My new favorite Android phone of 2025

The Google Pixel 10 Pro is not an exciting smartphone. It looks virtually identical to the Pixel 9 Pro while featuring the same cameras, minor upgrades to the battery and charging, and a new chipset that’s not the savior we had hoped it might be.

While all of that is technically true, so is the fact that the Pixel 10 Pro is my new favorite Android phone. While it may not have a flashy new design or record-setting benchmarks, the day-to-day experience of using the Pixel 10 Pro is one that I can’t get enough of. Whether it’s the compact design, magnetic charging, versatile cameras, or unmatched software, there’s so much to like about this phone.

The Pixel 10 Pro is easy to dismiss, but it’s also easy to love. And if you’re like me, it’s the new Android phone to buy in 2025.

When I say the Pixel 10 Pro looks like the Pixel 9 Pro, I mean it really looks like it. Not only did Google keep the same general design language this year, but the two phones’ dimensions are identical, too. There are enough smaller tweaks that a Pixel 9 Pro case won’t fit the Pixel 10 Pro, but this is basically the same design.

While that may not be particularly exciting, I personally couldn’t be happier. I think this is the best design we’ve ever seen from Google, so having it for another year on the Pixel 10 Pro isn’t a bad thing at all. It means another year of wonderfully clicky buttons, a lovely matte finish on the back, and a sleek, polished frame. My review unit features this year’s new Jade color, which may be a contender for one of my favorite Pixel colors of all time.

In addition to its great looks, the Pixel 10 Pro is also just as practical as ever. The 6.3-inch display is the same size as the Pixel 9 Pro, and just like that phone, the Pixel 10 Pro is comfortable to use one-handed and slip in a tight pocket in a way that so many other flagship Android phones are not.

Furthermore, the screen itself is fantastic. The LTPO OLED panel is colorful and contrasty, the 1,280 x 2,856 resolution is plenty sharp, and the 120Hz refresh rate runs perfectly. I also appreciate the slight increase in peak brightness this year (3,300 nits, up from 3,000 nits), which has resulted in zero visibility issues even in direct sunlight.

While all of that is great, the big hardware news for the Pixel 10 Pro is something you can’t see: magnets!

The entire Pixel 10 series features magnets under the backs of the phones, just like we’ve seen for years on modern iPhones. The magnets follow the Qi2 standard, meaning the Pixel 10 Pro is compatible with standard Qi2 magnetic chargers, Google’s new Pixelsnap accessories, and all existing MagSafe accessories, too.

While you could put a magnetic case on the Pixel 9 Pro to use MagSafe gadgets with it, it’s a completely different experience having magnets built into the Pixel 10 Pro itself. I’ve been using the phone with MagSafe wallets, battery packs, and wireless charging stands throughout my testing, and it’s been fantastic. It’s also quickly solidified the fact that I don’t think I can ever go back to an Android phone without a magnetic design. It really is that convenient.

It’s a big change that has upset some people, but in my testing, it’s been a total non-issue. I transferred a Visible eSIM to the Pixel 10 Pro on my first day with the phone, and it took no more than 10 minutes for my cell service to be active — and it’s worked flawlessly ever since.

Would the option for a physical SIM and eSIM have been nice? Sure. Will some people run into issues with the Pixel 10 Pro’s eSIM, especially if they haven’t used the tech before? Maybe. Taking away physical SIM cards doesn’t necessarily make the Pixel 10 Pro better than the Pixel 9 Pro, but in my use, it hasn’t made the phone worse, either.

Leading up to the Pixel 10 Pro’s release, there was one thing on a lot of people’s minds: Tensor G5. This year’s Tensor chip is significant for two reasons. In addition to being Google’s first 3nm chip, it’s also the first Tensor chipset manufactured by TSMC, rather than Samsung Foundry.

Previous Tensor chips have long struggled with thermal issues and poor battery life, and the thought was that the G5’s smaller fabrication and departure from Samsung would address these things. There was also a hope that Google would be able to squeeze more performance out of the Tensor G5.

So, did any of this come true? Yes and no. For all the technical details, check out our deep dive into the Tensor G5; I’ll focus on my actual experience.

Let’s start with performance. Normal, everyday performance has never been an issue for me with Pixel phones, and the Pixel 10 Pro is no different. All of my usual apps run flawlessly, the UI is smooth, and all of the new animations with Material 3 Expressive look incredible. I’m not a particularly big mobile gamer, but my go-to time-killer (Call of Duty: Mobile) has run just fine with Very High graphics and Max frame rate settings — not only running smoothly, but cool, too.

