Google has formally announced the Pixel 10, 10 Pro, and 10 Pro XL, and their hardware upgrades can be summed up in two letter/number combinations: G5 and Qi2. Otherwise, there’s not much to see on the outside of the phones. They mostly cost the same as last year’s devices — $799 for the Pixel 10, $999 for the 10 Pro, and $1,199 for the 256GB 10 Pro XL, though Google got rid of the cheaper 128GB Pro XL variant. They also look an awful lot like last year’s phones, with a few specs tweaked here and there. But we got a look at some of the new features running on these phones, including — you guessed it — a bunch of AI stuff, and there’s just a whole lot more going on than meets the eye.
But let’s start with those top-line updates. In each of these phones is the new Tensor G5 chipset, the first one made by TSMC after four generations of Samsung-made, Google-customized silicon. Google says the CPU is on average 34 percent faster than Tensor G4’s, and claims a 60 percent performance increase for on-device AI tasks handled by the TPU. On-device AI is a real theme across the Pixel 10’s new features, which we’ll get to in a minute.
The Pro colors aren’t as bright because these phones are Professionals and very serious. Photo: Allison Johnson / The Verge The standard-issue Pixel 10 gets to have more fun. Photo: Allison Johnson / The Verge
Then there’s the long-awaited Qi2 charging support. With apologies to the HMD Skyline, we haven’t seen a major Android OEM offer proper Qi2 on a phone until now. That includes the MagSafe-esque ring of magnets on the back panel, which Google is introducing as Pixelsnap. Google will offer a couple of its own accessories at launch: a magnetic stand charger with a detachable wireless charging puck, plus a ring-type grip that also acts as a stand. There are roughly nine million different Magsafe accessories on the market that the Pixel 10 will be compatible with, too. The regular 10 and the 10 Pro will charge at up to 15W with a Qi2 charger, but only the 10 Pro XL supports the top Qi2.2 wireless charging speed of 25W.
There’s good and bad news for the regular Pixel 10. The bad: instead of sharing the 10 Pro’s big 50-megapixel main camera sensor as it has in previous years, the regular 10 makes do with a smaller sensor borrowed from the budget-friendly Pixel 9A. It’s a 48-megapixel 1/2”-type sensor, compared to the 50-megapixel 1/1.3”-type sensor that’s now reserved for the 10 Pro and 10 Pro XL. The Pixel 10 also gets the 9A’s 13-megapixel ultrawide, while the Pro phones get a bigger 48-megapixel sensor. But the good news is that it has a proper telephoto lens for the first time, though again, its 5x camera is a step down from the hardware offered on the Pro phones. Win some, lose some.
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