pixel] as my main daily driver phone and then I’m probably gonna [switch] with more tempting… And then I’ll probably [switch back] when it starts aging poorly.” - Honest admission of his phone-switching patterns and Pixel aging concerns

Full Transcript

0:00 (relaxing dance music) All right, I have… What do you want first? The good news, great. Good call. It’s still a Pixel. The bad news? It is still a Pixel.

0:21 (lively dance music) See, the Pixel 10 has had some high hopes and some hype behind it. You know, it’s the 10th generation. It could be special. The first one with a TSMC… Some other things could be… Like, it was looking really promising to potentially reboot to finally have it really…

0:48 Now instead, it is very… and all the things we disliked but the competing with flagships part is coming in the form of a… A Jimmy Fallon presentation, I can’t say I would’ve spent if I was in charge of the Pixel program, but hey, that’s why I’m the reviewer and they’re the Google executives. So, unlike the event, let’s…

1:16 So, this thing is very similar in materials, and in character. Like the camera visor, with the satin aluminum sides, and vice versa on the Pro phones. Even as an enthusiast about this stuff, you could probably show me a Pixel 9, and unless I knew exactly which it could be easily… And to me, honestly, that’s fine. I love this design. The camera bar is nice. It gathers some dust, sure, but you’ll probably also… Great, click-y buttons, great haptics. All of these things are…

1:52 The bad news though, is that of the past have been lacking, Pixels have never had the biggest numbers or the most bleeding-edge hardware. And these Pixel 10s are still Pixels, so they don’t have super fast charging. They don’t have a brand new… They don’t have huge new camera sensors or record-breaking displays. My personal biggest was the optical under was kinda slow.

2:20 This Pixel 10 actually does have an ultrasonic fingerprint reader now, and it’s faster than Pixel 9, but just a slight beat behind the other ultrasonic flagships now. But that counts as technically new. So, hey, while we’re at that’s technically new with the Pixel 10s and my take on them.

2:37 The main new thing is we on the base phone, and I’ll of those cameras in a minute. After that, it’s a bunch of combine to make it feel but without actually leapfrogging into ultra phone territory. So, the fingerprint reader, like I said, is ultrasonic now and slightly faster. And the display that it’s built into is a bit brighter too, so…

3:06 The bezels didn’t get thinner, but there’s little grills now over the slightly better speakers that are color matched to the metal now. Cool. And the physical SIM card… This phone in the US is eSIM… eSIM support, great. Forcing me to use eSIM? Not my favorite thing. Only the carriers win with this. And to be fair, maybe just a little bit because I move my physical SIM card really quickly between lots of phones. It takes, like, 10 seconds to switch and test something out real quick. So, I don’t like this at…

3:44 The batteries are about in these phones across the lineup. That’s a nice win. But the internals that are that people are actually gonna care about are Tensor and Pixel Snap.

3:56 So, all right, we gotta talk… Google phones, for years, have used off-the-shelf which made sense, they were great. And then the Pixel 6 was the first one to use their in-house… And the promise of Tensor but the idea was to give over these chips and for optimizing for exactly what they…

4:20 The thing is, the first… Actually, it was so weak that if they should have even left… But, you know, we gotta let ‘em cook for a little bit, right? Let them develop this idea. And so, a couple generations in, all of these first few Tensor chips were sort of co-designed and it was heavily based and actually still fabricated by Samsung.

4:45 So, fast forward to today, the Pixel 10 is powered the first version of a totally on a three-nanometer process and manufactured straight by TSMC, which seems like the perfect opportunity to make a huge leap in in achieving the original mission of doing their own Tensor chip, and it turns out it’s good. It’s a really good chip.

5:15 The main complaint that I and about Tensor chips of the past was that they were simply of CPU and GPU. And this is $1,000 phone. Like, for this price, I and have a Snapdragon 8 Elite, or an iPhone 16 with an A18.

5:33 So, this new Tensor G5 is but it’s not miraculously of the Snapdragon 8 Elites of the world. And I’m starting to think that’s not even really one of its goals. Tensor G5 benchmarks like the CPU is about 30% but is a solid amount still behind the Snapdragon. And it’s closer to, like, the 8S Gen 4, the one in the Nothing Phone 3.

6:02 And the GPU. The GPU gap, if my benchmarks are correct, are even bigger. For some reason, Geekbench 6 OpenCL scores are literally half of the Pixel 9s and a full, like, 600% behind… Jesus.

6:20 Its strongest area though, where this one is 60% more and that is intentional. This is the Tensor processing unit that’s specifically designed and AI-related tasks like editing photos, et cetera. This is what Google has decided with these phones and these chips. They want them to be the fastest and most capable AI devices.

