smartphones

Google’s Pixel 10a arrives on March 5 for $499 with specs and design of yesteryear

android, Google, pixel 10a, smartphones, Tech / Kelly Newman / February 18, 2026

It’s that time of year—a new budget Pixel phone is about to hit virtual shelves. The Pixel 10a will be available on March 5, and pre-orders go live today. The 9a will still be on sale for a while, but the 10a will be headlining Google’s store. However, you might not notice unless you keep up with the Pixel numbering scheme. This year’s A-series Pixel is virtually identical to last year’s, both inside and out.

Last year’s Pixel 9a was a notable departure from the older design language, but Google made few changes for 2026. We liked that the Pixel 9a emphasized battery capacity and moved to a flat camera bump, and this time, it’s really flat. Google says the camera now sits totally flush with the back panel. This is probably the only change you’ll be able to identify visually.

Specs at a glance: Google Pixel 9a vs. Pixel 10a
Phone	Pixel 9a	Pixel 10a
SoC	Google Tensor G4	Google Tensor G4
Memory	8GB	8GB
Storage	128GB, 256GB	128GB, 256GB
Display	1080×2424 6.3″ pOLED, 60–120 Hz, Gorilla Glass 3, 2700 nits (peak)	1080×2424 6.3″ pOLED, 60–120 Hz, Gorilla Glass 7i, 3000 nits (peak)
Cameras	48 MP primary, f/1.7, OIS; 13 MP ultrawide, f/2.2; 13 MP selfie, f/2.2	48 MP primary, f/1.7, OIS; 13 MP ultrawide, f/2.2; 13 MP selfie, f/2.2
Software	Android 15 (at launch), 7 years of OS updates	Android 16, 7 years of OS updates
Battery	5,100 mAh, 23 W wired charging, 7.5 W wireless charging	5,100 mAh, 30 W wired charging, 10 W wireless charging
Connectivity	Wi-Fi 6e, NFC, Bluetooth 5.3, sub-6 GHz 5G, USB-C 3.2	Wi-Fi 6e, NFC, Bluetooth 6.0, sub-6 GHz 5G, USB-C 3.2
Measurements	154.7×73.3×8.9 mm; 185 g	153.9×73×9 mm; 183 g

Google also says the new Pixel will have a slightly upgraded screen. The resolution, size, and refresh rate are unchanged, but peak brightness has been bumped from 2,700 nits to 3,000 nits (the same as the base model Pixel 10). Plus, the cover glass has finally moved beyond Gorilla Glass 3 to Gorilla Glass 7i, which supposedly has improved scratch and drop protection.

Google notes that more of the phone is constructed from recycled material, 100 percent for the aluminum frame and 81 percent for the plastic back. There’s also recycled gold, tungsten, cobalt, and copper inside, amounting to about 36 percent of the phone’s weight. The phone also continues to have a physical SIM slot, which was removed from the Pixel 10 series last year. The device’s USB-C 3.2 port can also charge slightly faster than the 9a (30 W versus 23 W), and wireless charging has gone from 7.5 W to 10 W. There are no Qi2 magnets inside, though.

Internally, the Pixel 10a is even more like its predecessor. Unlike past A-series phones, this one doesn’t have the latest Tensor chip—it’s sticking with the same Tensor G4 from the 9a. That’s a bummer, as the G5 was a bigger leap than most of Google’s chip upgrades. The company says it stuck with the G4 to “balance affordability and performance.”

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The first Android 17 beta is now available on Pixel devices

android, android 17, Google, smartphones, Tech / Mike M. / February 13, 2026

In short, the first Android 17 beta is chock full of things that may interest developers and modders, but there’s little in the way of user-facing changes right now.

Android 17 release schedule

Google has made some notable changes to how it releases Android updates, and Android 17 continues the trend. Like last year, there will be two Android 17 releases in 2026. The first one, coming in Q2, will be the more significant of the two. It will include a raft of new APIs, behavioral changes, and feature updates. This split release setup was implemented to better align with when major OEMs release new devices, but Android 17 availability still focuses mainly on Pixels. Google’s phones receive immediate updates, but everyone else has to wait for OEMs to roll out updates over the following weeks or months.

At the end of the year, another version (you can think of it as Android 17.1 even though Google doesn’t give it a name) will become available on supported devices. This “minor SDK release” will include some API and feature changes, but Google doesn’t have any details at this time.

Android release schedule — Credit: Google

Before we get to that, Google plans to launch a second beta release in March. The company says Beta 2 will include final APIs, allowing developers to complete testing and roll out updates. Developers will have “several months” to get that work done before the final version hits Pixels.

In 2025, Google also changed the way it updates the open source parts of Android. Rather than regular code dumps, Google now only updates the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) twice yearly, in the second and fourth quarters, when new versions are released. That makes it harder to know what to expect from upcoming versions of Android, but Google insists this is more efficient.

If you want to check out Android 17 today, you’ll need a Pixel device. It supports the Pixel 6, Pixel 7, Pixel 8, Pixel 9, and Pixel 10 generations. The Pixel tablet and original Pixel Fold are also included. Other phone makers may release beta builds in the weeks ahead, but it’s a Google-only event for now. You can opt in to get an OTA to Android 17 on the beta program website.

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Asus confirms its smartphone business is on indefinite hiatus

android, ASUS, smartphones, Tech / Shannon Garcia / January 19, 2026

An unconfirmed report early this month suggested Asus was pulling back on its smartphone plans, but the company declined to comment at the time. Asus chairman Jonney Shih has now confirmed the wind-down of its smartphone business during an event in Taiwan. Instead, Asus will focus on AI products like robots and smart glasses.

Shih addressed the company’s future plans during a 2026 kick-off event in Taiwan, as reported by Inside. “Asus will no longer add new mobile phone models in the future,” said Shih (machine translated).

So don’t expect a new Zenfone or ROG Phone from Asus in 2026. That said, very few phone buyers were keeping tabs on the latest Asus phones anyway, which is probably why Asus is throwing in the towel. Shih isn’t saying Asus won’t ever release a new phone, but the company will take an “indefinite wait-and-see” approach. Again, this is a translation and could be interpreted in multiple ways.

The Zenfone line might not be missed—its claim to fame was being slightly smaller and cheaper than competing devices, but Asus’ support and update policy were lightyears behind the market leaders. The ROG Phone line has been prominent in the gaming phone niche, offering the latest chipsets with active cooling, multiple USB-C ports, game controller accessories, blinking lights, and even a headphone jack. However, ROG Phones are even more expensive than Samsung’s flagship devices, with the most recent ROG Phone 9 Pro starting at $1,200. Apparently, the market of those who aren’t happy gaming on the latest iPhone or Samsung Galaxy is miniscule.

Existing Asus devices should continue to get updates, but Asus never took the lead there. The lavishly expensive ROG Phone 9 Pro is only guaranteed two OS updates and five years of security patches. The most recent Zenfones are also only eligible for two Android version updates, but they get just four years of security support.

A tough business

Shih’s comments imply that Asus won’t get back into the phone game unless something changes, and that’s not likely. Asus is not the first OEM to drop phone plans, and this is a continuation of a trend that has been underway for years as people upgrade phones less often.

Asus confirms its smartphone business is on indefinite hiatus Read More »

I switched to eSIM in 2025, and I am full of regret

eSIM, Google, pixel 10, smartphones, Tech / Shannon Garcia / December 29, 2025

Maybe this isn’t a good idea

Many people have had the same phone number for years—even decades at this point. These numbers aren’t just a way for people to get in touch because, stupidly, we have also settled on phone numbers as a means of authentication. Banks, messaging apps, crypto exchanges, this very website’s publishing platform, and even the carriers managing your number rely on SMS multifactor codes. And those codes aren’t even very secure.

So losing access to your phone number doesn’t just lock you out of your phone. Key parts of your digital life can also become inaccessible, and that could happen more often now due to the fungible nature of eSIMs.

Most people won’t need to move their phone number very often, but the risk that your eSIM goes up in smoke when you do is very real. Compare that to a physical SIM card, which will virtually never fail unless you damage the card. Swapping that tiny bit of plastic takes a few seconds, and it never requires you to sit on hold with your carrier’s support agents or drive to a store. In short, a physical SIM is essentially foolproof, and eSIM is not.

Obviously, the solution is not to remove multifactor authentication—your phone number is, unfortunately, too important to be unguarded. However, carriers’ use of SMS to control account access is self-defeating and virtually guarantees people are going to have bad experiences in the era of eSIM. Enshittification has truly come for SIM cards.