However, the Tensor G5 inside the Pixel 10 Pro still doesn’t perform particularly well in benchmarks, just as has been the case for all other Tensor chips before it. Running the Pixel 10 Pro through Geekbench 6 to test its CPU, the Tensor G5 does perform better than the Pixel 9 Pro and its Tensor G4, though it’s still considerably behind the Snapdragon 8 Elite-equipped Galaxy S25 Ultra. The same is true in GPU benchmarks, where the Pixel 10 Pro outperforms its predecessor but still trails behind the Galaxy S25 Ultra.

While benchmarks for the Tensor G5 may not be dramatically improved, there has been a notable upgrade in thermal management. For the first time with a Tensor-equipped Pixel phone, I’ve not experienced any concerning heating issues with the Pixel 10 Pro.

This hasn’t just been with normal daily use, but also under more intense use cases. Even on a busy travel day that saw me trekking across multiple airports, taking a ton of pictures, and exclusively using 5G without any Wi-Fi connection, I never noticed the Pixel 10 Pro heating up the way I would expect an older Pixel to. The only times I’ve felt the phone get hot are during GPU benchmarks and on my initial setup day — as is the case for every single Android phone I’ve ever used. While it’s annoying that it took five Tensor generations to reach this point, I’m beyond happy that we’re finally here.

Unfortunately, while thermals are substantially better this year, the same can’t be said of battery life. While the 4,870mAh battery is a decent capacity for a phone of the Pixel 10 Pro’s size, I’ve never been able to go more than one day on a single charge.

To the Pixel 10 Pro’s credit, I haven’t babied my usage with it. On a day spent mostly at home on Wi-Fi, I racked up 4 hours and 50 minutes of screen-on time, starting my day with 100% battery at around 7:00 am and ending at 11:00 pm with 15% remaining. On that travel day mentioned above, I went from 100% at 4:00 am and hit 11% at 9:00 pm. This was with just shy of 3 hours of screen time, but using the Pixel 10 Pro almost exclusively on 5G and taking a metric ton of photos.

I’ve never questioned the Pixel 10 Pro’s ability to reach the end of a day with battery to spare, but it’s also very much not a two-day handset the way we’ve seen from Snapdragon 8 Elite phones like the Galaxy S25 Ultra and OnePlus 13. Granted, the Pixel 10 Pro is a smaller phone, but I was still hoping for a bit more endurance than what I’ve been getting.

Similarly, wired charging speeds aren’t anything to write home about either. The Pixel 10 Pro is now capable of 30W wired charging (up from 27W on the Pixel 9 Pro), but that doesn’t translate to any meaningful speed enhancements. In our testing, the Pixel 10 Pro took 86 minutes to recharge from about 2% back up to 100%, which is just a minute less than the Pixel 9 Pro. It also reaches the 50% mark in roughly the same amount of time. Meanwhile, the Galaxy S25 Ultra gets a full charge in 54 minutes, while the OnePlus 13 still holds a commanding lead with a 35-minute recharge time.

Of course, the addition of built-in magnets in the Pixel 10 Pro means it’s immediately compatible with magnetic charging pads/stands, and that is a huge convenience. But even so, that doesn’t fully excuse Google from dragging its feet with wired charging. There’s a lot of room to improve here, and I hope we see it with the Pixel 11 Pro.

It’s an interesting time right now for Pixel cameras. It wasn’t that long ago that we were praising Google for being at the top of the smartphone photography world. But things are different now. While we still rate them as the best in the business, some people are unhappy with Google’s image processing on recent Pixels, while others are blasting the company for cramming too much AI into its cameras. It’s all made the general consensus around Pixel cameras a bit muddy.

That all said, having spent a couple of weeks taking pictures with the Pixel 10 Pro, all I know is that this is an impressive camera phone.

Looking at the spec sheet, the camera setup on the Pixel 10 Pro is identical to the Pixel 9 Pro. The primary camera is a 50MP sensor with an f/1.7 aperture and a 1/1.31″ sensor size. It’s joined by a 48MP ultrawide camera with an f/1.7 aperture and a 123-degree field-of-view, along with a 48MP telephoto camera that has an f/2.8 aperture and a 5x optical zoom range. On the front is a 42MP selfie camera with an f/2.2 aperture and autofocus.

The primary camera, whether you’re using it to capture 1x or 2x photos, is fantastic — and not just for scenes with ample lighting and with still subjects. Even with photos of my black cat sitting in front of a sunlit window, my other cat being fidgety on the patio, or of a dimly-lit bar with lots of moving people, the Pixel 10 Pro doesn’t really have an issue with any of it. Regardless of where I’m pressing the shutter button, I’m almost always guaranteed a picture that’s sharp, well-lit, and true-to-life.

