I love the Pixel 10, but I wish it had these 5 features

I’m what you might call the “Pixel guy” around here. When the Google Pixel 10 series launched, I was, as you can imagine, pretty excited. And for good reason! These are fantastic phones. From the standard Pixel 10 to the Pixel 10 Pro XL and even to the outrageously expensive Pixel 10 Pro Fold, Google has delivered a lineup that is refined, intelligent, and a joy to use.

I’ve already bought the Pixel 10 Pro, and I have a strong feeling it will be my pick for the best phone of 2025. But as much as I love it, I can’t shake the feeling that something’s missing. Actually, five somethings are missing.

Essentially, these are the features Google could have included but chose to skip. They aren’t dealbreakers for me, personally. However, they represent missed opportunities — chances for Google to not just compete, but to truly lead the pack.

So, let’s dive into the five features I desperately wish the Pixel 10 had. Maybe, just maybe, someone at Google is taking notes for the Pixel 11.

Let’s start with the single most important aspect of any portable electronic device: battery life. My phone, my laptop, my smartwatch — I want every gadget in my life to last as long as possible so I’m not constantly tethered to a wall outlet. That’s why the first thing on my wishlist is something that sounds like it’s straight out of a chemistry lesson: silicon-carbon batteries.

For the better part of 30 years, our phones have relied on rechargeable lithium-ion batteries. It’s a proven technology that’s relatively cheap and efficient. But the industry is on the cusp of a major shift. Huge advancements have been made with a new battery chemistry that uses silicon-carbon, and it offers two game-changing advantages.

First, silicon-carbon batteries can store significantly more energy in the same amount of space. For example, a silicon-carbon battery that’s the same size as a 5,000mAh lithium-ion cell could hold around 6,000mAh today, with the potential for even greater density as the technology matures. That would translate to a massive leap in endurance for the Pixel 10.

The second advantage is the flip side of the same coin: you could make the battery much smaller without sacrificing capacity. You could fit 5,000mAh of energy into a battery a fraction of the size of its lithium-ion equivalent. This would allow engineers to design thinner and lighter phones without compromising on battery life, or use the reclaimed internal space for other components, like bigger camera sensors or better cooling systems.

This isn’t some far-fetched, futuristic tech, either — it’s already here. The OnePlus 13 has a silicon-carbon battery as does the Nothing Phone 3. These are real products you can buy right now, which proves Google could have implemented this technology in the Pixel 10 series. So, why didn’t it?

I don’t work for Google, so I can only speculate, but my best guess is caution. Google, much like Samsung and Apple (who also haven’t adopted the tech), is likely waiting for the technology to mature. It’s probably letting smaller, more agile companies like OnePlus and Nothing be the guinea pigs. If these new batteries degrade significantly faster than lithium-ion cells, Google would want to know that before putting them in millions of flagship phones. It’s a safe strategy, but it’s also a deeply conservative one that keeps Pixels a step behind the competition on a feature that matters to literally every single user.

I do want to point out that Google did increase the battery capacities of every Pixel 10 phone, and I appreciate that momentum. I was just really hoping the Pixel 10 would be the phone to make a generational leap in battery life. I’m keeping my fingers crossed for the Pixel 11.

Even with the best battery in the world, you’ll eventually need to plug your phone in. And for a long, long time, Google’s Pixel phones have been some of the slowest-charging devices on the market.

To be fair, Google has made progress. The Pixel 10 series charges faster than any previous Pixel, with the top-tier Pixel 10 Pro XL finally matching the charging speed of the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra. That’s a step in the right direction, but it’s still lagging far behind the rest of the Android world, sometimes to an embarrassing degree.

Let’s go back to the OnePlus 13. Here in the US, it charges nearly three times as fast as the Pixel 10, Pixel 10 Pro, and Pixel 10 Pro Fold. It’s also almost twice as fast as the Pixel 10 Pro XL. The Nothing Phone 3 also leaves every single Pixel 10 model in the dust. Heck, even the 2025 Motorola Moto G Stylus — a phone that costs just $400 — charges faster than any phone in Google’s flagship lineup.

Frankly, that’s just not good enough. Google is one of the richest companies in the world and it designs its own chips and operating system. It should be at the forefront of charging technology, not trailing budget phones. Fast charging is a universally appreciated feature; it’s a quality-of-life improvement that saves people time and reduces anxiety. Why wouldn’t Google want to offer the best possible experience to its customers?

Again, I’m left to speculate, but my running theory can be summed up in one word: Apple. For the past few years, it seems Google’s benchmark for charging speed isn’t its Android rivals, but the iPhone. In 2024, the Pixel 9 series charged just a little bit faster than the iPhone 15 series. Now, with the iPhone 16 models getting a slight speed bump, the Pixel 10 series has followed suit with a nearly identical bump. It feels like Google’s product managers believe that whatever is good enough for an iPhone user must be good enough for a Pixel user.

I sincerely hope Google breaks out of this mindset. It needs to stop looking over its shoulder at Apple and start competing with its actual peers in the Android ecosystem. Right now, with the notable exception of Samsung, virtually every major Android manufacturer offers phones that charge at least twice as fast as a Pixel. That’s a gap that needs to close, and fast.

