Pixelated - Pixel 10, one week later

Episode Date: August 29, 2025

Welcome to episode 67 of Pixelated, a podcast by 9to5Google. This week, Abner, Damien, and Will reconvene after a week with the Pixel 10, Pixel 10 Pro, and Pixel 10 Pro XL to talk about their respective experiences. These three phones might look familiar, but between Tensor G5, Magic Cue and Daily Hub, and Pixelsnap, there's plenty to break down. Subscribe YouTube Podcasts Pocket Casts Spotify Apple Podcasts Overcast Sponsored by Gadget Salvation: Check out gadgetsalvation.com/9to5mac, featuring a smarter way to trade in your used tech for instant cash. Get a quote in seconds, ship for free, and choose how you want to get paid—all while giving your electronics a second life. Plus, use code GADGET10 at checkout to boost your payout by 10%. Thanks to Gadget Salvation for sponsoring! Gadget Salvation on Twitter Gadget Salvation on Facebook Timecodes 00:00 - Initial Pixel 10 reviews 11:02 - Tensor G5 22:08 - UFS 4.0 performance 25:28 - Magic Cue 29:31 - Daily Hub 40:08 - Pixelsnap 49:14 - Color choices 57:19 - Wrap-up Hosts Abner Li Damien Wilde Will Sattelberg Read more Google Pixel 10 Initial Review: Constrained, concise, costly upgrades [Video] Google Pixel 10 Pro Initial Review: How to build an AI* phone Pixel 10 Pro XL vs. iPhone 16 Pro Max: Has Google closed the gap? [Video] Listen to more 9to5 Podcasts The Sideload 9to5Mac Happy Hour Electrek Space Explored Feedback? Drop us a line at [e-mail], leave a comment on the post, or reach out to our producer.

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Thanks to Gadget Salvation for sponsoring. Jents, we have had a busy couple of days. You can probably tell in the sound of my voice that I'm very, very drained and don't feel 100%. But we have 100% seen, used, played with, enjoyed the Pixel 10 series. just tell me what your initial thought so I want to hear them not hands on level

I want to hear using it every single day so the pixel 10 pro feels exactly like the 9 pro grabbing it blind you cannot tell the difference year over year it's the same exact

industrial design the exact same hand feel nothing has changed in a significant fashion and it's like a real part two in the way do you mean that in the sense that yeah, you pick it up and you, there must be some element that gives it away.

There must be something surely, right? Because it is supposedly 5 grams heavier. Can you tell that? Because I do agree with you. I can tell because I'm going from the 9A. I still love the 9A so much with the fat, the camera bar. Like I thought the biggest appear of the camera bar was you can hook, your forefinger, you can put it underneath the camera bar to hold it.

but if your phone is light enough, you don't really need that. And I still like the 9A so much. I totally agree with you having now used a pixel 10 since Monday and it's Thursday. So I'm not quite as deep as you guys, but it feels exactly like the pixel 9, similar to the 9 Pro and 10 Pro. But yeah, I don't hate this design. I like this design. I have found this series to be,

top heavy since last year and obviously there are no changes to that this year it still feels a little top heavy to me which does help with the camera bar you can hook your finger under it I do the exact same thing but I would agree the 9a is the more comfortable phone to hold as much as the design some people may find a little more bland but to me it's just it's it's comfort over appearance and I would say that the side that the weight difference between the not in the 10-fow and the 10 negligible is no weird real savings if you're looking for that. Well,

well, so let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me, I have had the,

um, the 10 and I've had the 10 pro Excel. So for me, I can't tell the difference between those two devices. But I do wonder, I do wonder if there's going to be some people out there who, like, go ahead and pick up the,

the regular 10 and then they maybe go ahead and someone else has a 10 pro. There might be some confusion there. I mean, you're not going to leave phones lying around. But if they weigh the exact same, and I'm trying to remember what I, what happened in the hands on, and I am more weight,

my 10 pro in the mail. I think I'm going to have some problems this year, leaving devices around and picking up the wrong one. You got to look for that temperature sensor. You got to look. Last year, I put a case on the nine. That's the only way I can actively tell. I put a case.

Let's talk a little bit about the 10 then for a moment because this is the one that I, maybe I set myself up for failure a little bit because I reviewed this device. Well, initially reviewed this device. I have some more thoughts in the next few weeks and months as I kind of get into it. I genuinely think,

I set myself up for failure by putting so much pressure on the changes being made exponentially improving the device in every single aspect. I feel like you could argue on maybe being a little bit harsh on it in some respects because like I say, I had a very high bar set for it. No, we are. I do genuinely think the 10 is a fantastic device in its own right. There are just a few little things that have started to irk me now. Like Google has done this with, let's throw the norm.

redesign to the side. There's a few things that they've made kind of clear that they're going to continue to do with their base model. And I was always an advocate for the base model. Like, this to me screams A series is now the new base. Like it is the base of the base and we should go there. Like, I don't know. It's a strange one, right? It feels like they've made steps forward. They made quite a few steps backward. And is it in the same position? I'm not entirely sure. I know you've been using the base 10 will. I'd love to hear your thoughts as someone who has kind of just picked this up, blind gone in day one base model. Yeah, it's it's interesting. This is the first pixel launch that I have not had to do a review for since the pixel 6A I guess

was the last time I didn't review a pixel. And I don't know, it's it's it's refreshing to come in and not have to like have these like high expectations or really any expectations you can just kind of like adopt a phone. It's the analysis mode. Yeah. Like you, as a reviewer, you have to start criticizing, critiquing every single thing the minute you get it to formulate your thoughts and opinions. Yeah. What's it like to be a normal person who got this phone in the mail and is unboxing it? And my experience has been good. I would say that like, you know, if I had, you know, I've obviously used the Pixel 9 series, but if I was coming here from my Pixel 8, if I had upgraded from the Pixel 9, I would say.

