The Pixel 10 is a colorful, Qi2-packed crowd pleaser starting at $799 [Hands-on]

Ben Schoon | Aug 20 2025 - 9:01 am PT

After many leaks and a lot of anticipation, Google’s Pixel 10 is finally here, and this year’s base model is the ultimate crowd pleaser with a refined, but familiar design, the welcome addition of Qi2, and a delightful color palette.

The Pixel 10 series as a whole is one of refinement rather than reinvention. Very much a “tick” to the Pixel 9’s “tock.” But despite that, there’s a lot to be excited about this time around.

Starting with an overview of the base Pixel 10, things should sound rather familiar compared to the Pixel 9. The phone is equipped with a 6.3-inch OLED display at 1080×2424. That’s covered in Gorilla Glass Victus 2 and gets a brightness upgrade to 2000 nits for HDR and 3000 nits for peak brightness – up from a 2,700 nit peak last year.

The hardware is a little different, with the phone being thicker (152.8 x 72 x 8.6 mm) and heavier (204g) to accommodate perhaps the biggest overall hardware change – Qi2 support. The base Pixel 10, alongside the rest of the lineup, has built-in magnets that mimic Apple’s MagSafe system to improve wireless charging performance, add mounting options, and also open up Google’s smartphones to a world of new accessory types. Google will have a handful of its own first-party “Pixelsnap” accessories here which include a wireless charging puck, a stand for that puck, and a kickstand accessory. Google’s first-party cases will also have built-in magnets, and you’ll likely find them throughout all third-party case offerings this year as well.

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One of the tangible benefits of this is that wireless charging, on compatible Qi2 accessories, is now up to 15W compared to the 12W limit on last year’s device on anything that wasn’t the Pixel Stand (which Google discontinued less than a month after Pixel 9 debuted). Wired charging is mostly unchanged, but the battery is bigger at 4,970 mAh.

Under the hood you’ll also find Google’s new Tensor G5 chipset which is a bit faster and much more efficient. That’s paired with 12GB of RAM – a bit less than the Pro phones – and either 128GB or 256GB of storage without the “Zoned UFS” upgrade on the Pro devices. It’s still UFS 4.0 storage, though, which is much faster than what we’ve had with the past few generations. But you will get the same Android 16 version out of the box with Google’s big Material 3 Expressive redesign and 7 years of OS and security updates. Plus, you aren’t giving up on any big software features here either.

The camera department is where you’ll find Google’s biggest changes on the base Pixel 10 this year.

The main camera is now a 48MP sensor that’s a bit smaller and just overall lesser compared to the Pro devices. That’s paired with a 13MP ultrawide camera and a newly added 10.8MP telephoto camera that features 5x optical zoom and maxes out at 20x. The camera setup here is very similar to Google’s foldable which, if last year served as any indication, means that shots will be a little worse than the Pro devices overall, but not to a meaningful degree. The front-facing camera is a 10.5MP sensor with the same face unlock support as the Pro devices and autofocus too.

The flashy part of the base Pixel 10, though, is most definitely the colors. There’s a standard black “Obsidian” and a slightly purple “Frost” color, but the vibrant “Lemongrass” and “Indigo” colors are the ones that will turn heads. “Indigo” has a lot of similarities to the original Pixel’s “Really Blue” color, but does look more purple depending on the lighting around you.

I walked away from a brief time using the base Pixel 10 thinking that, with the changes Google has made this year, this device is really the “for everyone” smartphone. The unchanged $799 price, the fun colors, the capable hardware, the mostly-full suite of software features, and the lack of a gaping hole in the camera compared to past generations just makes this device ultra-compelling. It’s all anyone really needs.

The Pixel 10 is available for pre-order starting today and will be shipping and on store shelves on August 28.

Are you getting one?