Google Pixel 10 Pro XL hands-on preview: putting “smart” in smartphone

Yes, the new processor is a big deal, now built on a 3 nm process and giving us a 30% performance bump over last year’s model. What else is good? And is the Pixel 10 Pro XL worth your time, attention, and ultimately — money?

Our full review is pending, but we did have a generous amount of hands-on time with them. So, here’s what we have so far:

Table of Contents:

Pixel 10 Pro XL Specs

Google’s newest and best!

Let’s start with an overview of the Pixel 10 XL specs, and how it compares to its predecessor:

Pixel 10 Pro XL Design and Display

Revenge of the Tri-clops

Is this bad? Not really, the build looks and feels nice. Premium materials, solid feel in the hand, soft touch thanks to the slightly rounded corners, and no wobble when it’s laid on a table, thanks to the full camera bar. The buttons are not wobbly, and are quite clicky, even if travel time is a bit shallow.

No extra controls on board — you’ve got a sleep/assistant button and volume rocker, nothing else.

Pixels typically come in at least one interesting color. This year, it has to be the duo-tone Jade for the Pixel 10 Pro XL, which mixes a gold frame with a green back. The other color options are Moonstone (gray), Porcelain (beige-ish off-white), and Obsidian (black). 

It all sounds great and looks great in person, and we will give you more specific numbers when we get the Pixels through our measuring tools!

For biometrics, we have the familiar combo — an optical under-screen fingerprint scanner and face unlock with the selfie camera. Reminder here that Google’s Android fork utilizes AI for extra security on the face unlock. Supposedly, it’s so good that it can be used for financial and banking apps, all without extra infrared sensors for the selfie camera.

Pixel 10 Pro XL Camera

Optics created with smoke and mirrors

Not much has changed with the hardware of the cameras. We have the familiar 50 MP main camera, 48 MP ultra-wide, and 48 MP zoom camera with a 5x periscope lens. But Google did improve the brains behind it all. With new algorithms, and specifically a new Super Res Zoom. 

Last year’s Pixel 9 Pro XL has a 30x zoom cap. Now, Google joins the magnification wars — the new Pixel 10 Pros go up to 100x with the help of AI. And its enhancement capabilities are impressive, indeed — a couple of samples can be seen below:

In general, nothing unexpected. We can see the typical grounded Pixel colors, wide dynamic range, and a pinch of oversharpening. We’ll be putting the Pixels through our elaborate camera benchmark soon enough.

Video Quality

Video also comes out exceptionally sharp and with realistic colors. It’s also stable-ish… but if you need extra-smooth footage, you can engage Active Mode for some true magic. Unfortunately, you have to sacrifice 4K to do so.

Pixel 10 Pro XL Performance & Benchmarks

Welcome to the 3nm lane!

Google’s Tensor chip was never about raw horsepower, and Google hasn’t advertised it as such. It’s about the extra NPU cores and image processing cores, which take care of the extra AI features and Google’s amazing HDR algorithms.

That said, it’s still a bit weird to have a flagship phone, which lags behind the competition in productivity benchmarks. All Tensors thus far have fallen behind the leading Snapdragons and Apple A chips in their respective generations.

CPU benchmarks confirm a 15-30% boost over last year’s model, depending on whether you are looking at single- or multi-core performance. However, it’s still not enough to touch the modern competitors — needs another 30% boost.

To be fair, we have no complaints about the performance of Pixel phones — they are very well optimized and feel super-fast and responsive. However, they don’t score any bragging rights when running raw benchmarks.

GPU Performance

Google did talk up the new GPU inside the Tensor G5, and we see a good 25-30% increase here as well. Something to note — yes, the “Highest score” of the Pixel 10 Pro XL is well below the competition. But these scores are not sustainable — most phones always throttle down within one cycle of 3DMark Extreme Stress test. So, looking at the “Lowest” scores — the Tensor G5 is not that far off the competition here. Or is that copium?

Pixel 10 Pro XL Software

The big selling point for the new Pixels is Magic Cue — the phone is constantly aware about what’s on your screen, specifically when viewing emails and texts. If someone asks you something and the relative information is within your emails, past messages, calendar, or pictures gallery — Magic Cue AI will find it and suggest an accurate one-tap reply. Google says this is all done on-device, as security is of course a concern here, and it’s probably why it’ll be exclusive to Pixel 10 phones and above. The new Tensor G5’s power, supposedly, makes it possible.

There’s also the new ability to AI-edit photos with just a voice prompt. Like, ask Photos to “remove the glare and make the sky blue” and it should do so. It is yet unknown if this is a Pixel 10-exclusive feature of it will travel back to older flagships.

We now get Pixel Journal, like the Journal that Apple added to iOS — a book where you can write down experiences, ideas, moods, and day-to-day shenanigans. Of course, the Pixel will use AI to sort and sift through them easier. 

Gemini Live will now be able to use your camera. So, it’s a conversational assistant that will now also be able to be fed further visual context for your queries.

Recorder should also now be able to generate AI music just from you humming into it. Which may sound grotesque — either as an idea in general, or the actual music output itself.

The Pixel 10 Pro XL did not grow in size, yet it managed to upgrade the battery capacity, even if it’s a slight improvement. Now, at 5,200 mAh, it’s a pretty respectable cell. We’ll have to see how long it lasts through our battery tests, as the Tensor G5’s efficiency will play a role here as well.

There are two big upgrades when it comes to charging, however. Via USB-C, the Pixel 10 Pro XL can now be charged with a 45 W power brick. It now has magnets inside to fully support the Qi2 standard, which dictates that a phone should be able to stick to and perfectly align with the coil of a Qi2 charging puck.

Pixel 10 Pro XL: should you buy it now?

OK, so what are the big upgrades here? A notably more powerful processor, and a truly impressive 100x zoom. Probably a couple of exclusive AI features, too.

We’d suggest to hold off on the pre-order right now to see final results after all the benchmarks and reviews have been completed. And also, keep an eye on Android 16 updates for the Pixel 9 line.

The Pixel 10 Pro XL is not that much different than the Pixel 9 Pro XL. And, if the latter gets the most features of Android 16 — you may be able to get away with purchasing (or keeping) the older model!

That said, the Jade Pixel 10 Pro XL looks lovely…