certainly feel like this is a very similar device to what I was just using. But I think, you know, the eight series and backwards and only those changes obviously become much more apparent. And what I would say is that like this is the first, this is the first pixel, you know, tensor powered pixel that has, that did not like get uncomfortably warm in my hand while I was setting it up. It was. Do you know, that is so weird. You say, I was literally about to ask you, I was like, did it get warm? No. I think not really. The thermal, it's weird because I'm seeing conflicting reports from like, there are obviously anecdotal evidence from people and you know what it's like on social media when something can snowball and then all of a sudden it's group think,

everybody thinks the same thing. But I've heard people talking about thermals and I've, I mean, don't really wrong, I live in England so it's not really very warm, but all the time, but there's been like 20 plus Celsius. I don't know what that is in freedom units, but you guys all have to convert that on the fly for me. Maybe like 70s, maybe low 80s, which is pretty warm for the UK. I don't know. I've not had any issues of overheating with either device. And that is like, I was really surprised because my pixel 9 per Excel can still get really warm for just no apparent reason.

And granted, the thermals were better over the pixel 8 and better over the pixel 7. So at least there's some sort of like incremental thermal improvements, like, which is important. Absolutely. You don't want to be touching your scorching device, right? But Damien, I'm actually glad you brought up temperatures because I hadn't thought about it. But like, it has been an unusually warm summer in Buffalo. it's typically fairly moderate here. That is kind of the

trade off you get for having a fairly harsh winter is that you have a very like comfortable temperate summer. But we've like much of the US have been fairly record breaking like heat temperatures for this. Like it's been a lot of like, you know, in Celsius like 30 or above days like 90 or above days. And I've noticed in the past, you know, I remember setting up like

or reviewing the Pixel 7 Pro, which came out in October, and not having many heat issues with it. And then the next summer, I reviewed the pixel 7A, which had the same chips, but in a warmer time of year and had like noticed many more like overheating issues. And it is interesting that like here in Buffalo, we finally hit like a dip in the temperature. And I do wonder if maybe that is something with it where like now we're at like, you know, 20 degrees Celsius 70 Fahrenheit or whatever highs. And I hadn't considered that. I do think this is a more efficient, more or better cooled chip in general. But that could be playing a role. I had not thought about the fact that I'm no longer in a heat bubble. But that said, I mean, to not heat up at all during setup in my experience, and it's going to be different for everybody,

but I was, you know, doing the entire data transfer from my pixel 8. I had to convert a physical SIM card into an e-sim. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was, I was nervous about that. That was totally fine. Like, I, I, uh, I didn't run into any hiccups, which, which, which can be rare. I, I sometimes run into issues like setting up a new pixel specifically. And I never know why.

And, and, um, I have had, maybe it's because I'm not reviewing it, but I've had good luck this time. Like, I've had practically no complaints on, on efficient. or thermals or anything. Really my big issue is what everybody seems to be saying, which is that the battery life is not what I think we all expect. It's not bad, but I think we all expected a little bit more performance out of the battery. And so far it's fine. I guess my question is, why are you holding your phone during the set of process?

Just put on a table. I did. I did. Okay, during the app transfer, I put it on a table. For the rest of it, I was holding it just because you are, you're moving through menus. But yes, I definitely set them both down when it was doing a data transfer. But when I picked it back up, it was not warm. You put it on a table and then you move it like 10 minutes later to make sure it's

out in a warm spot. I like the clinical nature of that, Abner. I really like how clinically you are with that. Abner's got a stopwatch out. Just like, all right, and 10 minutes. Move it. Yeah, I didn't time it or anything. But like when I looked, you know, we were just watching TV or whatever.

I was sending it up at night. And yeah, when I noticed that hadn't finished, I picked it back up. And it was, I felt this phone get warmed twice. And both times it was fairly like typical smartphone warmth, not, you know, older generations of tensor warmth. So yeah, you mentioned the tensor chip. Let's dive right into it. So tensor G5 first on test, first built by TSM, right, the three nanometer process. So going in, there was so much hype.

It was rumored almost two years ago, I'd say, because... More. Summer of 2020. Because the rumors were that it was coming with the pixel 9, TensorFlow G4, but they had to push it back a year. And that would explain lining up a new design language with a new chip, but neither here nor there. But yeah, it's, I guess the high level for all of us is that it's not a massive cure-all for or tensor issues, it's not a panacea. It is just another Google chip.

I think the way I phrase it in my review was every tensor chip is better than the last one. But any gains, any performance headrooms, Google is spending all that back into AI. Like you will get traditional performance gains, like a better CPU this year, 30% percent. but everything else is sped on AI. And I think that's at this point need to accept

that Google does not necessarily want to compete with the apples and now Qualcomms of the world in their chip. They're so focused on AI performance. Do you think that's kind of sad, though? I'm thinking of it from a position of, I mean, I have noticed some performance. Like initially I thought, oh, there's no difference in performance, but there is some differences in performance. Certain things definitely load quicker.

processing AI AI process image post processing is definitely a little bit faster new ISP and the yeah which is obviously

tied to something else on that in the hardware obviously so it's a full almost like a meal as it were you have your start your main course and your dessert all combining together

to complete the experience I feel like with with the pixel with the pixel temperament so I didn't expect huge performance gains anyway so everything's kind of been been tempered a lot

and I was I wasn't really overly annoyed with the performance on the Pixel 9 series. Neither was I. I feel like maybe there is a bit of a disconnect. And this feels like diminishing what people say when they claim that they want, you're almost brushing under the carpet the fact that people want to see major performance gains. And don't get me wrong, if Tenser G7, for instance, said, okay, that's it.