If this future is inevitable, there ought to be a better way to confirm account ownership when your eSIM glitches. It doesn’t matter what that is as long as SMS isn’t the default. Google actually gets this right with Fi. You can download an eSIM at any time via the Fi app, and it’s secured with the same settings as your Google account. That’s really as good as it gets for consumer security. Between Google Authenticator, passkeys, and push notifications, it’s pretty hard to get locked out of Google, even if you take advantage of advanced security features.

We gave up the headphone jack. We gave up the microSD card. Is all this worthwhile to boost battery capacity by 8 percent? That’s a tough sell.

I switched to eSIM in 2025, and I am full of regret Read More »

OnePlus 15 finally gets FCC clearance after government shutdown delay—preorders live

FCC, OnePlus, oneplus 15, smartphones, Tech / DJ Henderson / December 4, 2025

In the Ars review of the OnePlus 15, we were floored by the phone’s incredible battery life and super-fast charging. The device’s other performance characteristics are similarly speedy, as is the OnePlus way. However, the phone is also less interesting visually compared to its predecessor, and the camera is a step down compared to the OnePlus 13, which launched not even a year ago.

OnePlus 15 side — There is somehow a 7,300 mAh battery in there. Credit: Ryan Whitwam

If you’re convinced, you can get in line now. Just don’t expect the phone to show up immediately. OnePlus estimates that the first units will arrive just days before the end of 2025. On the plus side, anyone who preorders now will get a free gift. You can currently choose between the OnePlus Buds Pro 3, an AIRVOOC 50 W wireless charger (fully supported on the OnePlus 15), or one of several phone cases.

While OnePlus does make great phone cases, the earbuds are the highest value option at $180 MSRP. That’s not bad for a preorder bonus! However, OnePlus notes the freebies are only available while supplies last. You can wait for the phone to appear at other retailers, and it will eventually go on sale, but you won’t get the free earbuds.

OnePlus 15 finally gets FCC clearance after government shutdown delay—preorders live Read More »

The NPU in your phone keeps improving—why isn’t that making AI better?

AI, Artificial Intelligence, Features, generative ai, Google, NPU, smartphones, Tech / DJ Henderson / December 4, 2025

Shrinking AI for your phone is no simple matter.

The NPU in your phone might not be doing very much. Credit: Aurich Lawson | Getty Images

Almost every technological innovation of the past several years has been laser-focused on one thing: generative AI. Many of these supposedly revolutionary systems run on big, expensive servers in a data center somewhere, but at the same time, chipmakers are crowing about the power of the neural processing units (NPU) they have brought to consumer devices. Every few months, it’s the same thing: This new NPU is 30 or 40 percent faster than the last one. That’s supposed to let you do something important, but no one really gets around to explaining what that is.

Experts envision a future of secure, personal AI tools with on-device intelligence, but does that match the reality of the AI boom? AI on the “edge” sounds great, but almost every AI tool of consequence is running in the cloud. So what’s that chip in your phone even doing?

What is an NPU?

Companies launching a new product often get bogged down in superlatives and vague marketing speak, so they do a poor job of explaining technical details. It’s not clear to most people buying a phone why they need the hardware to run AI workloads, and the supposed benefits are largely theoretical.

Many of today’s flagship consumer processors are systems-on-a-chip (SoC) because they incorporate multiple computing elements—like CPU cores, GPUs, and imaging controllers—on a single piece of silicon. This is true of mobile parts like Qualcomm’s Snapdragon or Google’s Tensor, as well as PC components like the Intel Core Ultra.

The NPU is a newer addition to chips, but it didn’t just appear one day—there’s a lineage that brought us here. NPUs are good at what they do because they emphasize parallel computing, something that’s also important in other SoC components.

Qualcomm devotes significant time during its new product unveilings to talk about its Hexagon NPUs. Keen observers may recall that this branding has been reused from the company’s line of digital signal processors (DSPs), and there’s a good reason for that.

“Our journey into AI processing started probably 15 or 20 years ago, wherein our first anchor point was looking at signal processing,” said Vinesh Sukumar, Qualcomm’s head of AI products. DSPs have a similar architecture compared to NPUs, but they’re much simpler, with a focus on processing audio (e.g., speech recognition) and modem signals.

Qualcomm chip design NPU — The NPU is one of multiple components in modern SoCs. Credit: Qualcomm

As the collection of technologies we refer to as “artificial intelligence” developed, engineers began using DSPs for more types of parallel processing, like long short-term memory (LSTM). Sukumar explained that as the industry became enamored with convolutional neural networks (CNNs), the technology underlying applications like computer vision, DSPs became focused on matrix functions, which are essential to generative AI processing as well.

While there is an architectural lineage here, it’s not quite right to say NPUs are just fancy DSPs. “If you talk about DSPs in the general term of the word, yes, [an NPU] is a digital signal processor,” said MediaTek Assistant Vice President Mark Odani. “But it’s all come a long way and it’s a lot more optimized for parallelism, how the transformers work, and holding huge numbers of parameters for processing.”

Despite being so prominent in new chips, NPUs are not strictly necessary for running AI workloads on the “edge,” a term that differentiates local AI processing from cloud-based systems. CPUs are slower than NPUs but can handle some light workloads without using as much power. Meanwhile, GPUs can often chew through more data than an NPU, but they use more power to do it. And there are times you may want to do that, according to Qualcomm’s Sukumar. For example, running AI workloads while a game is running could favor the GPU.

“Here, your measurement of success is that you cannot drop your frame rate while maintaining the spatial resolution, the dynamic range of the pixel, and also being able to provide AI recommendations for the player within that space,” says Sukumar. “In this kind of use case, it actually makes sense to run that in the graphics engine, because then you don’t have to keep shifting between the graphics and a domain-specific AI engine like an NPU.”

Livin’ on the edge is hard

Unfortunately, the NPUs in many devices sit idle (and not just during gaming). The mix of local versus cloud AI tools favors the latter because that’s the natural habitat of LLMs. AI models are trained and fine-tuned on powerful servers, and that’s where they run best.

A server-based AI, like the full-fat versions of Gemini and ChatGPT, is not resource-constrained like a model running on your phone’s NPU. Consider the latest version of Google’s on-device Gemini Nano model, which has a context window of 32k tokens. That is a more than 2x improvement over the last version. However, the cloud-based Gemini models have context windows of up to 1 million tokens, meaning they can process much larger volumes of data.

Both cloud-based and edge AI hardware will continue getting better, but the balance may not shift in the NPU’s favor. “The cloud will always have more compute resources versus a mobile device,” said Google’s Shenaz Zack, senior product manager on the Pixel team.

“If you want the most accurate models or the most brute force models, that all has to be done in the cloud,” Odani said. “But what we’re finding is that, in a lot of the use cases where there’s just summarizing some text or you’re talking to your voice assistant, a lot of those things can fit within three billion parameters.”

Squeezing AI models onto a phone or laptop involves some compromise—for example, by reducing the parameters included in the model. Odani explained that cloud-based models run hundreds of billions of parameters, the weighting that determines how a model processes input tokens to generate outputs. You can’t run anything like that on a consumer device right now, so developers have to vastly scale back the size of models for the edge. Odani says MediaTek’s latest ninth-generation NPU can handle about 3 billion parameters—a difference of several orders of magnitude.

The amount of memory available in a phone or laptop is also a limiting factor, so mobile-optimized AI models are usually quantized. That means the model’s estimation of the next token runs with less precision. Let’s say you want to run one of the larger open models, like Llama or Gemma 7b, on your device. The de facto standard is FP16, known as half-precision. At that level, a model with 7 billion parameters will lock up 13 or 14 gigabytes of memory. Stepping down to FP4 (quarter-precision) brings the size of the model in memory to a few gigs.

“When you compress to, let’s say, between three and four gigabytes, it’s a sweet spot for integration into memory constrained form factors like a smartphone,” Sukumar said. “And there’s been a lot of investment in the ecosystem and at Qualcomm to look at various ways of compressing the models without losing quality.”

It’s difficult to create a generalized AI with these limitations for mobile devices, but computers—and especially smartphones—are a wellspring of data that can be pumped into models to generate supposedly helpful outputs. That’s why most edge AI is geared toward specific, narrow use cases, like analyzing screenshots or suggesting calendar appointments. Google says its latest Pixel phones run more than 100 AI models, both generative and traditional.