The ultrawide camera has also performed really well for 0.5x shots. There’s a bit more warping at the edges than I had expected, but it doesn’t distract too much from the photos. If anything, I kind of like the intense, zoomed-out effect it adds.

More importantly, photos from the ultrawide camera retain a similar color profile to those taken with the primary camera, so there’s not a distracting difference when comparing images side-by-side. As far as ultrawide cameras go, this is a very good one — just like it was on the Pixel 9 Pro.

Even more so than the primary and ultrawide cameras, I’ve been having a blast with the Pixel 10 Pro’s telephoto camera. Although the sensor is unchanged from last year, the zooming capabilities are greatly improved. Now, instead of a 30x maximum zoom, the Pixel 10 Pro can go all the way up to 100x.

Starting with 5x and 10x zoom ranges (the two preset zoom options in the camera app), the telephoto sensor does a remarkable job. The 5x and 10x shots below captured the Niagara Falls beautifully, especially considering just how fast they were moving. And when you see how far back I actually was in the 1x shot, it’s all the more impressive how much detail this camera can capture from so far away.

Once you punch in to 30x or above, that’s when Google’s Pro Res Zoom mode activates — using AI to fill in the gaps and give you a much better-looking photo. And any time you take a picture that uses Pro Res Zoom, the Pixel 10 Pro saves two copies of the image: the original and the edited one.

I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect, but I’ve come away rather impressed by Pro Res Zoom, and the above photo of the butterfly is an excellent example of how well it can work. This was taken at a 50x zoom range, and the original photo is pretty unusable. Pro Res Zoom then comes in to clean up the background, sharpen the pine needles, and reconstruct a lot of the lost detail in the butterfly’s wings — and this all happens automatically and in a matter of seconds.

Even going all the way to 100x zoom, the Pixel 10 Pro still holds its own. In this example of the M&T building in Buffalo, Pro Res Zoom does a great job of sharpening the letters and the lines in the building. There’s some funkiness with the metal tower in the upper-right corner, but I was expecting a lot worse for a 100x photo.

Is there a conversation to be had about whether or not AI-assisted Pro Res Zoom pictures are still real photographs? Sure. But at least from my perspective, I don’t really care about that conversation. All I care about is having tools that can make my smartphone pictures look better, and Pro Res Zoom absolutely achieves that. I doubt I’ll take a lot of 100x photos after this review is published, but having the flexibility to take usable 30x or 50x pictures is a massive amount of flexibility, and it’s a big win for the Pixel 10 Pro’s camera.

Finally, a quick word on the selfie camera. It’s good! Just like on the Pixel 9 Pro, you have two preset ranges (0.7x and 1x) and autofocus. The preview in the viewfinder looks strangely low-quality (much more so than the rear cameras), but once you snap a photo and Google’s processing takes place, the pictures have good colors and detail. No complaints here.

More than anything, what I love about taking pictures with the Pixel 10 Pro is how reliable it is. The primary camera is great, the ultrawide camera is on point, and the telephoto camera adds enormous flexibility. On top of all that, there’s a consistent look and feel across all of these sensors.

The Pixel 10 Pro’s color science still favors more natural colors as opposed to lots of contrast, but I think Google struck a good balance this year. I wouldn’t say no to a bit more pop, but I certainly don’t notice my pictures being horribly washed out like we saw with the Pixel 9 Pro. This is a really fantastic camera system, and it’s one I can’t wait to keep shooting with.

Just as cameras are a pillar for Google Pixel phones, the same can be said of software. There are plenty of highs for the Pixel 10 Pro’s software experience, and it’s still one of my favorite reasons to use a Pixel over a competing Android phone. However, that’s mainly due to exisitng Pixel features, rather than any of the new ones added this year.

The best new thing about the Pixel 10 Pro’s software is that it ships with Android 16 QPR1. This is the version of Android 16 that’s been redesigned with Material 3 Expressive, and it feels phenomenal on Google’s latest Pixel. The redesigned Quick Settings panel is outstanding, the big buttons/toggles across the interface look great, and animations and haptic feedback have never been better. I’ve been a fan of this software since Android 16 QPR1 Beta 1, and it absolutely shines on the Pixel 10 Pro.

The Pixel 10 Pro does introduce some features we didn’t see in those earlier betas, and some of them are really cool. Screen Saver, for example, turns the Pixel 10 Pro into a miniature smart display when it’s charging, and it’s been such a fun new addition. I also love the new Take a Message feature in the Phone app, which shows voicemail transcripts on the Home page and makes managing missed calls so much easier.