That's our benchmark for when we're going to catch Qualcomm, we're going to have an A-series-level chip on Android effectively, then, hey, I'm pretty sure all of us would snatch that with both hands. I just think it's very much a case of Google kind of went down the rabbit hole of making their own chip, and obviously with the help of Samsung and Samsung Foundry, it feels like now they're with TSM, and people kind of expected this huge performance leap. It's not necessarily being that initially, but I do think now we're in a good position whereby if there's thermal efficiency there,

there's some other power efficiencies which will probably come with software improvements. It's a really good starting block again because it always feels like every pixel we're getting a new starting block. This feels like very much the ceiling is not a million miles away anymore. It feels like there can be some progress over time. Maybe I'm being a little bit kind of getting way ahead of myself,

but as it stands, everything seems to be pretty snappy so far. I know there was some benchmarks online that people are sharing and I don't think they seem to match with what I've seen in terms of experience. But yeah, I do think Google's core focus being on the experience is probably better than worrying about, oh, we hit a benchmark figure or we hit a, because that's not going to make much difference, is it, in day to day? Like, oh, yeah, we got 10,000 on Antutu.

I don't even know if that's a score. Because, as you can tell, I don't know benchmark scores, but that's not going to change how you use, make a phone call. call, send a text message, interact with Gemini, interact with all these services. It just feels like it does feel like a more human-centric approach to chipset design, I guess. Is that the best way to describe it? I don't know. Agreed. I think the one valid concern that people bring up is gaming performance, a GPU. I believe there's a new GPU this year, which Google did not want to really talk about. Maybe mobile gaming is a thing. It's a big thing. It's a big thing. It's a

for the play store, for Android, it should be very important. And I believe Jordan was talking about how you can't get the highest possible graphics with this tensor, and that remains unchanged. Maybe that's something that needs optimization down the road, but it's, you can play the games. Let's get that out of the way.

You can still play them. It's not the highest fidelity, but you can still play them. Do you think that's enough? Do you think that's enough for some people? I guess when we look at the crazy keynote that we had the other week, the kind of people that are targeting and not the kind of people who are going to throw...

Yeah. They're going to play asphalt 9 Legends, which has run on a calculator for the past four years. And don't get me wrong, graphically, it's quite nice. I just feel like, again, I think it definitely comes back to that idea of human-centric. Like, if you're a hard and mobile gamer, you're not going... I feel like you already know that the Galaxy S-25 Ultra is the phone that you should buy. And I don't know if maybe...

I'll ask you will because obviously I know that the audience you guys had at Android police were definitely very very like kind of high end we want to have everything top top spec do you think that that's something that is going to hinder the pixel 10 launch no I think I think there is a disconnect between um what maybe enthusiast pixel fans want especially because pixel has these uh links to nexus that can never lose, right? It will, like, like, even if not everybody knows it, the enthusiast market knows it. And I don't think that's ever gone away. And so I wonder if there is this idea of like, well, the pixel is supposed to be the benchmark of Android. It is, it is the, the Android device to, for all other Android devices to match or whatever. And I don't think Google sees it that way.

Maybe they did pre-tensor, but I think since the Switch. to tensor, there has been like a very apparent, like, this is, this is a device that they are trying to make AI-centric, and to your point, Damien human-centric, first and foremost, they don't, I don't think they care very much as long as it can play modern games in general. I don't think they see that Google sees a reason to push forward on graphics performance when there are other devices fulfilling that role, whether it's the S-25 Ultra or like a more gaming specific phone, something from like Red Magic or something. Like, I think that market, they, that market is there. I also think that they're like, you know, a lot of their focus is on, with these phones are

are on North America and like mobile gaming, like high-end mobile gaming is less of a thing here. It's not not a thing here, but like it's not nearly as much of a thing as it is in China or or South Korea. And I wonder if there is just kind of a disconnect between what like enthusiasts and like R slash Google Pixel like subscribers want out of this device versus what Google is trying to accomplish. And I've thought this for ages.

I've been, you know, I feel like for the better part of a year. I've been like people are setting themselves up for disappointment with TensorFlow G5. I don't think Google is going to deliver like a Snapdragon 8 elite style chipset. I think it's very clear that they see TSM as the way to squeeze more efficiency and cooler thermals out of the chip.

But I didn't... I think they see TSMC as a truly custom solution. Exactly. It has nothing to do with cranking out the most performance possible, whereas I think Qualcomm is trying to crank out as much performance as possible on all metrics. And that does make the Snapdragan elite maybe more of a well-rounded chip set, but simultaneously, if you want those AI-centric features that Google is pushing, like they are optimizing their chipset for the features they're building in a very Apple way.

Yeah, no, that's a really, I think that's probably the most salient point about TENTER, really. It feels definitely much like they don't have this, they don't need to keep relying on an off-the-shelf solution or the solution that someone else has provided for their problem. They can kind of tailor the, tailor the solution to the problem, and that makes sense. end to end. And I do, that's, that's definitely, definitely made a big difference in this device. And, um, I, just briefly talking about the gaming thing, I do want, I do wonder if, um, Google even cares in that respect, though, because I know you mentioned about mobile gaming being huge. Um, I think you mentioned it briefly, Abner, and this, they take a lot of money from

the play store. But I thought the biggest expense, people who spent the most amount of money, were the kind of people who play Candy Crush. Exactly. And all those games, and they run like a dream. I'm not going to lie, they run like a dream. And I have done, I have broken my high highest of high scores playing Bellatro on the Pixel 10. That's also my test. In a device for Balatro, that's all I care about. It's a great gaming device. So if you want to play Balatro, that's all you need to know is that it runs like a dream.

And Candy Crush and all those basic games are fantastic. So, yeah, gaming, for me, is an on starter. But, yeah, I can kind of see. I would like to see a little bit more horsepower. Yeah, I'm not even saying it's... When GPU driver updates get there, they can crank a few more frames and stuff. But it doesn't seem too bad for me so far. I don't think it's like, I don't think it's the wrong or right answer.