Even AI skeptics can recognize that the landscape is changing quickly. In the time it takes to shrink and optimize AI models for a phone or laptop, new cloud models may appear that make that work obsolete. This is also why third-party developers have been slow to utilize NPU processing in apps. They either have to plug into an existing on-device model, which involves restrictions and rapidly moving development targets, or deploy their own custom models. Neither is a great option currently.

A matter of trust

If the cloud is faster and easier, why go to the trouble of optimizing for the edge and burning more power with an NPU? Leaning on the cloud means accepting a level of dependence and trust in the people operating AI data centers that may not always be appropriate.

“We always start off with user privacy as an element,” said Qualcomm’s Sukumar. He explained that the best inference is not general in nature—it’s personalized based on the user’s interests and what’s happening in their lives. Fine-tuning models to deliver that experience calls for personal data, and it’s safer to store and process that data locally.

Even when companies say the right things about privacy in their cloud services, they’re far from guarantees. The helpful, friendly vibe of general chatbots also encourages people to divulge a lot of personal information, and if that assistant is running in the cloud, your data is there as well. OpenAI’s copyright fight with The New York Times could lead to millions of private chats being handed over to the publisher. The explosive growth and uncertain regulatory framework of gen AI make it hard to know what’s going to happen to your data.

“People are using a lot of these generative AI assistants like a therapist,” Odani said. “And you don’t know one day if all this stuff is going to come out on the Internet.”

Not everyone is so concerned. Zack claims Google has built “the world’s most secure cloud infrastructure,” allowing it to process data where it delivers the best results. Zack uses Video Boost and Pixel Studio as examples of this approach, noting that Google’s cloud is the only way to make these experiences fast and high-quality. The company recently announced its new Private AI Compute system, which it claims is just as safe as local AI.

Even if that’s true, the edge has other advantages—edge AI is just more reliable than a cloud service. “On-device is fast,” Odani said. “Sometimes I’m talking to ChatGPT and my Wi-Fi goes out or whatever, and it skips a beat.”

The services hosting cloud-based AI models aren’t just a single website—the Internet of today is massively interdependent, with content delivery networks, DNS providers, hosting, and other services that could degrade or shut down your favorite AI in the event of a glitch. When Cloudflare suffered a self-inflicted outage recently, ChatGPT users were annoyed to find their trusty chatbot was unavailable. Local AI features don’t have that drawback.

Cloud dominance

Everyone seems to agree that a hybrid approach is necessary to deliver truly useful AI features (assuming those exist), sending data to more powerful cloud services when necessary—Google, Apple, and every other phone maker does this. But the pursuit of a seamless experience can also obscure what’s happening with your data. More often than not, the AI features on your phone aren’t running in a secure, local way, even when the device has the hardware to do that.

Take, for example, the new OnePlus 15. This phone has Qualcomm’s brand-new Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, which has an NPU that is 37 percent faster than the last one, for whatever that’s worth. Even with all that on-device AI might, OnePlus is heavily reliant on the cloud to analyze your personal data. Features like AI Writer and the AI Recorder connect to the company’s servers for processing, a system OnePlus assures us is totally safe and private.

Similarly, Motorola released a new line of foldable Razr phones over the summer that are loaded with AI features from multiple providers. These phones can summarize your notifications using AI, but you might be surprised how much of it happens in the cloud unless you read the terms and conditions. If you buy the Razr Ultra, that summarization happens on your phone. However, the cheaper models with less RAM and NPU power use cloud services to process your notifications. Again, Motorola says this system is secure, but a more secure option would have been to re-optimize the model for its cheaper phones.

Even when an OEM focuses on using the NPU hardware, the results can be lacking. Look at Google’s Daily Hub and Samsung’s Now Brief. These features are supposed to chew through all the data on your phone and generate useful recommendations and actions, but they rarely do anything aside from showing calendar events. In fact, Google has temporarily removed Daily Hub from Pixels because the feature did so little, and Google is a pioneer in local AI with Gemini Nano. Google has actually moved some parts of its mobile AI experience from local to cloud-based processing in recent months.

Those “brute force” models appear to be winning, and it doesn’t hurt that companies also get more data when you interact with their private computing cloud services.

Maybe take what you can get?

There’s plenty of interest in local AI, but so far, that hasn’t translated to an AI revolution in your pocket. Most of the AI advances we’ve seen so far depend on the ever-increasing scale of cloud systems and the generalized models that run there. Industry experts say that extensive work is happening behind the scenes to shrink AI models to work on phones and laptops, but it will take time for that to make an impact.

In the meantime, local AI processing is out there in a limited way. Google still makes use of the Tensor NPU to handle sensitive data for features like Magic Cue, and Samsung really makes the most of Qualcomm’s AI-focused chipsets. While Now Brief is of questionable utility, Samsung is cognizant of how reliance on the cloud may impact users, offering a toggle in the system settings that restricts AI processing to run only on the device. This limits the number of available AI features, and others don’t work as well, but you’ll know none of your personal data is being shared. No one else offers this option on a smartphone.

Galaxy AI toggle — Samsung offers an easy toggle to disable cloud AI and run all workloads on-device. Credit: Ryan Whitwam

Samsung spokesperson Elise Sembach said the company’s AI efforts are grounded in enhancing experiences while maintaining user control. “The on-device processing toggle in One UI reflects this approach. It gives users the option to process AI tasks locally for faster performance, added privacy, and reliability even without a network connection,” Sembach said.

Interest in edge AI might be a good thing even if you don’t use it. Planning for this AI-rich future can encourage device makers to invest in better hardware—like more memory to run all those theoretical AI models.

“We definitely recommend our partners increase their RAM capacity,” said Sukumar. Indeed, Google, Samsung, and others have boosted memory capacity in large part to support on-device AI. Even if the cloud is winning, we’ll take the extra RAM.

Ryan Whitwam is a senior technology reporter at Ars Technica, covering the ways Google, AI, and mobile technology continue to change the world. Over his 20-year career, he’s written for Android Police, ExtremeTech, Wirecutter, NY Times, and more. He has reviewed more phones than most people will ever own. You can follow him on Bluesky, where you will see photos of his dozens of mechanical keyboards.

The NPU in your phone keeps improving—why isn’t that making AI better? Read More »

Google announces second Android 16 release of 2025 is heading to Pixels

AI, android, android 16, Google, Google Pixel, smartphones, Tech / Shannon Garcia / December 2, 2025

Material 3 Expressive came to Pixels earlier this year but not as part of the first Android 16 upgrade—Google’s relationship with Android versions is complicated these days. Regardless, Material 3 will get a bit more cohesive on Pixels following this update. Google will now apply Material theming to all icons on your device automatically, replacing legacy colored icons with theme-friendly versions. Similarly, dark mode will be supported across more apps, even if the devs haven’t added support. Google is also adding a few more icon shape options if you want to jazz up your home screen.

By way of functional changes, Google has added a more intuitive way of managing parental controls—you can just use the managed device directly. Parents will be able to set a PIN code for accessing features like screen time, app usage, and so on without grabbing a different device. If you want more options or control, the new on-device settings will also help you configure Google Family Link.

Android for all

No Pixel? No problem. Google has also bundled up a collection of app and system updates that will begin rolling out today for all supported Android devices.

Chrome for Android is getting an update with tab pinning, mirroring a feature that has been in the desktop version since time immemorial. The Google Messages app is also taking care of some low-hanging fruit. When you’re invited to a group chat by a new number, the app will display group information and a one-tap option to leave and report the chat as spam.

Google’s official dialer app comes on Pixels, but it’s also in the Play Store for anyone to download. If you and your contacts use Google Dialer, you’ll soon be able to place calls with a “reason.” You can flag a call as “Urgent” to indicate to the recipient that they shouldn’t send you to voicemail. The urgent label will also remain in the call history if they miss the call.

Google announces second Android 16 release of 2025 is heading to Pixels Read More »

Samsung reveals Galaxy Z TriFold with 10-inch foldable screen, astronomical price

Foldables, samsung, smartphones, Tech / Kelly Newman / December 2, 2025

Samsung has a new foldable smartphone, and it’s not just another Z Flip or Z Fold. The Galaxy Z TriFold has three articulating sections that house a massive 10-inch tablet-style screen, along with a traditional smartphone screen on the outside. The lavish new smartphone is launching this month in South Korea with a hefty price tag, and it will eventually make its way to the US in early 2026.

Samsung says it refined its Armor FlexHinge design for the TriFold. The device’s two hinges are slightly different sizes because the phone’s three panels have distinct shapes. The center panel is the thickest at 4.2 mm, and the other two are fractions of a millimeter thinner. The phone has apparently been designed to account for the varying sizes and weights, allowing the frame to fold up tight in a pocketable form factor.