One of the most significant upgrades for the Pixel 10 series was the new Tensor G5 processor. For the everyday things you do on a phone — launching apps, scrolling through social media, and especially processing on-device AI and computational photography — Tensor G5 is a beast. It’s noticeably faster and more power-efficient than any Tensor chip before it.

However, there’s one area where the Tensor G5 is disappointingly stagnant: gaming. While our data shows a nice boost in GPU performance at the beginning of a gaming session, it quickly throttles and flattens out to about the same level as older Pixels. The sustained performance just isn’t there for graphically intensive games.

This all comes down to a clear lack of investment in the GPU. It seems Google decided to pour all its resources into making Tensor G5 a champion of AI and everyday tasks while leaving the graphics processor as an afterthought. Maybe Google’s data shows that hardcore mobile gamers aren’t buying Pixels anyway, so why bother catering to them? Or perhaps a major GPU upgrade would have driven up the cost of the phone, something Google wanted to avoid.

Whatever the reason, the outcome is a phone that is brilliant for almost everything except serious gaming. As someone who isn’t a huge mobile gamer, this doesn’t personally affect me much. But I love Pixel phones, and I want as many people as possible to love them, too. There are millions of potential customers who immediately write off the entire Pixel lineup simply because it can’t compete with other flagships when it comes to gaming.

I’m hoping Google beefs up the GPU not for me, but for the platform as a whole. I want people to be able to confidently buy a Pixel and know it can handle the most demanding games on the Play Store. With Tensor G5, we’re just not there yet.

Year after year, Google comes up with new and inventive software features to encourage us to take more photos and videos. With the Pixel 10 series, we have Camera Coach, an AI-powered tool that gives you real-time instructions on how to frame better shots. We have Auto Best Take, which can capture a burst of up to 150 photos to ensure everyone in a group photo looks their best. The improved image stabilization on the Pro models makes it easier than ever to record silky-smooth video.

Clearly, Google wants us to create more content than ever before. The problem? It hasn’t given us more space to store it.

Way back in 2020, Google launched the Pixel 4a, which was its first phone to feature a base storage configuration of 128GB. In the five years since, that number hasn’t changed. Here we are in 2025, and the base models of the Pixel 10 and Pixel 10 Pro still start with a meager 128GB of storage.

Yes, Google did finally eliminate the 128GB tier for the Pixel 10 Pro XL, which now starts at 256GB. But it’s still charging the same eye-watering $1,199 for it. The same goes for the $1,799 Pixel 10 Pro Fold. Offering more storage while keeping the price sky-high isn’t exactly a consumer-friendly move.

I really wish the standard Pixel 10 and Pixel 10 Pro started at 256GB. These are not cheap phones, and NAND flash storage is one of the more affordable components inside a modern smartphone. Bumping the base storage wouldn’t have cut into Google’s profit margins by too much, but it would have generated an immense amount of goodwill from Pixel fans and prospective buyers. It’s a simple, easy win that Google continues to ignore.

I was holding out hope that 2025 would be the year Google finally made the jump. I guess we’ll need to wait until 2026. Maybe.

Imagine this: you’ve saved up for months for a big international trip. You land in a beautiful new country, download a local eSIM, and find you have a full-strength signal. But when you try to make a phone call, it doesn’t go through. This isn’t because of a technical issue, but because Google has arbitrarily decided your phone shouldn’t be allowed to make calls in that country.

This is the frustrating reality for Pixel users in many parts of the world, and it’s completely unacceptable.

The issue revolves around a technology called Voice over LTE, or VoLTE. When you’re not on Wi-Fi, this is how your phone handles voice calls over modern 4G networks. The problem is that Google only enables VoLTE support in countries where Pixel phones are officially sold. If you take your Pixel to a country where it isn’t sold, it might not be able to make calls on the local LTE networks. In the past, this wasn’t a huge deal because the phone could simply fall back to older networks. But many countries have already shut down their 3G networks, with more following every year.

This means if you travel to a country like South Africa or Indonesia — neither of which sells Pixels and both of which have fully decommissioned their 3G infrastructure — your phone literally cannot make or receive cellular calls. I ran into this problem myself on a vacation to Brazil in 2024. As the country phases out its 3G networks, making calls became a frustrating game of chance.

This is also a huge slap in the face to the most dedicated Pixel fans — people who live in unsupported countries and go through the hassle and expense of importing a phone. How does Google reward their loyalty? By crippling their device’s most basic function. It’s baffling. And before you say this is a complex regulatory issue, it’s not. An Android Authority investigation confirmed that Google could, if it wanted to, enable universal VoLTE support. It simply chooses not to.

As I said at the start, I love my Pixel 10 Pro. It’s a phenomenal device that I’ll happily use for the next year. But loving a product doesn’t mean ignoring its flaws. These five omissions are holding the Pixel lineup back from its true potential.

They represent a pattern of conservative, iterative decision-making from a company that should be pushing the envelope. I want Google to be bold. I want them to lead, not just follow Apple or play catch-up with the rest of the Android world.

So, Google, if you’re reading this, please take some notes. The Pixel 10 is great, but the Pixel 11 could be legendary.

But now I want to know what you think. What features do you wish the Pixel 10 series had? What’s on your wishlist for future Pixel phones? Let me know down in the comments.