I think it's just that like Google has its priorities where they lay. And that is going to annoy some fans, some potential pixel buyers who maybe are going to see benchmark scores or still care deeply about benchmark scores or they are like dedicated mobile gamers. They love Hoyleverse games or whatever. Like those are the, that's the stuff that is going to need that processing power. And they might choose a different phone because of it. And I think that is a bet that Google is willing to make. Like I think I with every generation, it because the story about these phones becomes more and more about what it's doing for you on everyday tasks, not, you know, that like are you pushing, you know, 4K video at 120 FPS? Like, like, I think that's where they fall.

And Google has clearly done the math internally and realized they, they don't care. that much. As long as it can play those games to a certain extent, that is what they see as satisfactory. Yeah, definitely. Let me just quickly before we get into those lifestyle things and those extras that Google is doing to make this phone, I guess seemingly feel more in tune with what you want to do on a day-to-day basis and make your life a little bit easier, as they would say. The change to the faster storage, I know you guys have been using 128 gigabyte models. Yeah. Just looking at the performance for a minute, though, I definitely think that UFS4, 0.0 is that big. It is a leap. I can definitely tell the difference. I've switched between the

proxel and the 10. And there is a, it's snappier when it opens things. It feels smoother. This feels like the culmination of a few things. I think not getting into QPR 1 too indefinitely, but it's nice that it's here. I like that aspect of it. It runs like a dream on the pixel 10 pro Excel. I have the 256 gigabyte option, which is sadly where you're going to have to go to get that faster storage. I don't think the, I don't think the kind of people are going to buy the base model anyway, probably won't care.

It's a little bit sad. I do believe that's due to the fact that you cannot get a 128 gigabyte UFS 4.0 module, storage modules. Then Google should absolutely bump the base storage. Especially because, I don't know, maybe this is just a me problem, but like,

with all of the AI stuff, like, just the local models in general take up like 10 gigabytes of data now. Like, yeah, they need to just bump all of these. They're pushing 50 megapixel portrait mode.

Yeah. The camera and video will always demand more storage. So I think at this point where somebody should read on doing 256 base. I already have 50 gigabytes filled on my phone.

I don't have that many apps. I have not taken that many photos, and I typically clear them out from, from, or once they're backed up to Google photos. So like to already, and I haven't downloaded any music or anything.

I think a few podcasts, but like it's, it's remarkable how fast that storage fills up these days. You know, 128 used to feel comfortable. And another forward-working consideration is if we start using desktop modes and whatever,

it's beyond ready for 256. Yeah, I do wonder about that as well. I do wonder if we start using slow storage on desktop mode, then the performance is going to take a really big hit because you put in data through an old, well, I know they are USB 3.2, so that's a good thing for data transfer rates. But when you have that slower storage on your device,

yeah, don't get me wrong, it's still, it is solid state, right? But you kind of want that best in-class performance when you have a desktop mode on a phone. I don't know. Maybe we're looking into it too deeply. We're looking at it from that tech-enthusiast side of things, and Google's like, well, it's going to be fine. average person who's going to use desktop mode

is going to get the big storage. Storage is storage. It's more stuff. I don't know. It's just a very obvious cell in light of how many videos people take these days. Yeah, I mean, obviously with the base model, the pixel 10, you're not getting that video boost.

So maybe there's a little bit of an excuse there. You don't have quite as much big files with the base model, but it's a little bit disappointing. But let's talk a little bit about some of the tant. and the AI, yeah, I think some of the demos ahead of time, I think sometimes you kind of, you have to hold disbelief a little bit in terms of how it's going to affect you. But I know that you've seen Magic Q a lot more than I have, Abner. How have you been finding using it so far? Magic Q is, it's conceptually, philosophically, it is the right way to surface these suggestions to people.

It's by using the existing smart reply bar in Google messages or adding it to Gboard or notifications. That is the right absolutely the light surface. So the good thing is that Google got that light out of the gate. They have the UI and the U.S. down. It just takes one or two to really appreciate how, oh, this saved me some time from switching apps. it's on device and I think what when people start getting the devices on Thursday I think it will take a solid week on well a fishery it's 24 hours like after you charge it overnight it starts indexing

stuff but I think it'll take a good proper week and beyond people start seeing this magicly suggestions and I think that's a bit unfortunate But afterwards, I just think you need, even a handful of day will make you realize that, wow, this is convenient. The caveat there is that you need to be more judicious about putting your life in Google calendar, basically, putting information in Google Keep. Yeah, you have to be a bit of a, you have to log a bit more than you might already have to, get the full benefits and potential. Yeah, I think I've seen it a few times. It surfaced a couple of times recently,

mostly with maps related things. So when I've searched for location, gone into Google Maps, and it's pulled up the, I had a little pop-up. And it kind of shocked me at first. I was like, why does it give me that information?

And I was searching for a location for Andrew, actually, who's as we're recording, this is currently in the UK at an event. So he was asking me about some recommendations of places to eat. He got some good recommendations. you got some good recommendations hopefully for me, which is a rarity,

and it made life a little bit easier because I could just quickly search a location on Google Maps, just tapping the Gboard. And like it did make a big difference. It's almost like a clipboard, but like a, I guess it's proactive, like a more proactive clipboard,

which is something that you don't necessarily think you're going to use. But if it's there all the time anyway, then you may as well use it. And that's kind of the best thing about certain quality of life features that if people want to sell them as that, then they just work without any input. And I think maybe they could expand this to more applications. I'd love to be able to use it in WhatsApp and things like that

and people asking me questions. But yeah, using Google Messages for me here in the UK, it's a bit of a tough one, to be quite honest with you. I also don't use Google messages. So I haven't even had it. I haven't experienced Magic Q yet, which is a bummer. But I'm, yeah, I'm fascinated by Abner's. experience with it. I wish, like, I hope it comes to, because I'm mostly on

telegram these days and I hope it comes to more third-party apps eventually. I don't know how that would work, but I'm sure Google can figure it out. Probably be G-board. Yeah, yeah, exactly. If they partner with these apps or it's just through G-board or to notifications, messaging apps notification specifically. There's the ways for doing, yeah, that's probably a big surface for them. I haven't used in the phone app. Like, I haven't, who calling airlines is a necessary evil, so I see why they put it in. But, yeah, that's the other big surface. The other thing is Daily Hub, which is their attempts at a new Google Now successor.