Huawei’s impressive Mate XT tri-fold phones have been making the rounds online, but they’re not available in Western markets. Samsung’s new foldable looks similar at a glance, but the way the three panels fit together is different. The Mate XT folds in a Z-shaped configuration, using part of the main screen as the cover display. On Samsung’s phone, the left and right segments fold inward behind the separate cover screen. Samsung claims it has tested the design extensively to verify that the hinges will hold up to daily use for years.

Precision Engineering in Every Fold | Galaxy Z TriFold

While this does push the definition of “pocketable” for some people, the Galaxy Z TriFold is a tablet that technically fits in your pocket. When folded, it measures 12.9 mm thick, which is much more unwieldy than the Galaxy Z Fold 7‘s 8.9 mm profile. However, the TriFold is only a little thicker than Samsung’s older tablet-style foldables like the Galaxy Z Fold 6. The 1080p cover screen measures 6.5 inches, which is also quite similar to the Z Fold 7. It is very, very heavy for a phone, though, tipping the scales at 309 g.

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OnePlus 15 review: The end of range anxiety

Features, OnePlus, oneplus 15, Reviews, smartphones, Tech / Beth Washington / November 19, 2025

It keeps going and going and…

OnePlus delivers its second super-fast phone of 2025.

The OnePlus 15 represents a major design change. Credit: Ryan Whitwam

OnePlus got its start courting the enthusiast community by offering blazing-fast phones for a low price. While the prices aren’t quite as low as they once were, the new OnePlus 15 still delivers on value. Priced at $899, this phone sports the latest and most powerful Snapdragon processor, the largest battery in a mainstream smartphone, and a super-fast screen.

The OnePlus 15 still doesn’t deliver the most satisfying software experience, and the camera may actually be a step back for the company, but the things OnePlus gets right are very right. It’s a fast, sleek phone that runs for ages on a charge, and it’s a little cheaper than the competition. But its shortcomings make it hard to recommend this device over the latest from Google or Samsung—or even the flagship phone OnePlus released 10 months ago.

US buyers have time to mull it over, though. Because of the recent government shutdown, Federal Communications Commission approval of the OnePlus 15 has been delayed. The company says it will release the phone as soon as it can, but there’s no exact date yet.

A sleek but conventional design

After a few years of phones with a distinctly “OnePlus” look, the OnePlus 15 changes up the formula by looking more like everything else. The overall shape is closer to that of phones from Samsung, Apple, and Google than the OnePlus 13. That said, the OnePlus 15 is extremely well-designed, and it’s surprisingly lightweight (211g) for how much power it packs. It’s sturdy, offering full IP69K sealing, and it uses the latest Gorilla Glass Victus 2 on the screen. An ultrasonic fingerprint scanner under the display works just as well as any other flagship phone’s fingerprint unlock.

Specs at a glance: OnePlus 15
SoC	Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5
Memory	12GB, 16GB
Storage	256GB, 512GB
Display	2772 x 1272 6.78″ OLED, 1-165 Hz
Cameras	50 MP primary, f/1.8, OIS; 50 MP ultrawide, f/2.0; 50 MP 3.5x telephoto, OIS, f/2.8; 32 MP selfie, f/2.4
Software	Android 16, 4 years of OS updates, six years of security patches
Battery	7,300 mAh, 100 W wired charging (80 W with included plug), 50 W wireless charging
Connectivity	Wi-Fi 7, NFC, Bluetooth 6.0, sub-6 GHz 5G, USB-C 3.2 Gen 1
Measurements	161.4 x 76.7 x 8.1 mm; 211 g

OnePlus managed to cram a 7,300 mAh battery in this phone without increasing the weight compared to last year’s model. Flagship phones like the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra and Pixel 10 Pro XL are at 5,000 mAh or a little more, and they weigh the same or a bit more. Adding almost 50 percent capacity on top of that without making the phone ungainly is an impressive feat of engineering.

OnePlus 15 in hand — The display is big, bright, and fast. Credit: Ryan Whitwam

That said, this is still a very large phone. The OLED screen measures 6.78 inches and has a resolution of 1272 x 2772. That’s a little lower than last year’s phone, which almost exactly matched the Galaxy S25 Ultra’s 1440p screen. Even looking at the OP13 and OP15 side-by-side, the difference in display resolution is negligible. You might notice the increased refresh rate, though. During normal use, the OnePlus 15 can hit 120 Hz (or as low as 1 Hz to save power), but in supported games, it can reach 165 Hz.

While the phone’s peak brightness is a bit lower than last year’s phone (3,600 vs. 4,500 nits), that’s not the full-screen brightness you’ll see day to day. The standard high-brightness mode (HMB) rating is a bit higher at 1,800 nits, which is even better than what you’ll get on phones like the Galaxy S25 Ultra. The display is not just readable outside—it looks downright good.

OnePlus offers the phone in a few colors, but the differences are more significant than in your average smartphone lineup. The Sand Storm unit we’ve tested is a light tan color that would be impossible to anodize. Instead, this version of the phone uses a finish known as micro-arc oxidation (MAO), which is supposedly even more durable than PVD titanium. OnePlus says this is the first phone with this finish, but it’s actually wrong about that. The 2012 HTC One S also had an MAO finish that was known to chip over time. OnePlus says its take on MAO is more advanced and was tested with a device known as a nanoindenter that can assess the mechanical properties of a material with microscopic precision.

OnePlus 15 keyboard glamour shot — The OnePlus 15 looks nice, but it also looks more like everything else. It does have an IR blaster, though. Credit: Ryan Whitwam

Durability aside, the MAO finish feels very interesting—it’s matte and slightly soft to the touch but cool like bare metal. It’s very neat, but it’s probably not neat enough to justify an upgrade if you’re looking at the base model. You can only get Sand Storm with the upgraded $999 model, which has 512GB of storage and 16GB of RAM.

The Sand Storm variant also has a fiberglass back panel rather than the glass used on other versions of the phone. All colorways have the same squircle camera module in the corner, sporting three large-ish sensors. Unlike some competing devices, the camera bump isn’t too prominent. So the phone almost lies flat—it still rocks a bit when sitting on a table, but not as much as phones like the Galaxy S25 Ultra.

For years, OnePlus set itself apart with the alert slider, but this is the company’s first flagship phone to drop that feature. Instead, you get a configurable action button similar to the iPhone. By default, the “Plus Key” connects to the Plus Mind AI platform, allowing you to take screenshots and record voice notes to load them instantly into the AI. More on that later.

Alert slider and button — The Plus Key (bottom) has replaced the alert slider (top). We don’t like this. Credit: Ryan Whitwam

You can change the key to controlling ring mode, the flashlight, or several other features. However, the button feels underutilized, and the default behavior is odd. You don’t exactly need an entire physical control to take screenshots when that’s already possible by holding the power and volume down buttons like on any other phone. The alert slider will be missed.

Software and AI

The OnePlus 15 comes with OxygenOS 16, which is based on Android 16. The software is essentially the same as what you’d find on OnePlus and Oppo phones in China but with the addition of Google services. The device inherits some quirks from the Chinese version of the software, known as ColorOS. Little by little, the international OxygenOS has moved closer to the software used in China. For example, OnePlus is very invested in slick animations in OxygenOS, which can be a bit distracting at times.

Some things that should be simple often take multiple confirmation steps in OxygenOS. Case in point: Removing an app from your home screen requires a long-press and two taps, and OnePlus chose to separate icon colors and system colors in the labyrinthian theming menu. There are also so many little features vying for your attention that it takes a day or two just to encounter all of them and tap through the on-screen tutorials.

Mind Space OnePlus — Plus Mind aims to organize your data in screenshots and voice notes. Credit: Ryan Whitwam

OnePlus has continued aping the iPhone to an almost embarrassing degree with this phone. There are Dynamic Island-style notifications for Android’s live alerts, which look totally alien in this interface. The app drawer also has a category view like iOS, but the phone doesn’t know what most of our installed apps are. Thus, “Other” becomes the largest category, making this view rather useless.

OnePlus was a bit slower than most to invest in generative AI features, but there are plenty baked into the OnePlus 15. The most prominent AI feature is Mind Space, which lets you save voice notes and screenshots with the Plus Key; they become searchable after being processed with AI. This is most similar to Nothing’s Essential Space. Google’s Pixel Screenshots app doesn’t do voice, but it offers a more conversational interface that can pull information from your screens rather than just find them, which is all Mind Space can do.

