Google revealed its new Pixel phones a month ago and after having the Pixel 10 Pro XL tested for a few weeks now, we now have our thoughts all summed up to help you in your decision of whether you should opt for Google’s flagship at Rs 1,24,999, or go for an iPhone or a Samsung S-series phone.
Design & Display
The Google Pixel 10 Pro XL borrows the same design from its predecessor but with a slightly narrower camera bar. However, the dimensions of both devices remain identical while the 10 Pro XL is slightly lighter than the 9 Pro XL. The sides still remain glossy with a glass sandwich design where the rear panel has a matte finish.
The new Moonstone shade fits perfectly into the Pixel vibe, giving it a super premium, modern yet minimal look. The Pixel 9 and Pixel 9 Pro I tested last year had impressive designs and were amongst the top in the list of phones I tested in 2024 in terms of design. The new Pixel 10 Pro XL, despite having nearly the same design as its predecessor, is still one of the best-designed devices I have used this year, and that is because it feels premium in the hand, has a nice weight to it, and most importantly, it works for Google.
Samsung and Apple have their designs figured out for their flagships with some refreshes every year and I have no problems with Google sticking to this design even for the next year. A person standing in front of you would easily recognise you have a Pixel in your hand. That’s how brand identity works in the real world and with this design, Google has figured it out.
The glossy sides still retain some fingerprints in daily use but that isn’t a major issue. The button placement is something you’ll have to get used to. Durability is handled with an IP68 rating which is a standard feature in most flagships these days. There’s Gorilla Glass Victus 2 both on the front and back.
The huge camera bar on the back also acts as a nice grip when holding the device in landscape which is an unintentional but useful feature. The device is quite big to use with one hand but with the XL tag, that’s what you are paying for.
The Haptics are again some of the best I have used on any smartphone and Android 16 makes use of them nicely across the whole user interface. They are tight enough and are strong enough to notify you of calls even when in your pocket.
The new and improved speakers on the handset sound louder and fuller with a stronger stereo separation. The top speaker is now louder than before which is again quite impressive. Even though the iPhone speakers still have slightly more bass, the speakers on the Pixel 10 Pro XL still do not disappoint by any means and are some of the best I have used on an Android phone. The positioning of the bottom speaker has also been changed and you are now less likely to block it with your hand when using the device in landscape.
The display on the front is a 6.8-inch Super Actua LTPO OLED panel with 1344 x 2992 pixels resolution, 120Hz refresh rate, 486 ppi, and 3300 nits of peak brightness and 2200 nits peak HDR brightness. The display and the back panel of the device are protected with Corning Gorilla Glass 2.
This panel remains identical to the Pixel 9 Pro XL except that it is slightly brighter and that shows when using under strong sunlight where I didn’t have any issues with readability. It surely is a flagship display as it is sharp, maintains a good balance of vivid and natural colour tones, and has excellent viewing angles.
The even front bezels could’ve been a bit thinner, but they still look pretty good. The Netflix App supports HDR 10, and watching content here—whether on Netflix or YouTube—was a really enjoyable experience. It’s super responsive to touch, even while gaming. Plus, the 120Hz refresh rate stays consistent throughout. Honestly, I can’t really find anything to complain about with this display.
The in-display ultrasonic fingerprint sensor makes a comeback and it is as good as a fingerprint reader can get, both in terms of speed and accuracy.
Performance & Software
The Pixel 10 Pro XL is powered by Google Tensor G5 SoC with 16GB of RAM. You get 256GB of storage. It also runs on Android 16 and will get 7 years of Android OS upgrades, security updates and regular Feature Drops. At this price, you should ideally get 512GB of storage but it is what it is. RAM management has been phenomenal so far and it shouldn’t be any less than that considering 16GB of memory is a considerate amount to have.
The Pixel is now using a TSMC-made Tensor chip instead of using Samsung’s foundry. That has panned out well for the brand when talking about thermals as the chip runs incredibly cooler than last year’s Tensor G4. While the G4 was also a good chip, the G5 is better across the board, so there’s that.
The device did not heat while using wireless Android Auto or even while gaming which is a good sign.
That said, the performance definitely doesn’t match the Snapdragon 8 Elite or the MediaTek Dimensity 9400+ if you go by benchmarks. However, in daily use, you’d hardly notice the difference with Tensor G5 still handling everything you throw at it with ease.
Yes, it’s not a phone for the gamers of the world, not because it can’t handle the titles, but because you cannot expect it to perform like a gaming phone with all those gaming-centric features, optimisations, etc. For instance, most other flagship phones I have tried run Bullet Echo at 120Hz while the Pixel 10 Pro XL ran it at 60Hz, and there’s no option to set refresh rates on a per app basis, or a dedicated gaming mode that can optimise the system to run games smoother or keep them in memory for long.