Basically, it can surface your calendar pretty straightforward. But the other interesting thing is it can surface things you need to know from Gmail or knowledge you put in Google Keep. if you use apps like pocketcast or YouTube music you get media recommendations and there's this bottom carousel that gives you like suggested prompts to send to Gemini to have more broader discussion about things. Daily Hub you can find it in other grants you can find it to the left of the pixel on your first home screen in the Discover feed. It's an it's it's Right now, it's a bit on the basic side,

not to say that getting seen calendar in one place is pretty useful and interesting, but I think, I really hope they commit to this and build this out as a major UI going forward for Magic queue and Day Rehab. I have not seen it on Discover, but I have seen it in Atta Clance, which is weird. I find out the way that it's work has been really weird, but this is, this to me, screams, I think, is it the now brief that's on Samsung? It's basically that, but with more actual usable, useful information. I found that it surfaced some pocketcast podcast that I already listened to and forgot

that it was new episodes of. That was great. That kind of reminded me, obviously, have your daily brief in the morning and an evening, so it's effectively the same thing as Samsung's now brief. But I'd love to see this be a bit more kind of, how would I describe it, interactive would be kind of cool. Like obviously if you're searching for stuff and then have it come up

and give you more cues. I mean, I'm currently planning a trip to Japan in November. So I've been getting a lot of like little advice things like, oh, where to visit in this city, Osaka, wherever it is. And it's been pretty useful. And I have been asking Gemini those things already. I just wish it was a little bit more, like you say,

it does feel bare bones at the moment. And once I start to build it out, I think this could be genuinely quite useful, having, doing that extra research on subjects because I mean we all do that thing right where you search for something and then three or four days late you're like what was I searching for and if that can be tied into it and I think it is trying to um some of the suggestions I've had are a little bit duff but very very few and far between actually it's been pretty darn good and I don't even have search

personalization on so if it's doing that without the search personalization then that's impressive in and of itself just pulling from Gemini I don't know if you've seen it as well yet will I don't know if you you have the same problem as me where it's not working in Discover I do actually. I just, and it's not in, it's not my home screen either. So I just had to go to the Play Store and find the app, which is annoying. I would say I'm like fairly negative on it kind of for the same reasons. I'm fairly negative on, on, we just said it. Now brief. I can't Daly Hub, now brief. These are bad names, guys. These are not very bad names. Um, you know, it's giving me the weather. It's giving me stuff from pocket casts, but I, I frankly, I know what I want to listen to in pocketcast. I'm sorry. I know that's probably an annoying thing to say. And then the YouTube recommendations are odd.

I guess it's a lot about football right now for me personally, probably because I had my fantasy draft last night. I was looking up stuff. So I guess that makes sense, but not really. And then like all the suggestions at the bottom and I was scrolling through. I was like, oh, it's telling me to explore Buffalo's culinary scene. Let me see what would it, would it, uh, recommends to me. And instead, it's just like, it's just a Gemini prompt and it just gave me, like, news.

It didn't even give me actual recommend. It, like, led with, like, like, restaurant news. In the air, I don't know. It's so good. Yeah. Go to McDonald's drive food. That would be so funny. Honestly, it's not, a couple of the things on this list are not that far off where I'm like, this is not.

If someone was like, hey, what restaurants in Buffalo? Do you recommend? I wouldn't pick these. Like, one of them was like, it was like, resourcing from like a new, like, random like chicken sandwich restaurant that is opening downtown and it's like nobody like in a year like nobody cares about this um i don't know i i i guess like i guess the problem is that google now was good and and it is oh yeah google now i google now is fantastic everybody loves google now right we just want google now too and we just make this good call it google now too so if you're not

hitting that standard a decade later i'm like yeah what are we doing then like why is this not Why is this not even a tenth as useful as Google Now was when I was in college? So the thing about Google Now is that there are ways to make intelligent seeming features on phones that don't require AI. Yes. There's a very programmatic way to surface stuff from your emails, to surface stuff from your calendars, to prominently put up your upcoming tasks in the feed. There's an absolute, there's absolutely a way to fake it, but at the same time to make it generally useful. And I think the thing that drives me insane is that in the past decade,

Google has not done that. They haven't done the simple programmatic solution building intelligence or faux intelligence. But now we're here. Now we have Gemini. These models should be able to look into your life, your Gmail, which is the thing that people have, the thing that Google hasn't tapped too hard yet. But it's here. Hopefully, this is the fine. their final approach that will, they'll, again, invest in and build on. So the promise is there for this iteration. Just we have to hope they keep at it. I must admit, I do think that the daily hub is better than the Discover feed.

Because the Discover feed in the last few years for me has deteriorated into just sensationalism and the stuff I don't care about. Like the amount of times I'm having to say, I'm not interested in this. It just doesn't improve. and I think if this can be a bit more if it takes over that section and does have a little bit of a news element to it and like a carousel

and I guess in some respects it kind of mimics the Google News application which is I have no problems with if you're going to do that like that would be way better than Google Discover and if Google wants to make it pixel exclusive then I do think maybe have a little bit of screenshots

in there as well I mean I'm getting ahead of myself there could be some really nice integrations that they could do pretty darn easily at least from the outside looking in, obviously I'm not a programmer anymore, but I think yeah, it feels like a good starting block and I think that's kind of where we're at

with a lot of these AI features. They have to start somewhere and they have to build out, but yeah, Google Now, you could just, they could have just brought that back as Google Now too, and I think everybody would be happy. I totally agree with you on Discover, first of all. I truly, I turn off the Discover page

to the left of... I am a Discover Unicorn. I have a perfect... And I'm honest to me. You have mastered the Discover algorithm. I have not... I have found news story. Like, I found Postalite based on what's surface and discover.