While OnePlus has arguably the most capable on-device AI hardware with the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, it’s not relying on it for much AI processing. Only some content from Plus Mind is processed locally, and the rest is uploaded to the company’s Private Computing Cloud. Features like AI Writer and the AI Recorder operate entirely in the cloud system. There’s also an AI universal search feature that sends information to the cloud, but this is thankfully disabled by default. OnePlus says it has full control of these servers, noting that encryption prevents anyone else (even OnePlus itself) from accessing your data.

OnePlus apps — The categorized app drawer is bad at recognizing apps. Credit: Ryan Whitwam

So OnePlus is at least saying the right things about privacy—Google has a similar pitch for its new private AI cloud compute environment. Regardless of whether you believe that, though, there are other drawbacks to leaning so heavily on the cloud. Features that run workloads in the Private Computing Cloud will have more latency and won’t work without a solid internet connection. It also just seems like a bit of a waste not to take advantage of Qualcomm’s super-powerful on-device capabilities.

AI features on the OnePlus 15 are no more or less useful than the versions on other current smartphones. If you want a robot to write Internet comments for you, the OnePlus 15 can do that just fine. If you don’t want to use AI on your phone, you can remap the Plus Key to something else and ignore the AI-infused stock apps. There are plenty of third-party alternatives that don’t have AI built in.

OnePlus doesn’t have the best update policy, but it’s gotten better over time. The OnePlus 15 is guaranteed four years of OS updates and six years of security patches. The market leaders are Google and Samsung, which offer seven years of full support.

Performance and battery

There’s no two ways about it: The OnePlus 15 is a ridiculously fast phone. This is the first Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 device we’ve tested, and it definitely puts Qualcomm’s latest silicon to good use. This chip has eight Oryon CPU cores, with clock speeds as high as 4.6 GHz. It’s almost as fast as the Snapdragon X Elite laptop chips.

Even though OnePlus has some unnecessarily elaborate animations, you never feel like you’re waiting on the phone to catch up. Every tap is detected accurately, and app launches are near instantaneous. The Gen 5 is faster than last year’s flagship processor, but don’t expect the OnePlus 15 to run at full speed indefinitely.

In our testing, the phone pulls back 10 to 20 percent under thermal load to manage heat. The OP15 has a new, larger vapor chamber that seems to keep the chipset sufficiently cool during extended gaming sessions. That heat has to go somewhere, though. The phone gets noticeably toasty in the hand during sustained use.

The OnePlus 15 behaves a bit differently in benchmark apps, maintaining high speeds longer to attain higher scores. This tuning reveals just how much heat an unrestrained Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 can produce. After running flat-out for 20 minutes, the phone loses only a little additional speed, but the case gets extremely hot. Parts of the phone reached a scorching 130° Fahrenheit, which is hot enough to burn your skin after about 30 seconds. During a few stress tests, the phone completely closed all apps and disabled functions like the LED flash to manage heat.

The unthrottled benchmarks do set a new record. The OnePlus 15 tops almost every test—Apple’s iPhone 17 Pro eked out the only win in Geekbench single-core—Snapdragon has always fallen short in single-core throughput in past Apple-Qualcomm matchups, but it wins on multicore performance.

The Snapdragon chip uses a lot of power when it’s cranked up, but the OnePlus 15 has battery to spare. The 7,300 mAh silicon-carbide cell is enormous compared to the competition, which hovers around 5,000 mAh in other big phones. This is one of the very few smartphones that you don’t have to charge every night. In fact, making it through two or three days with this device is totally doable. And that’s without toggling on the phone’s battery-saving mode.

OnePlus also shames the likes of Google and Samsung when it comes to charging speed. The phone comes with a charger in the box—a rarity these days. This adapter can charge the phone at an impressive 80 W, and OnePlus will offer a 100 W charger on its site. With the stock charger, you can completely charge the massive battery in a little over 30 minutes. It almost doesn’t matter that the battery is so big because a few minutes plugged in gives you more than enough to head out the door. Just plug the phone in while you look for your keys, and you’re good to go. The phone also supports 50 W wireless charging with a OnePlus dock, but that’s obviously not included.

Unfortunately, only chargers and cables compatible with Oppo’s SuperVOOC system will reach these speeds. It’s nice to see one in the box because spares will cost you the better part of $100. Even if you aren’t using an official OnePlus charger/cable, a standard USB-PD plug can still hit 36 W, which is faster than phones like the Pixel 10 Pro and Galaxy S25 and about the same as the iPhone 17.

Cameras

OnePlus partnered with imaging powerhouse Hasselblad on its last several flagship phones, but that pairing is over with the launch of the OnePlus 15. The phone maker is now going it alone, swapping Hasselblad’s processing for a new imaging engine called DetailMax. The hardware is changing, too.

OnePlus 15 has new camera sensors despite featuring the same megapixel count. There’s a 50 MP primary wide-angle, a 50 MP telephoto with 3.5x effective zoom, and a 50 MP ultrawide with support for macro shots. There’s a 32 MP selfie camera peeking through the OLED as well.

Each of these sensors is physically smaller than last year’s OnePlus cameras by a small margin. That means they can’t collect as much light, but good processing can make up for minor physical changes like that. That’s the problem, though.

Taking photos with the OnePlus 15 can be frustrating because the image processing misses as much as it hits. The colors, temperature, dynamic range, and detail are not very consistent. Images taken in similar conditions of similar objects—even those taken one after the other—can have dramatically different results. Color balance is also variable across the three rear sensors.

Bright outdoor light, fast movement. Ryan Whitwam

By that token, some of the photos we’ve taken on the OnePlus 15 are great. These are usually outdoor shots, where the phone has plenty of light. It’s not bad at capturing motion in these instances, and photos are sharp as long as the frame isn’t too busy. However, DetailMax has a tendency to oversharpen, which obliterates fine details and makes images look the opposite of detailed. This is much more obvious in dim lighting, with longer exposures that lead to blurry subjects more often than not.

Adding any digital zoom to your framing is generally a bad idea on the OnePlus 15. The processing just doesn’t have the capacity to clean up those images like a Google Pixel or even a Samsung Galaxy. The telephoto lens is good for getting closer to your subject, but the narrow aperture and smaller pixels make it tough to rely on indoors. Again, outdoor images are substantially better.

Shooting landscapes with the ultrawide is a good experience. The oversharpening isn’t as apparent in bright outdoor conditions, and there’s very little edge distortion. However, the field of view is narrower than on the OnePlus 13’s ultrawide camera, so that makes sense. Macro shots are accomplished with this same lens, and the results are better than you’ll get with any dedicated macro lens on a phone. That said, blurriness and funky processing creep in often enough that backing up and shooting a normal photo can serve you better, particularly if there isn’t much light.

A tale of two flagships

The OnePlus 15 is not the massive leap you might expect from skipping a number. The formula is largely unchanged from its last few devices—it’s blazing fast and well-built, but everything else is something of an afterthought.

You probably won’t be over the moon for the OnePlus 15, but it’s a good, pragmatic choice. It runs for days on a charge, you barely have to touch it with a power cable to get a full day’s use, and it manages that incredible battery life while being fast as hell. Honestly, it’s a little too fast in benchmarks, with the frame reaching borderline dangerous temperatures. The phone might get a bit warm in games, but it will maintain frame rates better than anything else on the market, up to 165 fps in titles that support its ultra-fast screen.

OnePlus 13 and 15 — The OnePlus 13 (left) looked quite different compared to the 15 (right) Credit: Ryan Whitwam

However, the software can be frustrating at times, with inconsistent interfaces and unnecessarily arduous usage flows. OnePlus is also too dependent on sending your data to the cloud for AI analysis. You can avoid that by simply not using OnePlus’ AI features, and luckily, it’s pretty easy to avoid them.

It’s been less than a year since the OnePlus 13 arrived, but the company really wanted to be the first to get the new Snapdragon in everyone’s hands. So here we are with a second 2025 OnePlus flagship. If you have the OnePlus 13, there’s no reason to upgrade. That phone is arguably better, even though it doesn’t have the latest Snapdragon chip or an enormous battery. It still lasts more than long enough on a charge, and the cameras perform a bit better. You also can’t argue with that alert slider.