Instead, the new Pixel is all about AI once again, paired with a snappy yet smooth experience, which has always been the case with Google Pixels. The Pixel 10 Pro XL runs fluid all the time and can also be called snappy. I did face a critical bug during the first week of use where the device would stop responding to back gestures or touches, and the only way to solve this was to restart the device.
However, this was soon solved with an update, alongside a Play System update, which also solved the pairing issue with Galaxy Watches we talked about earlier.
Once these were solved, the experience with Pixel’s software was quite stable. There were no major slowdowns or hiccups, except for a few animations that rarely stuttered here and there.
Pixel’s software provides you with a clean and bloatware-free experience. The new Material 3 Expressive design in Android 16 fits as a playful aesthetic with great attention to detail, such as the minor haptic feedback when swiping away notifications, the bouncy animation of tiles in quick settings when tapping them, etc.
There are colours all around the UI with dynamic theming for apps adopting the colour of your wallpaper, and the same for the icons. You get a bunch of clock styles and a new ability to set the thickness of the default clock, and new live effects for wallpaper as well. These include weather effects and cutouts where the subject can appear outside that cutout and an animation zooms into the cutout, revealing the whole wallpaper when unlocking the device.
Another great addition is the ability to show wallpaper on the Always on display, which does consume more battery but looks great. However, there’s still no option to double-tap to wake up the screen (single-tap is available, which can easily be triggered accidentally) or sleep. Leak says the latter feature is coming soon, but it’s not here yet, unfortunately.
Google also recently rolled out the ability to rewrite text with AI with Writing Tools in GBoard but that’s not a Pixel-exclusive feature. Aside from that, AI features include Gemini, Circle to Search, and AI wallpaper generation. There was a Daily Hub feature (first screenshot in the image above) which could pull out your history from apps like Google Search and YouTube and then show you relevant information, much like how Now Brief in Samsung phones work.
As useless as the Now Brief feature has been for me in Samsung phones, Daily Hub was no different, which is why I think Google temporarily removed the feature from Pixel 10 series.
The company, in a statement issued to 9to5Google, said, “To ensure the best possible experience on Pixel, we’re temporarily pausing the public preview of Daily Hub for users. Our teams are actively working to enhance its performance and refine the personalized experience. We look forward to reintroducing an improved Daily Hub when it’s ready.”
Then there’s Magic Cues, which as per Google, “uses Al to offer you personalised suggestions based on your selected data sources, such as recent screen activity and certain Google app data.” For me personally, the feature hasn’t worked as it should. While it does tell me to allow listening it to my calls so it can show me useful information, it still didn’t work properly after my permission. While it does look like a really convenient feature on paper, it’s practical usage is not as efficient as it should be as of now.
The AI-based Pixel Screenshots apps is here as well and works as it should, helping me find information through my screenshots. Google Photos also has an entirely new editor UI along with new tools like Reimagine which can change the elements of your photo based on text inputs. For instance, you could make the moon look Blue in your shot, just by telling it to change the colour. It also gives you multiple options to choose from. Again, this is quite a nice feature and your imagination is the limit with this one. It also works without any major inconsistencies and the edited images don’t look quite edited, which is how it should be.
Other Google Photos features like Auto Unblur, Long Exposure, Action Pan, Real Tone, Panorama, Auto Best Take, Frequent Faces, Top Shot, etc. are some of my favorites which can easily help you perfecting an imperfect shot.
Safety features include Emergency SOS, Crisis Alerts, Car Crash Detection, Safety Check, Emergency Contacts & Medical Info, Android Earthquake Alerts System, and Theft protection. Security is handled through the Titan M2 security chip, paired with software features like Private Space, Advanced Protection and more.
The company promises 7 years of regular updates, including both security patches and Android OS updates which is the best update policy in the industry alongside Samsung’s and Apple’s.
Pixel’s software is not for those who want granular control over every element. You get a lot of AI features, decent amount of customisation, and other quality-of-life features aimed at improving the convenience factor when using a Pixel. Those who prefer deeper customisation or would want gaming features would like Oppo’s ColorOS and Samsung’s One UI better.
Connectivity performance, including that of 5G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and NFC, was optimal. I didn’t face any major issues last year with the Pixel 9 series in terms of connectivity and this year was thankfully no different. Airtel 5G worked without any network drops or back-and-forth switching to 4G.
Battery life
The Pixel 10 Pro XL packs the biggest battery in a Pixel yet, taking away the crown from the Pixel 9a. With a 5200mAh battery cell and optimisations from Google, one would expect phenomenal battery life from the device, and Google didn’t disappoint us entirely here, but unfortunately, it didn’t impress us much either.
The device can easily last you a day and sometimes more if you don’t opt for heavy use cases like navigation or shooting photos outside in bright sunlight. Moreover, turning off AOD with lock screen wallpaper also results in a difference of about 30 to 45 minutes of screen-on time, which generally stood at 6.5 to 7 hours for me.