Not my experience. I wish it was useful like that. I also want to point out really quickly that the other... I agree with you. It reminds me of Google the news layout a little bit. I also... Do you guys remember what assistant driving mode looked like the first time they showed it?

Not what launched. but what they showed in like 2019. It looks like that weirdly. Like it's very sparse with tiles. I see it. I absolutely see it. Yeah. And it's, I totally wonder if they like looked back at the design that they never shipped.

And we're like, well, like, I don't know. We could just kind of base it off this. Yeah, I guess my only issue and we can move on after this with, it's just, you know, if we're, if we're celebrating that Daily Hub is better than Discover, current day Discover and Samsung's now brief, I just feel like the bar should be a little higher than that. Like, I know it's a preview, but I just, I would hope for a little bit more from this feature, and I'm not, I'm not seeing it.

The why not is, okay, so I think the main sentiment, the main sentiment about my AI focused review was that this is an AI phone, not a Gemini phone. Just to touch upon that briefly, I am maybe concerned there's too strong a word Magic queue

dairy hub These are on-device features From a privacy perspective Everything is processed on device Anything is analyzed on device That's kind of why it takes Magic Q's so long to appear It is admirable

I guess to say That it's entirely on device It's good from the privacy perspective Etc etc But I do wonder if this would be so much more powerful if it were cloud-based. And I do feel like eventually

the Gemini app's homepage is just barren and sparse right now just a great thing, eventually becomes Dairy Hub to surface what's happening in your calendar, all that. And I do feel like eventually you have this thing.

You visit Gemini on your desktop browser it's in the app on your mobile phone. I do wonder if that's a Dairy Hub as experience eventually. But to your point, Will, I think on-device AI, which honestly, I'm pretty, I, Google is pushing it a lot, but I don't think the utility is there yet. I think all the utility from cloud-based stuff. And I wonder if day rehab or a proper thing, surf process in the cloud, if it would get so

much more immediately. Yeah, no, totally agree. Yeah, I agree. The Gemini thing in Daily Hub, yeah, that makes the most sense, because like you say, it's quite barren, and I do think if you're going to sell Gemini, you need to make it useful from the get-go, not just be like, here, have Gemini,

and you don't really know what to do with it. Like, I sometimes feel like that when I use Gemina, I'm like, what should I search for, what should I ask it, what should I do? And having all of those prompts kind of like, here, try this, here is some information. We can help you with X, Y, Z, I think that might be kind of useful.

So, yeah, I think that's a really salient point. I want to talk about something that the big thing that was added this year, I want to ask you guys what pixel snap slash magsafe accessory has you been using? Because I'm currently looking at the Google Store homepage. There are some things on here that I have ordered that are due to arrive in the next few hours. How are you finding MagSafe compatibility, if I can say it? Have you been using anything so far? Is there any cool stuff that you found that does work or doesn't work or vice versa?

because I've found a few things that have been... So with my review, I got the pixel... God, this name is horrible. Pixel snap with stand, which is... There is one pixel snap cable. If you're familiar with Mac, say, if you're familiar with this, it's a puck, and it slots through this heavy piece of plastic. That's the stand.

It is... I wished Google made a proper pixel stand tree with active cooing with a fan with all that um it gets hot that's my main a takeaway from using it for the past week it gets hot and i the other thing is the k max it the pixel snap cable is way too short at one meter they need to make two meter version so they should have made the default 1.5 um but yeah at a high level that is i think it'll be fine for most people. I wish they made a dedicated thing. Yeah, it's pixel snap. Horrible name. Yeah, I think the name is terrible. But at the same time, I think we're all calling it a MagSafe, right,

which is, I think the mine share has been won by MagSafe. I'm very excited to try out that pixel snap ringstand because it definitely gives me. Which I have, which I bought. I got yesterday in Moonstone, interesting cover. It is $30.30. It is a number. It is a number. nice fidget toy. I think it's a nice fidget toy. Let's leave it at that. I wish they have done more colours of it because it's only available. I think, I don't know if it's available in US in different colors, but Moonstone is the only one available, which is a pretty an odd decision to make. I feel like there will be a recent new cover every single year and that begins. Yeah. To be fair, I don't think I'm going to use it that much because I have like

where I put my phone, I have dedicated stands, that kind of thing. And I'm not going to bring around. I'm not going to attach the magnet. It's very, you've barely fear it. It's very thin. It's very slim. But still, I'm, I'm not going to do that. I do think there's some utility there for me. I think I'm the kind of person who props things up quite a lot and wants to look at things. And I'm very excited to try it out. It's whatever, the craze pop. What is it? Yeah, yeah, pop so pockets. Yeah. I mean, I guess, I put one on. There we go. People love that. Yeah. It's great. Perfect. It's going to fall out your hand.

That's such a toddler thing, right? Well, you said it. Famous last words. But in terms of existing Macsaf accessories, the one I've used is my, I have an Apple wallet case thing. That's just a simple thing. It's so initially,

it feels so weird that it works. It is such a disconnect after all these years. I must admit, I think the biggest problem for me so far is switching between the two devices, is the pixel 10, and I'm guessing the pro as well, very, very easy to line up those magnets.

Pixel 10 Pro XL, you can have issues. Like I'm, I mean, obviously, this is not a visual element, but I have the peak design. I don't know what it's called. It's like a MagSafe tripod type deal, and it has a little Alan Key or Alan Wrench, as you guys in the States would call it.

