GSMArena Team, 06 September 2025

Google Pixel 10 Pro review

6. Competition, verdict, pros and cons

Competition

The Pixel 10 Pro starts at $1000/€1100, which sounds like serious high-end smartphone money, give or take. The vanilla Pixel 10 goes for $200/€200 less, the 10 Pro XL asks $200/€200 more, while the previous generation Pro's pricing is more of a moot point, but it's safe to say it's somewhat cheaper.

Pixel 10 Pro (left) next to Pixel 10

Compared to this year's vanilla 10, the 10 Pro is easily the better cameraphone and it's perhaps worth paying the premium for that. Alternatively, you could look to the 10 Pro XL for what is the same experience as on the 10 Pro non-XL, only larger. Against last year's Pro things are less clearcut - the new telephoto focuses closer, but is there a whole lot more to it?

Google Pixel 10 • Google Pixel 10 Pro XL • Google Pixel 9 Pro

Samsung's lineup is structured differently and they don't really have a truly compact capable cameraphone. They do have a truly compact phone, the Galaxy S25 being smaller in every direction and significantly lighter (45g is a massive difference), not to mention significantly cheaper. It's probably not all that much worse as a cameraphone either. On the other hand is the Galaxy S25 Ultra, which should be a better cameraphone than the Pixel 10 Pro, and it's even less expensive in Europe, though you might have to spend more for it in the US than the price of a Pixel 10 Pro. The Ultra is thoroughly capable outside of its camera prowess, but it's also properly huge.

The next obvious alternative is the iPhone Pro. Which one, you ask - the one that's round the corner or the one that's a year-old? Either one, really. The 16 Pro costs just as much as the 10 Pro in the US and is a bit pricier in Europe (but not necessarily too much pricier) and is in many ways the same thing, only from the other side of the OS divide - so maybe ecosystem considerations are more important here than anything else. The 17 Pro will be that, but newer.

Samsung Galaxy S25 • Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra • Apple iPhone 16 Pro • Apple iPhone 17 Pro

Verdict

The Pixel 10 Pro doesn't bring a whole lot of improvements, instead iterating on what was sort of a good overall package. Predictably (no need to kid ourselves with unrealistic expectations), some classic Google pain points haven't been addressed - charging remains unacceptably slow, battery life isn't competitive, the chipset is behind the curve and throttles like few others. This year the phone is also heavier.

The Pixels aren't really moving forward much in terms of camera hardware, and they're outspecced by Chinese makers (and outperformed too). There's a glimmer of hope in the improved closeup shooting this year, which still remains hampered by a suboptimal camera app implementation (which is less than perfect in numerous other ways). All in all, the camera experience is reasonably nice, but it hasn't been nice enough to be the reason you'd get a Pixel for several generations now.

The super-bright displays have been a thing with Pixels lately, and the 10 Pro does score top marks there. Another hardware win is the Qi2 wireless charging with magnetic attachment capability that just might be useful for the right crowd. The wider-than-most selfies are also a welcome sight.

But it's really the software where the Pixel 10 Pro's main appeal lies. All the smoothness and attention to certain details that other makers overlook (once Google clears up all the early bugs), plus AI-based features that you can't quite get elsewhere (maybe on a Galaxy, but not really) - a Pixel phone is a showcase of the software company doing software mostly right.

It's just not particularly great value as a smartphone overall.