The Good

Incredible battery life and charging speed
Great display
Durable design, cool finish on Sand Storm colorway
Blazing fast

The Bad

Lots of AI features that run in the cloud
Cameras a step down from OnePlus 13
OxygenOS is getting cluttered
RIP the alert slider
Blazing hot

OnePlus 15 review: The end of range anxiety Read More »

Commercial spyware “Landfall” ran rampant on Samsung phones for almost a year

android, malware, samsung, Security, smartphones, spyware, Tech / Mike M. / November 8, 2025

Before the April 2025 patch, Samsung phones had a vulnerability in their image processing library. This is a zero-click attack because the user doesn’t need to launch anything. When the system processes the malicious image for display, it extracts shared object library files from the ZIP to run the Landfall spyware. The payload also modifies the device’s SELinux policy to give Landfall expanded permissions and access to data.

Landfall flowchart — How Landfall exploits Samsung phones. Credit: Unit 42

The infected files appear to have been delivered to targets via messaging apps like WhatsApp. Unit 42 notes that Landfall’s code references several specific Samsung phones, including the Galaxy S22, Galaxy S23, Galaxy S24, Galaxy Z Flip 4, and Galaxy Z Fold 4. Once active, Landfall reaches out to a remote server with basic device information. The operators can then extract a wealth of data, like user and hardware IDs, installed apps, contacts, any files stored on the device, and browsing history. It can also activate the camera and microphone to spy on the user.

Removing the spyware is no easy feat, either. Because of its ability to manipulate SELinux policies, it can burrow deeply into the system software. It also includes several tools that help evade detection. Based on the VirusTotal submissions, Unit 42 believes Landfall was active in 2024 and early 2025 in Iraq, Iran, Turkey, and Morocco. The vulnerability may have been present in Samsung’s software from Android 13 through Android 15, the company suggests.

Unit 42 says that several naming schemes and server responses share similarities with industrial spyware developed by big cyber-intelligence firms like NSO Group and Variston. However, they cannot directly tie Landfall to any particular group. While this attack was highly targeted, the details are now in the open, and other threat actors could now employ similar methods to access unpatched devices. Anyone with a supported Samsung phone should make certain they are on the April 2025 patch or later.

Commercial spyware “Landfall” ran rampant on Samsung phones for almost a year Read More »

OnePlus unveils OxygenOS 16 update with deep Gemini integration

AI, Artificial Intelligence, Gemini, Google, OnePlus, smartphones, Tech / Kelly Newman / October 18, 2025

The updated Android software expands what you can add to Mind Space and uses Gemini. For starters, you can add scrolling screenshots and voice memos up to 60 seconds in length. This provides more data for the AI to generate content. For example, if you take screenshots of hotel listings and airline flights, you can tell Gemini to use your Mind Space content to create a trip itinerary. This will be fully integrated with the phone and won’t require a separate subscription to Google’s AI tools.

Mind Space isn’t a totally new idea—it’s quite similar to AI features like Nothing’s Essential Space and Google’s Pixel Screenshots and Journal. The idea is that if you give an AI model enough data on your thoughts and plans, it can provide useful insights. That’s still hypothetical based on what we’ve seen from other smartphone OEMs, but that’s not stopping OnePlus from fully embracing AI in Android 16.

In addition to beefing up Mind Space, OxygenOS 16 will also add system-wide AI writing tools, which is another common AI add-on. Like the systems from Apple, Google, and Samsung, you will be able to use the OnePlus writing tools to adjust text, proofread, and generate summaries.

OnePlus will make OxygenOS 16 available starting October 17 as an open beta. You’ll need a OnePlus device from the past three years to run the software, both in the beta phase and when it’s finally released. As for that, OnePlus hasn’t offered a specific date. The initial OxygenOS 16 release will be with the OnePlus 15 devices, with releases for other supported phones and tablets coming later.

OnePlus unveils OxygenOS 16 update with deep Gemini integration Read More »

Google Pixel 10 series review: Don’t call it an Android

Features, Google, pixel 10, Reviews, smartphones, Tech / DJ Henderson / August 29, 2025

Google’s new Pixel phones are better, but only a little.

Left to right: Pixel 10, Pixel 10 Pro, Pixel 10 Pro XL. Credit: Ryan Whitwam

After 10 generations of Pixels, Google’s phones have never been more like the iPhone, and we mean that both as a compliment and a gentle criticism. For people who miss the days of low-cost, tinkering-friendly Nexus phones, Google’s vision is moving ever further away from that, but the attention to detail and overall polish of the Pixel experience continue with the Pixel 10, 10 Pro, and 10 Pro XL. These are objectively good phones with possibly the best cameras on the market, and they’re also a little more powerful, but the aesthetics are seemingly locked down.

Google made a big design change last year with the Pixel 9 series, and it’s not reinventing the wheel in 2025. The Pixel 10 series keeps the same formula, making limited refinements, not all of which will be well-received. Google pulled out all the stops and added a ton of new AI features you may not care about, and it killed the SIM card slot. Just because Apple does something doesn’t mean Google has to, but here we are. If you’re still clinging to your physical SIM card or just like your Pixel 9, there’s no reason to rush out to upgrade.

A great but not so daring design

If you liked the Pixel 9’s design, you’ll like the Pixel 10, because it’s a very slightly better version of the same hardware. All three phones are made from aluminum and Gorilla Glass Victus 2 (no titanium option here). The base model has a matte finish on the metal frame with a glossy rear panel, and it’s the opposite on the Pro phones. This makes the more expensive phones a little less secure in the hand—those polished edges are slippery. The buttons on the Pixel 9 often felt a bit loose, but the buttons on all our Pixel 10 units are tight and clicky.

Pixel 10 back all — Left to right: Pixel 10 Pro XL, Pixel 10 Pro, Pixel 10. Credit: Ryan Whitwam

Specs at a glance: Google Pixel 10 series
	Pixel 10 ($799)	Pixel 10 Pro ($999)	Pixel 10 Pro XL ($1,199)	Pixel 10 Pro Fold ($1,799)
SoC	Google Tensor G5	Google Tensor G5	Google Tensor G5	Google Tensor G5
Memory	12GB	16GB	16GB	16GB
Storage	128GB / 256GB	128GB / 256GB / 512GB	128GB / 256GB / 512GB / 1TB	256GB / 512GB / 1TB
Display	6.3-inch 1080×2424 OLED, 60-120Hz, 3,000 nits	6.3-inch 1280×2856 LTPO OLED, 1-120Hz, 3,300 nits	6.8-inch 1344×2992 LTPO OLED, 1-120Hz, 3,300 nits	External: 6.4-inch 1080×2364 OLED, 60-120Hz, 2000 nits; Internal: 8-inch 2076×2152 LTPO OLED, 1-120Hz, 3,000 nits
Cameras	48 MP wide with Macro Focus, F/1.7, 1/2-inch sensor; 13 MP ultrawide, f/2.2, 1/3.1-inch sensor; 10.8 MP 5x telephoto, f/3.1, 1/3.2-inch sensor; 10.5 MP selfie, f/2.2	50 MP wide with Macro Focus, F/1.68, 1/1.3-inch sensor; 48 MP ultrawide, f/1.7, 1/2.55-inch sensor; 48 MP 5x telephoto, f/2.8, 1/2.55-inch sensor; 42 MP selfie, f/2.2	50 MP wide with Macro Focus, F/1.68, 1/1.3-inch sensor; 48 MP ultrawide, f/1.7, 1/2.55-inch sensor; 48 MP 5x telephoto, f/2.8, 1/2.55-inch sensor; 42 MP selfie, f/2.2	48 MP wide, F/1.7, 1/2-inch sensor; 10.5 MP ultrawide with Macro Focus, f/2.2, 1/3.4-inch sensor; 10.8 MP 5x telephoto, f/3.1, 1/3.2-inch sensor; 10.5 MP selfie, f/2.2 (outer and inner)
Software	Android 16	Android 16	Android 16	Android 16
Battery	4,970 mAh, up to 30 W wired charging, 15 W wireless charging (Pixelsnap)	4,870 mAh, up to 30 W wired charging, 15 W wireless charging (Pixelsnap)	5,200 mAh, up to 45 W wired charging, 25 W wireless charging (Pixelsnap)	5,015 mAh, up to 30 W wired charging, 15 W wireless charging (Pixelsnap)
Connectivity	Wi-Fi 6e, NFC, Bluetooth 6.0, sub-6 GHz and mmWave 5G, USB-C 3.2	Wi-Fi 7, NFC, Bluetooth 6.0, sub-6 GHz and mmWave 5G, UWB, USB-C 3.2	Wi-Fi 7, NFC, Bluetooth 6.0, sub-6 GHz and mmWave 5G, UWB, USB-C 3.2	Wi-Fi 7, NFC, Bluetooth 6.0, sub-6 GHz and mmWave 5G, UWB, USB-C 3.2
Measurements	152.8 height×72.0 width×8.6 depth (mm), 204g	152.8 height×72.0 width×8.6 depth (mm), 207g	162.8 height×76.6 width×8.5 depth (mm), 232g	Folded: 154.9 height×76.2 width×10.1 depth (mm); Unfolded: 154.9 height×149.8 width×5.1 depth (mm); 258g
Colors	Indigo Frost Lemongrass Obsidian	Moonstone Jade Porcelain Obsidian	Moonstone Jade Porcelain Obsidian	Moonstone Jade

The rounded corners and smooth transitions between metal and glass make the phones comfortable to hold, even for the mammoth 6.8-inch Pixel 10 Pro XL. This phone is pretty hefty at 232 g, though—that’s even heavier than Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 7. I’m pleased that Google kept the smaller premium phone in 2025, offering most of the capabilities and camera specs of the XL in a more cozy form factor. It’s not as heavy, and the screen is a great size for folks with average or smaller hands.

