To help us provide you with free impartial advice, we may earn a commission if you buy through links on our site. Learn more
- Faster Qi2.2 wireless charging
- One of the best displays around
- Cameras just as good as last year
- Weak battery life
- No more 128GB model
- Relatively few upgrades
After years of watching Apple users enjoy magnetic wireless charging in their smartphones, Android fans are finally getting their own magnets to play with – and the Google Pixel 10 Pro XL is the best version you can buy.
That’s because it supports the faster Qi2.2 standard, reaching speeds up to 25W, whereas its siblings only go up to 15W via Qi2. On top of that, it has a massive 6.8in display and a larger battery – though the jury is still out on how much the latter actually contributes here.
Weaker battery life aside, the Pixel 10 Pro XL is also just very similar to last year. It has the same screen specs, same camera loadout and an identical build. The magnetic charging and a couple of new software features are fun enough, but are they worth such a high price?
Google Pixel 10 Pro XL: What you need to know
As the name suggests, this is the super-sized version of the Pixel 10 Pro. The two share most features but the XL has larger dimensions, naturally, a bigger 6.8in OLED display and a higher-capacity battery (5,200mAh, compared to the 10 Pro’s 4,870mAh cell).
The XL also supports faster wired charging (45W versus 30W) and it supports the faster Qi2.2 wireless charging standard, allowing it to charge up to 25W with compatible plugs, whereas the other Pixel 10 models only go as high as 15W.
Otherwise, the two are identical. The new Tensor G5 chipset is keeping the lights on, backed up by the same healthy 16GB of RAM – though storage options are a little different here. There’s no 128GB model, so your choices are either 256GB, 512GB or 1TB.
There’s a 48-megapixel (f/2.2) selfie camera in a holepunch notch in the display, while over on the rear, we have the same three lenses that we saw on last year’s Google Pixel 9 Pro XL: a 50-megapixel (f/1.7) main camera, a 48-megapixel (f/1.7) ultrawide lens and a 48-megapixel (f/2.8) periscope telephoto camera that offers a 5x optical zoom.
Price and competition
Ditching the 128GB variant means that the Pixel 10 Pro XL technically starts at £100 more expensive than the Pixel 9 Pro. The 256GB model still costs the same £1,199 as last year, it’s just mildly annoying to see the cheaper, lower-storage option ejected from the lineup.
To make up for that, at least, the 512GB and 1TB models are cheaper than last year: the former is now £1,319, as opposed to £1,399, and the latter is down from £1,599 to £1,549.
Interestingly, ditching the 128GB model means that the Pixel 10 Pro XL costs more than its key rivals. Around this price we have the top-shelf options from Apple and Samsung, with the iPhone 16 Pro Max currently starting from £1,099 for the 256GB model and the 256GB Galaxy S25 Ultra also down to £1,099 at the time of writing.
Outside of the big three, we have the Honor Magic 7 Pro also at £1,099 and the OnePlus 13 undercutting all of the competition at just £789. The OnePlus 13 especially is fantastic value, with a great display, incredible performance and gorgeous cameras – but it lacks the extensive software support offered by Google, Samsung and Honor.
Design and key features
As we saw with the other Pixel 10 phones, the Pro XL has identical measurements to its predecessor, at 77 x 8.5 x 163mm (WDH), but weighs a fair bit more, at 232g, compared to the Pixel 9 Pro XL’s 221g.
That extra weight can be attributed to things like the larger battery and the addition of magnets for Pixelsnap charging, but it’s still quite a chunk, especially compared to the 218g Galaxy S25 Ultra.
Otherwise, the look of the phone is solid, if not particularly eye-catching. I never fully got on board with this new camera bar design, but I am much more taken with the colour choices offered up this year. My review sample camera in the subtle Moonstone shade, but you can also get the traditional Obsidian or Porcelain, as well as the new Jade colour.
It’s just as robust as ever, too. There is a sheet of Gorilla Glass Victus 2 over both the display and the rear, and the IP68 rating marks the phone as dust-tight and able to withstand a 30-minute dunk in 1.5m of water.
As for the software, the Pixel 10 Pro XL is launching with Android 16 and is set for seven years of updates. There are a couple of new features of note this year: Magic Cue uses intelligence to bring information to you from other apps, based on contextual need – for example, if someone in Whatsapp asks you what time your flight lands, it will draw that information from your calendar and present it to you, saving you from having to switch apps.
And then there’s Camera Coach. Enabled via a toggle in the camera app, this uses AI to assess the contents of your viewfinder and then suggests angles, cropping and more to help make your shots look the best they can be. I find this sort of thing takes some of the flavour out of photography but, as mentioned, it’s completely optional, so it’s harmless enough.
Display
As has been the case with Pixel phones for the past couple of generations now, the display here is simply put one of the best I have ever tested. The 6.8in OLED screen has a reasonably sharp resolution of 2,992 x 1,344 and a dynamic refresh rate that can adjust between 1Hz and 120Hz.