6:48 So, in the real world, it is a really smooth… I’ve been flying around Android 16, multitasking, flying through apps, high refresh rate is always on. Not even really thinking… It’s been very fluid. I will say though, when I went in after a few and flipped from High things sharpened up a bit, but the phone also did get slightly, just barely noticeably, slower. Just a few dropped frames here and there, which I didn’t expect.

7:20 And I would also not be shocked at all if you did head-to-head comparisons with graphically intense games, and frame rate measurements fall far behind the higher… It also lacks… That’s just not the big… Never has been. And it’s still a Pixel, so I’m not expecting it ever will be.

7:39 What I can say is, at least the battery life… It’s been solid. I’ve been mostly testing the Pixel 10 Pro, not the XL, so even on I’m getting all-day battery but, like, six hours of screen-on time and high brightness and all that. So, it’s been decently efficient.

7:58 My main concern is now shifting to how well this phone will age, so maybe trying to come one year, two years, just compared to previous Pixels. But for now, the Tensor chip, it’s not some miraculous savior that makes it an ultra… Good chip.

8:18 You know what’s really good, though? Pixel Snap. It sounds silly, but this of my favorite new features. It’s just such a quality especially as someone who of Team No Case. So, these phones have Qi2 and it’s only at 15 but it’s so incredibly convenient to just be able to slap the Pixel onto any of my existing MagSafe accessories, navigating with the phone dropping the phone on a where they automatically align, keeping it topped up on a long travel trip with my Ridge power bank.

8:57 Even if you aren’t someone with a bunch of existing MagSafe stuff sitting around, it just opens you up to this massive world of options for magnetic accessories for things you can attach to your phone, or things you can attach your phone too. And I even think this is than MagSafe magnets on the iPhone, at least with the first-party they’ve optimized, like I got to try.

9:19 Honestly, this was the perfect… It’s like it was already a phone that didn’t have very and so it still doesn’t have but it just gained a ton of functionality. Thumbs up.

9:31 The two things that always well, that would be the… So, I have good news and bad news again. Which do you want first? The good news. Classic.

9:43 Yeah, the software is still awesome. These phones all ship with all of the fun material, the fun smart wallpaper cutout the haptics, the all this stuff. There’s some weird stuff like I don’t love how massive some of the buttons are getting. Like, okay, maybe the… Fine, make those bigger. But the Weather app, like this list of locations… So much dead white space between them. Or the Phone app now, too. They’re making these buttons huge. This new Gmail app, these archive buttons… And look at this stopwatch. Jesus.

10:28 But, you know, for the most part, I’m loving how colorful and clean and fluid everything has been. And there’s so many little and poke around and have fun with. Trust me, just watch a on how to set up the or have the ultimate… It’s awesome, super flexible. You’re welcome.

10:46 And then there’s all the because, you know, Google. And there’s a lot of this as you start using this phone, and you can choose to engage with it or just kind of ignore… But any one of these that awesome thing that with the Pixel, like Call…

11:09 And so, the big new one on the Pixel 10s that’s got its own section in the settings and everything is called Magic Cue. And this Magic Cue, that’s supposed to take data and services and then surface… At least that’s what it’s supposed to do.

11:27 Now, I was using this phone… Like I was lobbing up perfect and read my Gmail or read my calendar, and then give me the but it rarely seemed to work like it did in my original demos. The thing it did the most often was it just kept giving me a link back to, like, open my calendar and check for the information myself, which is still kinda helpful, but only half as helpful as advertised.

11:55 I have all the settings turned on, so it’s supposed to be able to screenshots, email, Messages, and Calendar to return the answer to the question pulled… A few times, I did actually but sometimes it was wrong. Like I have Andrew asking me but it’s giving me the info to and that would be fine before I send it, but if I click it it, just sends the whole thing automatically, and doesn’t also include I would think you want.

12:33 I can see the promise here. It feels like it’s still… The other thing, though, that was conversational editing. It actually is coming to all so it’s not just, like, so I won’t spend too much time on it, but it’s potentially a game changer because it’s semantic photo so it understands what you’re asking for and then does the editing for you.

12:58 From simple stuff like, you know, brighten up the faces or even just make this picture better, which usually does, like, a nice crop and centers it around the subject and evens out the exposure. But all the way up to “Add a hot air balloon to the sky.” It’ll do that. Or, “Delete the cars…” And then it does it. It just does a surprisingly good job just from hearing what you said.

13:26 Google, genuine question, is video editing next? Is that even possible? Should I be concerned? Excited? I don’t know, we’ll see. There was a couple other things like the Journal app and NotebookLM, which are both pre-installed… Also, daily briefs was… Like it’s supposed to be tailored to me and relevant to my day, but yeah, that’s not really a ton of…

13:53 But overall, like I said, And if there’s anything that you can literally just ignore it. So, that is the good news.