On the back, you’ll still see the monolithic camera bar near the top. I like this design aesthetically, but it’s also functional. When you set a Pixel 10 down on a table or desk, it remains stable and easy to use, with no annoying wobble. While this element looks unchanged at a glance, it actually takes up a little more surface area on the back of the phone. Yes, that means none of your Pixel 9 cases will fit on the 10.

The Pixel 10’s body has fewer interruptions compared to the previous model, too. Google has done away with the unsightly mmWave window on the top of the phone, and the bottom now has two symmetrical grilles for the mic and speaker. What you won’t see is a SIM card slot (at least in the US). Like Apple, Google has gone all-in with eSIM, so if you’ve been clinging to that tiny scrap of plastic, you’ll have to give it up to use a Pixel 10.

Pixel 10 Pro XL side — The Pixel 10 Pro XL has polished sides that make it a bit slippery. Credit: Ryan Whitwam

The good news is that eSIMs are less frustrating than they used to be. All recent Android devices have the ability to transfer most eSIMs directly without dealing with the carrier. We’ve moved a T-Mobile eSIM between Pixels and Samsung devices a few times without issue, but you will need Wi-Fi connectivity, which is an annoying caveat.

Display sizes haven’t changed this year, but they all look impeccable. The base model and smaller Pro phone sport 6.3-inch OLEDs, and the Pro XL’s is at 6.8 inches. The Pixel 10 has the lowest resolution at 1080p, and the refresh rate only goes from 60–120 Hz. The 10 Pro and 10 Pro XL get higher-resolution screens with LTPO technology that allows them to go as low as 1Hz to save power. The Pro phones also get slightly brighter but all have peak brightness of 3,000 nits or higher, which is plenty to make them readable outdoors.

Pixel 10 MagSafe — The addition of Qi2 makes numerous MagSafe accessories compatible with the new Pixels. Credit: Ryan Whitwam

The biggest design change this year isn’t visible on the outside. The Pixel 10 phones are among the first Android devices with full support for the Qi2 charging standard. Note, this isn’t just “Qi2 Ready” like the Galaxy S25. Google’s phones have the Apple-style magnets inside, allowing you to use many of the chargers, mounts, wallets, and other Apple-specific accessories that have appeared over the past few years. Google also has its own “Pixelsnap” accessories, like chargers and rings. And yes, the official Pixel 10 cases are compatible with magnetic attachments. Adding something Apple has had for years isn’t exactly innovative, but Qi2 is genuinely useful, and you won’t get it from other Android phones.

Expressive software

Google announced its Material 3 Expressive overhaul earlier this year, but it wasn’t included in the initial release of Android 16. The Pixel 10 line will ship with this update, marking the biggest change to Google’s Android skin in years. The Pixel line has now moved quite far from the “stock Android” aesthetic that used to be the company’s hallmark. The Pixel build of Android is now just as customized as Samsung’s One UI or OnePlus’ OxygenOS, if not more so.

Pixel 10 Material 3 — Material 3 Expressive adds more customizable quick settings. Credit: Ryan Whitwam

The good news is that Material 3 looks very nice. It’s more colorful and playful but not overbearing. Some of the app concepts shown off during the announcement were a bit much, but the production app redesigns Google has rolled out since then aren’t as heavy-handed. The Material colors are used more liberally throughout the UI, and certain UI elements will be larger and more friendly. I’ll take Material 3 Expressive over Apple’s Liquid Glass redesign any day.

I’ve been using a pre-production version of the new software, but even for early Pixel software, there have been more minor UI hitches than expected. Several times, I’ve seen status bar icons disappear, app display issues, and image edits becoming garbled. There are no showstopping bugs, but the new software could do with a little cleaning up.

The OS changes are more than skin-deep—Google has loaded the Pixel 10 series with a ton of new AI gimmicks aimed at changing the experience (and justifying the company’s enormous AI spending). With the more powerful Tensor G5 to run larger Gemini Nano on-device models, Google has woven AI into even more parts of the OS. Google’s efforts aren’t as disruptive or invasive as what we’ve seen from other Android phone makers, but that doesn’t mean the additions are useful.

It would be fair to say Magic Cue is Google’s flagship AI addition this year. The pitch sounds compelling—use local AI to crunch your personal data into contextual suggestions in Maps, Messages, phone calls, and more. For example, it can prompt you to insert content into a text message based on other messages or emails.

Despite having a mountain of personal data in Gmail, Keep, and other Google apps, I’ve seen precious few hints of Magic Cue. It once suggested a search in Google Maps, and on another occasion, it prompted an address in Messages. If you don’t use Google’s default apps, you might not see Magic Cue at all. More than ever before, getting the most out of the Pixel means using Google’s first-party apps, just like that other major smartphone platform.

Pixel 10 AI — Google is searching for more ways to leverage generative AI. Credit: Ryan Whitwam

Google says it can take about a day after you set up the Pixel 10 before Magic Cue will be done ingesting your personal data—it takes that long because it’s all happening on your device instead of in the cloud. I appreciate Google’s commitment to privacy in mobile AI because it does have access to a huge amount of user data. But it seems like all that data should be doing more. And I hope that, in time, it does. An AI assistant that anticipates your needs is something that could actually be useful, but I’m not yet convinced that Magic Cue is it.

It’s a similar story with Daily Hub, an ever-evolving digest of your day similar to Samsung’s Now Brief. You will find Daily Hub at the top of the Google Discover feed. It’s supposed to keep you abreast of calendar appointments, important emails, and so on. This should be useful, but I rarely found it worth opening. It offered little more than YouTube and AI search suggestions.

Meanwhile, Pixel Journal works as advertised—it’s just not something most people will want to use. This one is similar to Nothing’s Essential Space, a secure place to dump all your thoughts and ideas throughout the day. This allows Gemini Nano to generate insights and emoji-based mood tracking. Cool? Maybe this will inspire some people to record more of their thoughts and ideas, but it’s not a game-changing AI feature.

If there’s a standout AI feature on the Pixel 10, it’s Voice Translate. It uses Gemini Nano to run real-time translation between English and a small collection of other languages, like Spanish, French, German, and Hindi. The translated voice sounds like the speaker (mostly), and the delay is tolerable. Beyond this, though, many of Google’s new Pixel AI features feel like an outgrowth of the company’s mandate to stuff AI into everything possible. Pixel Screenshots might still be the most useful application of generative AI on the Pixels.

As with all recent Pixel phones, Google guarantees seven years of OS and security updates. That matches Samsung and far outpaces OEMs like OnePlus and Motorola. And unlike Samsung, Google phone updates arrive without delay. You’ll get new versions of Android first, and the company’s Pixel Drops add new features every few months.

Modest performance upgrade

The Pixel 10 brings Google’s long-awaited Tensor G5 upgrade. This is the first custom Google mobile processor manufactured by TSMC rather than Samsung, using the latest 3 nm process node. The core setup is a bit different, with a 3.78 GHz Cortex X4 at the helm. It’s backed by five high-power Cortex-A725s at 3.05 GHz and two low-power Cortex-A520 cores at 2.25 GHz. Google also says the NPU has gotten much more powerful, allowing it to run the Gemini models for its raft of new AI features.

Pixel 10 family cameras — The Pixel 10 series keeps a familiar design. Credit: Ryan Whitwam

If you were hoping to see Google catch up to Qualcomm with the G5, you’ll be disappointed. In general, Google doesn’t seem concerned about benchmark numbers. And in fairness, the Pixels perform very well in daily use. These phones feel fast, and the animations are perfectly smooth. While phones like the Galaxy S25 are faster on paper, we’ve seen less lag and fewer slowdowns on Google’s phones.