Unfortunately, I don’t feel nearly as positive about this year’s biggest new Pixel feature: Magic Cue. Magic Cue is supposed to proactively show you information when it thinks you need it. For example, if someone texts you asking if you have the address for dinner tonight, Magic Cue can find that information in your calendar, email, or other text messages and automatically surface it for you. It sounds great on paper, but in practice, it’s been pretty disappointing.

In one instance, my partner texted me, “When is our flight on Friday?” Magic Cue quickly suggested sending them our flight time, but the problem is that it pulled our return flight info for the following Monday. Furthermore, all Magic Cue suggested sending was the date and time of the flight — no confirmation number, airport info, or anything of the sort.

I also tried getting Magic Cue to appear during phone calls, but those efforts were equally disappointing. While calling Delta’s customer support number, Magic Cue once showed flight confirmation details for a flight I had just completed a couple of days previously, despite me having another upcoming flight in November. When I tried calling Delta a few days later, Magic Cue simply didn’t show anything.

I’ve been similarly let down by Daily Hub. Daily Hub is accessible at the top of your Google Discover page, and it’s also supposed to show relevant info throughout the day as you need it. But just like Magic Cue, the execution isn’t there.

One day, for example, Daily Hub surfaced a calendar entry I made for a concert later that night. That’s fine, but it would have been infinitely more helpful to have seen the confirmation email with my tickets for said concert. Similarly, on a day I was traveling, Daily Hub showed calendar events I made for my upcoming flights, but not the boarding passes I had added to Google Wallet.

Meanwhile, other content presented in Daily Hub — such as podcast/YouTube recommendations and Gemini-powered “topics of interest” — range from mediocre to laughably bad. As I write this review, I have a YouTube recommendation for a video titled “Nice girl in new style || Arabic Song || Music || Wonderful Style.” It’s entirely AI-generated and has gotten four views in the last two hours. You would think showing me videos from channels I’m subscribed to would be more helpful, but apparently not.

It’s likely that Magic Cue and Daily Hub will get better as time goes on, and I certainly hope they do. However, both features feel so clearly unfinished, to the point where I wish Google had delayed their release and introduced them a few months later in a better state. Because right now, the first impression they give isn’t encouraging.

The upside is that Google’s foundation for Pixel software is still incredibly strong, so a couple of misses don’t derail things too much. Now Playing, Direct My Call, Pixel Screenshots, Quick Tap, and other Pixel-exclusive features are all still here, and they’re just as good as ever on the Pixel 10 Pro. Furthermore, Google’s promise for seven years of Android updates remains one of the best in the industry. I’m still smitten with Google’s software experience, even if Magic Cue and Daily Hub aren’t the standout features I had hoped they might be.

As I wrap up my testing period with the Google Pixel 10 Pro, there’s a feeling I can’t quite shake. And it’s the feeling that I can’t wait to keep on using this phone well after my review is finished.

For what I want out of an Android phone, the Pixel 10 Pro checks just about every box that’s important to me. It’s compact and easy to hold, and its hardware looks and feels outstanding. Day-to-day performance is great, the display is incredible, I love using the cameras, and Google’s Pixel software remains one of my favorite ways to use Android. Throw in those built-in magnets that let me use the Pixel 10 Pro with my favorite MagSafe accessories, and Google has left me with very little to complain about.

The Pixel 10 Pro may be an equally great fit for you, too, but before you rush out and buy it, it’s important to consider the alternatives first.

For some people, it might make sense to save $200 and buy the base model Google Pixel 10 ($799 at Amazon) instead. You’re sacrificing camera quality across all sensors, less RAM, some minor display compromises, and some hardware differences — namely, a glossy glass back instead of the frosted matte finish you get on the Pro. I think that’s all worth the extra money, but if you want most of the Pixel 10 Pro experience without spending $1,000, the Pixel 10 is a really fantastic alternative.

Additionally, if the Pixel 10 Pro’s battery life and performance shortcomings are too significant for you to overlook, you’re better off with a phone like the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra ($1299.99 at Amazon) or OnePlus 13 ($899.99 at OnePlus). Those phones come with their own quirks, whether it’s less comfortable designs or limited software updates, but those may be trade-offs you’re willing to make.

As someone who’s less concerned about toppling benchmark numbers and is more impressed by the end-user experience, the Pixel 10 Pro is almost everything I was hoping for. It’s not the most thrilling or exciting Google Pixel release we’ve ever seen, but that doesn’t stop it from being one of the best Android phones available in 2025 — and the Android phone I’m going to keep using for the foreseeable future.