Oh, so brilliant. Basically, it has, it has like a rubbery texture on the back, and I assume that was because of the kind of almost sandy texture of the, of the iPhones that it meant it could grip on or whatever the peak design

case materials made of. I've found that on the Pixel 10 because it's a very glossy glass certain MagSafe accessories slide a little bit or some can. Oh, interesting. Whereas with the Pixel 10 Pro Excel and 10 Pro, I'm assuming,

famous last words, the slightly etched glass is a little bit better at gripping certain things. So there's definitely give me some trial and error, right? I think in the next few months. Yeah, to talk about the pixel, to the ring, pixel ring, God, I hate these names,

pixel snap, ring stand. It is a microfiber underline, it's a microfiber surface underneath. So I think they had that in mind going in and it helps you twist the phones more. But yeah, it's magnet strength. We all have iPhones here. What do you think about the magnet strength? Uh, you know, I, I, I, to be honest with you, I know we were talking about in the group chat the other day. So maybe I'm the wrong person to go first. But I, I, I have noticed it's about, about what I expect from an iPhone typically. Like, I, I haven't noticed a difference in, in, uh, connection strength. I, um, I have a bunch of different. I, it's, I keep disappearing from the shot. Not that anybody knows this, uh, to like look for various other, uh, mag safe stuff just like rotting in my, in my desk. And I found a ring in that pop socket. And both of them snap on about what I would about as well as I'd expect and stay on as I'd expect maybe a little more wiggle.

But again, that might just be because the back of the pixel 10 is so glossy and slippery. You know, I have a peak design wallet that I use everywhere and I like it quite a bit. But I've always found the magnet in that to be a little on the weak side. I don't totally trust it. And that's true here too. So I, but like the charging puck. and everything that I have, those have all worked about as, they feel about as strong as I'm used to.

I, you know, if there's a difference, it's very subtle to me. Yeah, I think, I think sometimes it depends mostly on the accessory. I think that the magnet in the accessory, if you see cheap accessory, they have cheaper magnets. And I think that might be the thing that is going to be the problem aspect. So the, the MagSafe on the iPhone is, yeah, it's pretty comparable. I think there's maybe, and I don't even want to put figure on it, but I'm going to have to. I think maybe the pixel snap MagSafe, I mean,

it's already terrible saying that out loud. PixelSnap MagSafe is maybe 95% of the strength of the iPhone one. That feels right. Does that, you think that tracks with you guys? I would say so. I think it's easy, it's 100% easier to line them up on the iPhone, but that's because we probably have muscle memory of it for a decade, nearly, what, half a decade now, is it? Something like that. I think with the reams of accessories I've tested some of the companies that stand out with really strong magnets are Spiegan

Moffed I don't know if you guys have heard of a company called Moft they make some like kickstand stuff and wallets I probably will pick one of them up they're incredibly strong literally you can like I've seen video

well I tried it myself after I saw a video of it on threads they had the tripod kind of extended and was shaking it and it wasn't coming loose. So, and I tried it out for myself

and they are incredibly strong. Anker makes some good power banks that are decent. They seem to be sticking on a little bit better on the pro, weirdly. I think it's because they're a lot bigger and they're a bit heavy. But yeah, I'm excited to see some more stuff come about.

For me, it's mostly about the camera stuff. I want to see tripods. I want to get a proper in-car mount. I've never had a proper in-car mount for my phone with MagSafe slash pixels enough. But yeah, I'm excited. It's good. It opens up a real,

it's already opened up, right? We don't have to wait for these things to exist. They exist. That's the best part. Yeah. Yeah. I just hope that Google can do some stuff on the software side of things because I know that like it very much is just snap it on the back. It's fine. And for some for loads of things, that's absolutely great. But it would be cool to have some like extra stuff like maybe you could get, I don't know, maybe I'm going a little bit too far ahead of myself, but like an extra lens or something like that or like, I don't know,

of something that works with an app on your phone. I can't even think, a telescope, something like that, like that could track the sky when you use astrophotography mode, like little things like that would be kind of cool. But I'm just, yeah, it's just exciting. It's as weird as it is, it's exciting because we've been left in the dark with this for so long. And I know that we've had cases that can do it, but back of the phone, oh, God, it's a revelation, isn't it?

So, yeah, magsafe, I love it. PixelSnap, Magsafe, whatever you want to call it, I call it, about 20 different things, but I really, really like it. And I'm excited to pick up some charging stands and integrated charging stands as well for like in the car and things because they're the kind of stuff that we've missed out on for a long time on Pixel. And yeah, pretty good so far, but 95% strength. I think that probably tracks, right, with you guys?

I agree. So I'm going to talk a little bit about colors because I know we want to give camera a little bit more time to percolate before we even talk about that. And the same with battery life. We're not really fully certain on that yet. But as for colours, guys, what do you think so far? Because I was genuinely, before we started recording this, and even said it out loud,

I thought I hated the Moonstone when I saw it in person. I thought it's the same as the Hazel and I regret buying the Hazel. And that was the in-air quote standout colour. I cannot believe how much I regret buying that. I always have said to myself, get porcelain. But the Moonstone, genuinely fantastic. I love this colour so much.

It's so nice. It's so different from anything else. I have to stop you there. The back is non-committal gray A-F. It is. It's gray. The saving grace and to what you're saying is the bezel. I feel like the shiny bezel is what changes color,

depending on the room's current lighting conditions. I've seen it like, I don't know, it's the back. It's pick interesting colors. The premise, rules underlying premise. is that premium jewelry-like stuff needs state colors, needs, like, luxury-looking colors. And I think the premise is fundamentally wrong because people want colorful phones.

They want their stuff to look fun. Yes, you all put it in a case anyways, but I don't just have some fun with colors. You execute well on the lower end stuff, but it's just boring, it's boring, Like three shades that basically work the same on the pro line. This is not just a Google problem. It's a Samsung problem.