That said, the Tensor G5 does perform better in our testing compared to the G4. The CPU speed is up about 30 percent, right in line with Google’s claims. The GPU is faster by 20–30 percent in high-performance scenarios, which is a healthy increase for one year. However, it’s running way behind the Snapdragon 8 Elite we see in other flagship Android phones.

You might notice the slower Pixel GPU if you’re playing Genshin Impact or Call of Duty Mobile at a high level, but it will be more than fast enough for most of the mobile games people play. That performance gap will narrow during prolonged gaming, too. Qualcomm’s flagship chip gets very toasty in phones like the Galaxy S25, slowing down by almost half. The Pixel 10, on the other hand, loses less than 20 percent of its speed to thermal throttling.

Say what you will about generative AI—Google’s obsession with adding more on-device intelligence spurred it to boost the amount of RAM in this year’s Pro phones. You now get 16GB in the 10 Pro and 10 Pro XL. The base model continues to muddle along with 12GB. This could make the Pro phones more future-proof as additional features are added in Pixel Drop updates. However, we have yet to notice the Pro phones holding onto apps in memory longer than the base model.

The Pixel 10 series gets small battery capacity increases across the board, but it’s probably not enough that you’ll notice. The XL, for instance, has gone from 5,060 mAh to 5,200 mAh. It feels like the increases really just offset the increased background AI processing, because the longevity is unchanged from last year. You’ll have no trouble making it through a day with any of the Pixel phones, even if you clock a lot of screen time.

With lighter usage, you can almost make it through two days. You’ll probably want to plug in every night, though. Google has an upgraded always-on display mode on the Pixel 10 phones that shows your background in full color but greatly dimmed. We found this was not worth the battery life hit, but it’s there if you want to enable it.

Charging speed has gotten slightly better this time around, but like the processor, it’s not going to top the charts. The Pixel 10 and 10 Pro can hit a maximum of 30 W with a USB-C PPS-enabled charger, getting a 50 percent charge in about 30 minutes. The Pixel 10 Pro XL’s wired charging can reach around 45 W for a 70 percent charge in half an hour. This would be sluggish compared to the competition in most Asian markets, but it’s average to moderately fast stateside. Google doesn’t have much reason to do better here, but we wish it would try.

Pixel 10 Pro XL vs. Pixel 9 Pro XL — The Pixel 10 Pro XL (left) looks almost identical to the Pixel 9 Pro XL (right). Credit: Ryan Whitwam

Wireless charging is also a bit faster, but the nature of charging is quite different with support for Qi2. You can get 15 W of wireless power with a Qi2 charger on the smaller phones, and the Pixel 10 Pro XL can hit 25 W with a Qi2.2 adapter. There are plenty of Qi2 magnetic chargers out there that can handle 15 W, but 25 W support is currently much more rare.

Post-truth cameras

Google has made some changes to its camera setup this year, including the addition of a third camera to the base Pixel 10. However, that also comes with a downgrade for the other two cameras. The Pixel 10 sports a 48 MP primary, a 13 MP ultra wide, and a 10.8 MP 5x telephoto—this setup is most similar to Google’s foldable phone. The 10 Pro and 10 Pro XL have a slightly better 50 MP primary, a 48 MP ultrawide, and a 48 MP 5x telephoto. The Pixel 10 is also limited to 20x upscaled zoom, but the Pro phones can go all the way to 100x.

Pixel 10 camera closeup — The Pixel 10 gets a third camera, but the setup isn’t as good as on the Pro phones. Credit: Ryan Whitwam

The latest Pixel phones continue Google’s tradition of excellent mobile photography, which should come as no surprise. And there’s an even greater focus on AI, which should also come as no surprise. But don’t be too quick to judge—Google’s use of AI technologies, even before the era of generative systems, has made its cameras among the best you can get.

The Pixel 10 series continues to be great for quick snapshots. You can pop open the camera and just start taking photos in almost any lighting to get solid results. Google’s HDR image processing brings out details in light and dark areas, produces accurate skin tones, and sharpens details without creating an “oil painting” effect when you zoom in. The phones are even pretty good at capturing motion, leaning toward quicker exposures while still achieving accurate colors and good brightness.

Pro phone samples:

Outdoor light. Ryan Whitwam

The Pixel 10 camera changes are a mixed bag. The addition of a telephoto lens for Google’s cheapest model is appreciated, allowing you to get closer to your subject and take greater advantage of Google’s digital zoom processing if 5x isn’t enough. The downgrade of the other sensors is noticeable if you’re pixel peeping, but it’s not a massive difference. Compared to the Pro phones, the base model doesn’t have quite as much dynamic range, and photos in challenging light will trend a bit dimmer. You’ll notice the difference most in Night Sight shots.

The camera experience has a healthy dose of Gemini Nano AI this year. The Pro models’ Pro Res Zoom runs a custom diffusion model to enhance images. This can make a big difference, but it can also be inaccurate, like any other generative system. Google opted to expand its use of C2PA labeling to mark such images as being AI-edited. So you might take a photo expecting to document reality, but the camera app will automatically label it as an AI image. This could have ramifications if you’re trying to document something important. The AI labeling will also appear on photos created using features like Add Me, which continues to be very useful for group shots.

Non-Pro samples:

Bright outdoor light. Ryan Whitwam

Google has also used AI to power its new Camera Coach feature. When activated in the camera viewfinder, it analyzes your current framing and makes suggestions. However, these usually amount to “subject goes in center, zoom in, take picture.” Frankly, you don’t need AI for this if you have ever given any thought to how to frame a photo—it’s pretty commonsense stuff.

The most Google-y a phone can get

Google is definitely taking its smartphone efforts more seriously these days, but the experience is also more laser-focused on Google’s products and services. The Pixel 10 is an Android phone, but you’d never know it from Google’s marketing. It barely talks about Android as a platform—the word only appears once on the product pages, and it’s in the FAQs at the bottom. Google prefers to wax philosophical about the Pixel experience, which has been refined over the course of 10 generations. For all intents and purposes, this is Google’s iPhone. For $799, the base-model Pixel is a good way to enjoy the best of Google in your pocket, but the $999 Pixel 10 Pro is our favorite of the bunch.

Pixel 10 flat — The Pixel 10 series retains the Pixel 9 shape. Credit: Ryan Whitwam

The design, while almost identical to last year’s, is refined and elegant, and the camera is hard to beat, even with more elaborate hardware from companies like Samsung. Google’s Material 3 Expressive UI overhaul is also shaping up to be a much-needed breath of fresh air, and Google’s approach to the software means you won’t have to remove a dozen sponsored apps and game demos after unboxing the phone. We appreciate Google’s long update commitment, too, but you’ll need at least one battery swap to have any hope of using this phone for the full support period. Google will also lower battery capacity dynamically as the cell ages, which may be frustrating, but at least there won’t be any sudden nasty surprises down the road.

These phones are more than fast enough with the new Tensor G5 chip, and if mobile AI is ever going to have a positive impact, you’ll see it first on a Pixel. While almost all Android phone buyers will be happy with the Pixel 10, there are a few caveats. If high-end mobile gaming is a big part of your smartphone usage, it might make sense to get a Samsung or OnePlus phone, with their faster Qualcomm chips. There’s also the forced migration to eSIM. If you have to swap SIMs frequently, you may want to wait a bit longer to migrate to eSIM.

Pixel 10 edge — The Pixel design is still slick. Credit: Ryan Whitwam

Buying a Pixel 10 is also something of a commitment to Google as the integrated web of products and services it is today. The new Pixel phones are coming at a time when Google’s status as an eternal tech behemoth is in doubt. Before long, the company could find itself split into pieces as a result of pending antitrust actions, so this kind of unified Google vision for a smartphone experience might not exist in the future. The software running on the Pixel 10 seven years hence may be very different—there could be a lot more AI or a lot less Google.

But today, the Pixel 10 is basically the perfect Google phone.

The good

Great design carried over from Pixel 9
Fantastic cameras, new optical zoom for base model
Material 3 redesign is a win
Long update support
Includes Qi2 with magnetic attachment
Runs AI on-device for better privacy

The bad

Tensor G5 doesn’t catch up to Qualcomm
Too many perfunctory AI features
Pixel 10’s primary and ultrawide sensors are a slight downgrade from Pixel 9
eSIM-only in the US

Google Pixel 10 series review: Don’t call it an Android Read More »