It gets decently bright, too. On manual brightness, I recorded a peak of 529cd/m2, while switching to adaptive and shining a torch on the light sensor pushed it up to 1,397cd/m2. Best of all was HDR playback, however, where it pushed the limits of my tired old calibrator with a fantastic result of 2,097cd/m2.
Things continue to look good with colour accuracy, too. The default adaptive profile will likely be fine for most people, with its gorgeous, vibrant colours being well suited to streaming and gaming and the like, but those after authenticity will prefer the Natural profile. Here, I recorded an sRGB gamut coverage of 96.7%, with a volume of 97.4%, and the average Delta E colour variance score came back at just 0.77. Our target is 1 or under here, so that’s about as good as it gets.
Performance and battery life
In stark contrast to the above section, the Pixel 10 Pro XL is one of the weaker performers in this price range, if not the weakest. The 3.78GHz Tensor G5 chipset delivers a reasonable boost in CPU speeds over the Pixel 9 series, with the Pixel 10 Pro XL beating the 9 Pro XL in the Geekbench 6 single-core test by 16% and 28% in the multi-core.
And in fairness to Google, most people will be more than happy with how fluid it feels to use the Pixel 10 Pro XL, especially if you enable the peak 120Hz refresh rate. It’s just that for this kind of money, you can do much better.
All other options compared here are far more powerful but the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra sits at the head of the pack. In the single-core benchmarks, the Galaxy beat the Pixel by a whopping 40%, while in the multi-core test, it secured a lead of 68%.
The Pixel 10 Pro is a solid enough gamer – I played a few rounds of Asphalt Legends and found the gameplay to be smooth and responsive – but as you can see below, it’s nowhere near as strong as rivals. The Galaxy S25 Ultra and Honor Magic 7 Pro in particular are top choices here, with both offering some of the best offscreen results and hitting around 120fps in the onscreen results.
I’ve encountered a bizarre issue with the Pixel 10 series, in which the battery life for each model is dramatically worse than its counterpart from last year. The Pixel 10 Pro XL continues this troubling tradition, lasting for 24hrs 44mins in our looping video battery test.
Of all the Pixel 10 series, that’s the closest to what I would call acceptable – By comparison, the Pixel 9 Pro XL lasted close to 30 hours in the same test and, as you can see below, the Honor Magic 7 Pro, iPhone 16 Pro Max and especially the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra all proved even better.
I’m investigating the possibility of this dip being due to some kind of bug excessively draining the battery life with video playback, so I’ll be updating this review with the battery test redo if the results prove massively different.
I didn’t receive a compatible Qi2.2 wireless charger to test Pixelsnap with, but the extra speed does make the Pixel 10 Pro XL slightly more compelling than its cheaper siblings. The faster 45W wired charging is also decent but, as it goes hand in hand with the larger battery, the relative charging speed isn’t any faster than last year. Once again, you’ll hit around 55% after 30 minutes on charge.
Cameras
There’s very little to say about the cameras, simply because they’re identical to last year. The 50-megapixel (f/1.7) main lens is still a beautiful shooter, with rich dynamic range and nicely natural colours. Optical image support (OIS) helps keep your shot stable, delivering better detail and the dual pixel phase detection autofocus (PDAF) locked onto the subject swiftly and accurately during my testing.
Night shots are excellent, too, brightening up the scene and bringing out plenty of detail from the shadowy areas. The colours remain pleasingly natural, too, and big blocks of darkness are relatively free from visual noise.
The 48-megapixel (f/2.8) 5x periscope telephoto camera is fantastic for close up portrait-style shots. I put these black berries in the limelight and the definition is fantastic, with sharp outlines around my subject and a buttery smooth blur in the background.
I’m also a big fan of the 48-megapixel (f/1.7) ultrawide camera. That broad aperture really helps it to keep the level of detail strong across the entire image – something that wide-angle lenses tend to struggle with – and the colour tone is near-enough exactly the same as the main camera.
Video is also identical to last year, shooting up to 4K/60fps and offering the option to upscale to 8K/30fps via cloud processing. That’s broadly in line with the competition, though the Galaxy S25 Ultra shoots 8K natively, and offers LOG recording, while the iPhone 16 Pro Max shoots Dolby Vision footage.
By comparison, the Pixel 10 Pro XL lacks that little extra flair that most of the competition seem to be including.
Google Pixel 10 Pro XL: Verdict
Of the entire Pixel 10 series, the Pro XL has the least egregious battery life, the largest display and the fastest version of the new Pixelsnap wireless charging. It also has the highest asking price, however, which is further exacerbated by the removal of the cheaper 128GB variant.
As such, I’m sticking with calling the Pixel 10 the best of this year’s selection. It’s a broadly similar experience for a much cheaper price. The Pixel 10 Pro XL has some quality to it, but between the relatively few upgrades and the battery life issues, it doesn’t feel like particularly good value for money. If you want the best Android flagship around, and aren’t that fussed by the magnets, the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra is right there.
