Google Announces the Pixel 10 Lineup, With More AI and Magnetic Charging

Google has officially announced the Pixel 10, Pixel 10 Pro and Pro XL, and a truly dustproof foldable, the Pixel 10 Pro Fold phone. Unsurprisingly, the announcement was all about AI features, including the ability to turn your photos into videos, built right into the phone, all presented during Made by Google today in a cringingly-awkward talk show format hosted by Jimmy Fallon. And AI aside, they all come with one thing that most Android phones still lack: built-in magnetic charging, which Google is calling Pixelsnap.

So it's four phones, with the standard Pixel 10 starting at $799, the Pixel 10 Pro at $999, the Pixel 10 Pro XL at $1,199 (a bump from the 9 Pro XL's $1,099, but with double the starting storage at 256GB), and the Pro Fold is $1,799. The Pixel 10s come in blue, green, a pinkish white, and black colors, though Google decided to make them more muted in the 10 Pro models, I guess because pros aren't allowed to have fun. The 10 Pro Fold comes in just gray and green.

Pixel 10 By the Numbers

The Pixel 10's cameras are different this year, but whether it's an upgrade or not is up to your priorities. There are three cameras, instead of just two, in the base model Pixel 10 – the standard Pixel 10 now has a 10.8MP telephoto camera. However, Google made the other cameras a little worse than the Pixel 9, so now the Pixel 10 now has a 48MP main camera instead of a 50MP one, and a 13MP ultrawide with a 120-degree field of view (FOV), versus the 48MP with 123-degree FOV in last year's phone. The Pixel 10 Pro and Pro Fold models feature the same camera specs as their 9 Pro equivalents.

Google also bumped the battery capacity of all of the phones versus last year: The 10 Pro XL has 5,200mAh (up from 5,070mAh); the 10 Pro has 4,870mAh (up from 4,700mAh); and the Pixel 10 has 4,970mAh (up from 4,700mAh). Finally, the 10 Pro Fold features a 5,015mAh battery, up from 4,650mAh before.

Otherwise, these are largely the same phones as before, with very similar display specs and mostly the same RAM and storage specs (except, again, there's no 128GB Pixel 10 Pro XL model).

The Pixel 10 Pro Fold Can Handle Dust

The Pixel 10 Pro Fold may look like a 9 Pro Fold, but it has some notable changes aside from Qi2 charging, including one very big, important one: it's IP68-rated, meaning it's sealed against dust ingress. That's a big deal in the world of foldables, and a win for the Pro Fold's durability, assuming it holds up well enough over time. Dust and waterproof ratings do apply to a phone when it's released from the factory, but that protection can degrade as you own and use the phone. Foldables tend to have trouble with dust, especially in their hinges, where it can interfere with their folding.

As for the rest of the phone, Google says the phone's hinge now uses no gears and is "twice as durable" as that in the 9 Pro Fold. The company also claims the folding display is more drop-resistant and that it can handle "over 10 years of folding." It also gets a slightly larger 6.4-inch outer display, compared to 6.3 inches in its predecessor and keeps an 8-inch internal screen.

Pixel 10's Biggest Upgrades

Inside, these phones are equipped with a Tensor G5 chip that Google says has a 34 percent faster CPU and a 60 percent more improvement in local AI performance compared to the Pixel 9. The phones have MagSafe-like magnetic rings embedded into their backs, with 15W wireless charging in the standard and Pro Pixel 10s and 25W charging in the Pixel 10 Pro Fold, giving the new Pixels a leg up over Samsung's "Qi2 Ready" Galaxy S25 series, which has no magnets and only offers up to 15W charging when you add a magnet case. Google calls its magnetic charging "Pixelsnap."

With the new Tensor G5 chips comes new on-device AI features. The company showed off a slew of them, including one called Magic Cue. This feature reacts to your messages by presenting a button that can pull information from other apps to respond to texts. If someone asks what time dinner is, you might be able to tap a button to reply with the time, as taken from a dinner reservation. If they ask when your plane is landing, the button can gather info from a flight email. It pulls its information from all sorts of places, including your calendar, Gmail, and Google Photos, and can work in any app that you'd use Gboard, Google's keyboard.

The company is also letting AI seep further into your smartphone photography. The company announced a new Camera Coach feature that offers suggestions for framing and composition, for instance. And when you digitally zoom your photo way in – up to 100x – the company brings in an AI model to clean the image up, adding in more detail than the camera lens could have possibly captured. Note my use of "adding" there. The Verge notes that Google is using AI diffusion models to generate detail; also that it won't work on people and that any AI-altered images will get a C2PA content credential tag noting it was edited with AI. Still, it'll be fun to see what nonsense it comes up with for text photographed at that range.

Pixel 10 phones will come with a full year of Google AI Pro, the company's AI subscription service that gives you access to a number of the company's AI features and normally starts at $19.99 a month.

Now Up For Preorder

All four of the new phones are up for preorder on Google's website today. They'll be available October 9th, so you'll have to wait a bit to get it. We'll keep an eye on things and let you know about deals as they happen (Google Fi is offering an $800 promotion if you join and buy a Pixel 10 Pro Fold right now, for instance).

Wes is a freelance writer (Freelance Wes, they call him) who has covered technology, gaming, and entertainment steadily since 2020 at Gizmodo, Tom's Hardware, Hardcore Gamer, and most recently, The Verge. Inside of him there are two wolves: one that thinks it wouldn't be so bad to start collecting game consoles again, and the other who also thinks this, but more strongly.