It's an Apple problem. It's all of these companies at their pro-level phones. They're all designed for the boardroom. Like they are all just shaded in this like boardroom. Like I'm going to go like we're going to read out financial earnings and then I don't know. And those people don't put cases on their phones. It's it's so weird. I don't understand it because like, as you said, Abner, they're kind of crushing the like lower end colors.

I really, I, having now used it in person, this like yellow slash lime green color on the pixel 10 has really grown on me in a way I didn't expect it to. It is extremely Nike coded. Like it feels like I'm going to go for a run every time I pick it up. But I like it. I really like the blue as well. And to the point where like, you know, you know, my fiance was, was who has always been, or, you know, for the last decade has been on iPhone was like looking at the pixel 10 while it was setting it up and was like, you know, and truly, she's never said this.

You know, I'm not against switching to Android. And I was like, really? And she was like, yeah, I'm not like, I'm not like totally against it. And I was like, what would make you want to want to switch? And she was literally just like, well, you know, like. Apple has really boring colors right now. And like I really like that. Yeah, last year's color palette was so pastel.

It is, say, in, and, and she's, she loves her, she's got a yellow iPhone 14 that she loves, but, but, and yellow is her favorite color. But I do think that it's, this is the first time that, and she, I've had other phone colors she's liked, but this is the first time she was like, I'm not, I'm not against switching,

which is, I think exactly what Google is hoping these colors. It looks like an iPhone. design like wins people. Exactly. It's familiar, but, but a little fresh. And, and,

and they should chase that and then pair it with, maybe not quite to the extent of Motorola, but Motorola's ethos with the razor where it's like, we are going to make these fun and flashy and fashionable, because there's a market for that. And, and, um,

I don't know. I, I, I think we need to leave behind the trend of, uh, completely neutral colors for the pro devices behind. I, I really,

I've been saying this for years, but I truly think we have to end this trend. Like, at least one splashy color a year, I think is more than fair for the pros. Yeah, I feel like as well, Google does this really well with accessories. So they have lots of accessories. Like, let's take the Pixel Watch 4, for instance,

obviously we've not had hands on with that, but they have that really nice blue color for the strap. Yeah. Like if that, I mean, that, I think that is what Moonstone should be. Yeah. Like that slightly deeper blue. I mean, I'm in the minority here. I've been smitten with this color

because it's kind of like, I think... Yeah, because you've been using Hazel for the past yet. Yeah. I'm so glad someone else soured on Hazel like I did. Like I had, I had, when I saw it in person at the hands on, I was like, I like this. And then like, I got my like review unit for it in Hazel.

And I was like, never mind, this is so, this is just gray. Why did I like this? Yeah. I very much, I very much turned, turned on it quite quickly because I was like, I need to get a case with extra colour. It's like, this isn't green, this is grey.

And it's already grey enough in the UK, so we don't need any more grey. And maybe that's why this little bit of blue has given me a little bit of kind of, yeah, and looking for better weather, just kind of a bit of hope that we're going to get some nice skies in the UK at some point. But I have the, I have the, I don't know what colour it is.

Is it the pea green that's coming in the pro? It's, is it Jade? Oh, Jane, yes. Yes. Yeah. To me it looked like pea green. green like like i mean like urine like that's what it looks like so i went for that one because i thought that might stand out but again that could very i could very easily sour on that one um i think the indigo pixel 10 is very nice it's a it's a very deep brew that harkens back to really

brew the blue jeans phone and the original pixel i like that they're making that call back there with 10 generations and all that um yeah yeah that's a nice in it's a very nice color. It's, it has a personality and you can't say that about bloody gray. Yeah, you can't. I do think, I do think a lot of the personality on those, in these gray phones comes from Matera 3 expressive, but we will get into that next week. I think we've had a very nice discussion about pixel 10. It's, it's initial reviews. We haven't, we haven't done deep, true, true out and out deep dives yet because, hey, we have a week with the device. Will's barely had a week with his. I think like you say, you could all be like me in six weeks time and sour on the

colour, sour on some things and completely change your opinion. But so far I think it's a nice stable start. I think going for the same phone design again, it didn't make sense optically for some people, but I think as a design decision and consistency for me, I think the biggest thing is consistency. Going out there and putting out a device, a back-to-back devices that are competent is something Google hasn't been able to do for a long time, and that feels like they're doing that this year. All the more reason they should have introduced better colors. Well, before we shoot, then, mostly,

what would your dream color be for a Google? I love, I mean, truly, even if they just extended the blue into the pros, I'd be happy with that. But dream color, I would love. A bright green here. Yeah, I was also going to say, like, a bright green or like a tealer turquoise is my favorite color. So like a bluish green or a greenish blue.

Yeah, like something. And like no one ever does that. So I don't really ever expect it. But like that's my favorite color. I would love to see it. But I don't think ever will. I don't think we ever well. Well, I like to see a red personally, like a really bright red phone.

I haven't seen Google do that for a long time. Also, dual tone. Just want to say they've done it before. I would love to see them bring it back. That Pam to do that in the future. Yeah, that would be sick. That would be sick.

And yeah. As far as so. So so far, really good impressions. I think we'll have more in the coming weeks. As I say, we have initial reviews over on the website. We'll have more in-depth talks about all these other things, how people are coping with moving to ESIM, all that kind of stuff.

I think there's a lot of talk around that at the moment online. But yeah, I just want to say thanks guys for joining me. And it's been a blast. I think it feels like the culmination of what, the last nine months, nine or ten months talking pixel 10. It's finally here. And you just feel like it's a weight of, shoulders, but we go again very, very soon. I was going to say pixel 11 rumors when. Come on. Let's

Yeah, get that pixel 11 rumors out there, guys, and we'll be hot on that. And yeah, thanks for joining me, guys, and I will speak to you soon. Bye. Bye.