14:03 So then the bad news, the cameras. And this is where it kinda… It’s not like they’re bad cameras, but the bad news is that it are slipping a little bit. The Pixel has leaned heavily on elite software processing for years. They, surprise, never really or the best hardware, and the Pixel camera always had this sort of confident, contrasty look to it.

14:32 This generation of phones, but objectively speaking, they just don’t stand out from the pack nearly as much anymore. And in some ways, they’re kind…

14:44 Triple cameras, like I said, are awesome to have on the base phone. So, that 48 megapixel main camera, the ultrawide, and the telephoto is a 5x. And then the Pros have a bigger a bigger, higher resolution ultrawide, and a bigger, higher resolution…

15:03 So, regular wide shots from they look great. You know, sure, the on the base phone, but with sharpness and dynamic and usually pretty great color too. They have that look. Night Sight is still elite.

15:19 But past that, it’s just like I was hoping it would be. The ultrawide is okay, but usually pretty soft around the edges with a bit more chromatic aberration that I’m used to seeing.

15:33 And then trying to zoom in was, at least compared to other… Almost every photo I’ve taken, even on these Pros that’s… Like, colors would be fine and it’s not a terrible image. Mission still accomplished, I guess.

15:52 But, like, this super res that kicks in for everything past 30x really feels like it encourages me to take a bunch of Zoom it’ll run it through the and resolve detail out of thin air with a little machine learning. But yeah, the results… I didn’t even go all the way to a 100x. All the pictures I’m taking…

16:18 And they kinda look like they have a cartoon filter over them, even compared to a pretty mediocre zoom like the iPhone 16 Pro. And it gets absolutely smoked by a good zoom like the S25 Ultra, even though that’s more expensive. Maybe I shouldn’t be complaining maybe nobody cares, but the sweet spot for zoom or a little past that maybe.

16:41 And then the wide photos are… It’s just the gaps in zoom considering how much it to take zoom photos. And then there’s video performance, which is still also beat…

16:56 If you wanna see samples, I’m planning on shooting on the Lucid Gravity on this phone. So, if you care about or the newest, very impressive Lucid SUV, get subscribed over there. I’ll drop a link below the like button. But yeah, it’ll be all the A-roll shots, and then the B roll will still be from the iPhone so you…

17:15 So, the Pixel 10. It’s still a Pixel, it feels like the Pixel is a finished slash complete thought for now, just based on the way Google’s acting and working around this phone. And they’re not making any to the way they attack… They’re just trying again…

17:39 So, if you didn’t like the Pixel last year for certain reasons, like, you know, “Oh, it’s not the best hardware or it’s not the most powerful,” then you still won’t like the Pixel. But if you love the Pixel oh, it’s this cool design that you like or it’s got great stills then you’ll love this Pixel too.

18:00 Google’s path of trying to bring the Pixel to the masses is definitely challenging. Maybe they really believe in Jimmy Fallon and the other celebrity endorsements that will be their savior… Me personally, I think the of, like, directly addressing the masses that are on iPhones here and with, like, Pixel Snap and other directly I think that is far more interesting. And I did just make an so I’ll link this below if…

18:29 But the Pixel still being a Pixel to me is mostly good news. I really like the Pixel. I’m probably gonna switch to as my main daily driver phone and then I’m probably gonna with more tempting… And then I’ll probably with the other weird software experiences and I want this feeling again. And then I’ll probably when it starts aging poorly. I don’t really know. The Pixel is right where it’s always been.

18:57 But you know it’s not… New products from channel sponsor Ridge, like the new magnetic power… See, Ridge has been in the… But when I joined the team, we wanted to add a little so they created the Ridge… It’s a 10,000 milliamp that has five different…

19:18 With Pixel Snap, you can to your back of your phone. Or if you want, you can for 20-watt wired charging. And it even has a nice kickstand so you’ll be able to without having to sweat your battery life.

19:32 And you might be wondering, “Why do I need a Lightning…” And let’s be real, you they’re probably all caught forgot to pack their chargers. So, if you’re feeling nice… And my favorite part is you at the same time with pass through, so this ends up being a for travel charging.

19:51 It comes in three sweet colors, Basecamp Orange and also Matte Olive and the obvious choice, Matte Black. And if you don’t love it within 99 days, send it back, no questions asked. So, hit over to ridge.com/mkbhd…

20:05 And remember, every dollar is more entries in the… Thanks for watching. Catch you guys in the next one. Peace.

20:15 (relaxing dance music)