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There is hardly any better recommendation that a phone journalist can give than to tell you exactly what phone I carry around in my pocket. And that is the endorsement coming to the Google Pixel 10 Pro, which is currently on sale for its best price yet for Prime Day.
The price of the entry-level 128GB model has averaged around £857 over the past 180 days but this deal sees it drop down to just £649, the cheapest it has ever been.
Things get really interesting here because I’m about to tell you that, when I first reviewed the Pixel 10 Pro, I didn’t recommend it, and only awarded it three stars. So how did I come to turn around on it so dramatically, and how did it find its way into my pocket? Read on.
Why did I pick the Google Pixel 10 Pro?
I’m a sucker for a Pixel, admittedly, so I was already predisposed to liking it, but even with that in mind, I see a lot of amazing smartphones throughout the year, and I’m in the unique position of being able to play around with them under the guise of doing my job before I make my commitment.
So even with the wealth of other options that I’ve been intimately familiar with, the Pixel 10 Pro won out as my personal choice. The reasons why are due to how it aligns with my primary needs from a phone:
The cameras
Even outside my professional capacity, I take a lot of photos. Therefore, camera quality and versatility is a very high priority for me with phones. The Pixel 10 Pro, like most of Google’s oeuvre, has outstanding shooters, capturing excellent dynamic range in good lighting, deep and moody night shots, the best ultrawide shots in the business and gorgeous selfies with rich skin tones and razor-sharp autofocus.
My favourite lens, however, is the 5x periscope telephoto. The detail and dynamic range of this lens are simply exquisite, making it very well suited to capturing striking portraits or zooming in for highly detailed macro photography.
The display
Display quality is also very important to me, as I spend a lot of time travelling and like to be able to enjoy movies and shows on my phone when out and about. The 6.3in OLED is a fine fit for this, with outstanding brightness that peaked at over 2,000 nits in my testing, more than enough to stand up to the sun’s glare, and beautiful colouring that proved exceptionally accurate, with my testing delivering an average Delta E of 0.71 – anything under 1 is as close to perfect as it gets.
The software
I am, at my heart, a lazy man, and I don’t want to have to sift through complicated menus and poorly designed layouts to get the best from my phone. As the manufacturer of Android, it’s little surprise that Google also has the best and most accessible launcher with its Pixel software. Slick, customisable and stuffed with features, this software is an absolute delight and makes using the phone to its full potential easy for even the most novice of users.
Best of all, Pixels all get seven years of software support, so this thing will stay up-to-date all the way through to 2032.
PixelSnap is a great addition
This is less of a requirement but it doens’t hurt. PixelSnap magnets are new for the Pixel 10 series and are essentially Google’s answer to the MagSafe magnets in iPhones. With it, you can attach a Qi2 magnetic wireless charger or any other MagSafe accessory (the magnet array is the same size, so all are cross-compatible).
It’s a handy new feature and means that I can use magnetic wireless chargers, a magnetic holder in my car, and a magnetic pop socket (which my ADHD brain absolutely loves to take off and snap back on again as a fidget-satisfier) without needing to purchase a separate case with magnets in it.
So why did I only give it three stars?
The same reason just about anything else that’s broadly good fails to earn my praise: money. I found through my testing that the Pixel 10 Pro didn’t offer enough in the way of advancements to justify its £999 starting price.
It ticked a lot of my personal boxes but I’m not just reviewing these things for myself. The Tensor G5 chipset, for instance, is nippy enough for my uses, but the cold hard fact is that it’s quite a bit slower than similarly priced rivals like the Samsung Galaxy S25 Plus or iPhone 17 Pro.
Even more of a concern was the battery life, which not only failed to improve upon the results of the Pixel 9 Pro, it actually dropped a few hours, delivering test results that were fairly weak by modern standards. Not bad battery life, per se (I get through a day of moderate use with no problem and charge overnight) but just not as good as rivals.
With it falling down in two such key arenas, I couldn’t bring myself to recommend the Pixel 10 Pro at its original price. There were much better alternatives that had better performance and battery life for that kind of money.
Should you buy the Pixel 10 Pro now?
As someone who has come around on the Pixel 10 Pro massively as its price has dipped down to more reasonable levels, I feel that this Prime Day deal price of £649 is far better suited to what you’re getting. The cameras are nothing short of phenomenal, the display is essentially flawless, software is the best Android gets and yes, the new PixelSnap magnets are fun, albeit something of a gimmick.
It’s much better value for money at this £649 deal price and, having used one myself for a while now, I can confirm that the battery life and performance, while technically lower than rivals, never crop up in daily life as a concern.
If you’d rather see what other treasures I’ve uncovered, my Prime Day phone deals page has all the latest and best offers. Or you can head over to our central Prime Day deals hub to see our top picks for deals on everything from fans to headphones to coffee machines and much more.