Turning off AOD wallpaper took it over 7 hours but I could rarely get past 8 hours or even touch the 8-hour mark, for that matter.
The first few days were worse, with only 5.5 hours of screen-on time but I’d suggest you give it some time to learn your usage patterns. Mine included listening to music on speakers, working extensively on Google Sheets and Chrome, scrolling through Instagram, chatting on WhatsApp, and making some calls.
This is quite a moderate usage pattern, and I have seen devices deliver better battery life than the Pixel’s, even though they had a smaller battery capacity, so that’s where Google still has to work on a lot. While it still runs for a day without any issues, I expected better from a phone that costs this much.
With the CMF 65W GaN PD charger, the Pixel 10 Pro XL took close to 1 hour 38 minutes to charge from 0 to full, and that’s not the best charging speed one would expect at this price. Smartphones at Rs 35,000 charge faster than this and we hope Google improves this with the next Pixel.
However, if you are someone who plans to charge it overnight, you’ll have no issues and I’d recommend you turn on Adaptive Charging. The feature synced the charging speed to my alarm and it shows that it will finish charging by 7:10 AM, which is also my wakeup alarm time. This way, the battery health is maintained well over time. Speaking of battery health, you can now also keep tabs on that through battery settings.
Magnetic Qi2 wireless charger and other accessories are now also supported on the new Pixel 10 series but we couldn’t test any as we didn’t have them handy at the time.
Cameras
The Pixel 10 Pro XL gets a triple camera setup that’s the same as last year but with a new ISP with the Tensor G5 so Google claims the photos to be better than last year. The setup includes a 48-megapixel f/2.8 telephoto camera which has up to 5x Optical Zoom and OIS support, a 50-megapixel f/1.68 primary Wide-Angle camera and a 48-megapixel f/1.7 ultra-wide angle camera. On the front, it has a 42-megapixel f/2.2 camera for selfies and video chats.
Google has a new AI feature in the camera app as well, dubbed Camera Coach, which uses Gemini to read the scene, offer suggestions, and help find the best angle, lighting, and mode. It’s a great one for those who don’t shoot photos often with their device but anyone who’s into photography wouldn’t need it. There’s also a temperature sensor on the back that can be used to determine the temperature of drinks or other objects by pointing the device at them but I hardly found myself using it.
Speaking of shots clicked outdoors, the dynamic range on offer is exceptional. The shots come out very detailed and retain their natural colours for a lifelike photo. If you like a vibrant set of colours, Pixel’s camera doesn’t shoot that way. It believes in maintaining the colours as they look in the real world, which is also a great characteristic for a phone camera. You can’t complain about the details either, while the sharpness and exposure control are on point, too.
As for ultra-wide angle photos, the colour tone is nearly the same as that of the shots from the main sensor and that is how it should be. These shots are minutely hazy if you zoom in but apart from that, I had no issues to complain about here also. The detailing stays sharp, while EDGE distortion is also container quite impressively.
Portrait shots from this sensor are again some of the best I have seen on any phone. They surpass the likes of the Galaxy S25 Edge and the Galaxy S25 Plus, with a natural-looking bokeh effect, shallow depth of field, very high detailing, and beautiful colours. Edge detection stays accurate, and same as last year’s Pro phones, exposure levels are well-balanced, and the sharpness and detailing are spot-on.
The telephoto sensor performs decently when you click zoomed-in photos. At 2x, the detailing in the shots could be better but once you get to 5x, the detailing instantly improves by a huge margin, thanks to optical zoom. At 10x, the colours start to shift a bit, but the detail loss is still marginal. At 30x, with the help of AI, the photos try to stay sharp but the results aren’t the best.
At 50x, the AI starts to sharpen images further and does a good job to make it look clear. Even at 120x, there’s a good amount of difference between photos that have been enhanced by AI and those that haven’t. However, I’d still give it to Google for making 120x shots usable, even if it is all AI, as shots at that range usually get distorted.
The device does an equally good job in artificial lighting as it does in broad daylight. There’s no loss of detailing while the colours and dynamic range stay excellent.
Under low lighting, the device doesn’t hesitate a bit and still clicks outstanding shots that are quite clear with no signs of noise. In the image above, you can clearly read the text if you zoom in, despite the fact that this was shot in a dimly lit room.
Under extremely dark conditions, Night mode does help in brightening up the scene by cranking up the exposure. Even without it enabled, you still wouldn’t notice any amount of noise in the photos which is commendable.
For selfies, the skin tones are captured nicely, and the shots look gorgeous in terms of how the colours and dynamic range are handled. Even the minutest of details are visible if you zoom in. Portrait selfies have accurate edge detection around the subject for a natural bokeh effect.
