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In this video, I take an in-depth look at the Google Pixel 10 Pro XL as a photographer, digging into the camera settings, photo quality, and new Pixel Snap accessories. I also cover build quality, battery life, screen performance, and biometric security to see if this is the best camera you'll ever have in your pocket.
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► CHAPTERS
00:00 Intro
00:00 Introduction
00:50 Camera Interface
01:41 Setting to change before using the camera
02:36 Pro settings to change in the camera
03:21 Pro Mode
04:36 Picture Quality
06:11 Zoom Options: Normal Zoom + ProRes Zoom
08:42 Portrait Mode
10:03 Camera Coach
11:04 Improved Panoramas
12:09 Astrophotography + Night Sight Video
15:21 Video Features
16:17 Video Features: The Positives
16:51 Video Stabilization
17:33 Video Autofocus
18:28 Video Features: The negative
18:54 Cinematic Blur
19:58 Log/Third Party Apps
21:50 Video Boost: It's a mess!
23:19 Video Features: Recap
24:02 Build Quality
24:43 Face + FIngerprint Unlock
25:19 Heat/Cold Management
25:55 Updated Screen!
26:35 Battery Life
27:08 PixelSnap Accessories
28:04 Final Thoughts
► MY MUSIC
[music] Hello everyone. They say that the [music] best camera is the one you have inside of your pocket. But can this Google 10 Pro XL simply be your best camera? And do the AI features inside of this phone help you navigate [music] your day-to-day life? Let's answer all of this inside of this in-depth review. For those of you who are new to the channel, I'm Luke Mahalford, a young photographer and filmmaker on the journey to become better at this side. In this in-depth review of the Google Pixel 10 Pro XL, I'll focus on my favorite feature, which is the photography features of this phone. But we'll also talk about the new build quality, the new accessories like Pixel Snap, and so much more. Before we head out on the lake to talk in depth about all the camera features from this phone, let's talk about the interface and some of the options you definitely should be enabling before going out and taking your first photos. If we jump in inside the camera right here, we're going to see that overall the design [music] of the app is actually pretty nice. It's pretty simple and well organized. But one of the main issues right here is actually that if we come to the bottom here, there's so many different modes now and it can be hard to understand when you should be using each of them. The good thing is on the top [music] right corner here, if you click on the little information icon, you can get details about all the [music] different modes inside of the camera here and learn about how to use them. So, this is very useful. If you're not sure which mode you should use, you should definitely go take a look here to understand what all of these are doing. Now, let's dive into the camera settings and talk about some of them that you [music] might want to be enabling. So, first of all, if you come here, we can go inside the pro settings and we can see that there's a 50 megapixel mode. So, because the number is bigger doesn't necessarily mean you should always have it on. It's great if you want to get some shots with more details inside of it. So, you're going to get a lot more resolutions. You can print them bigger. But, one thing you do need to know is that you're going to get a lot of features that going to get disabled once the 50 megapixel mode [music] is enabled. The second thing here is RAW plus JPEG. I always enable RAW plus JPEG because it gives a lot more flexibility [music] when I want to edit the shots. Pixel phones have also always been great because the RAW photos can contain [music] all the HDR information and their whole pipeline information. So, you get a lot of flexibility but still get nice results when [music] you start editing your your raw photos. Okay, so now let's move on and talk about [music] some more advanced features here. So, if we come into settings here and we go inside of our advanced camera settings, we're going to see that the first thing you really want to have enable is rich colors and photos. This is basically enable the P3 color space, which just means the camera [music] is going to be able to capture more colors than the normal color space. This is going to future proof it in the future. And if you have an HDR display, [music] you're going to be able to view all of this. The second thing you want to enable here is have ultra HDR that's on. Unlike the old HDR format that [music] would produce dull photos that would be a little bit gray or have the pixel look, this is going to produce more details inside of the highlight and make the photos look richer, more vibrant, and [music] also a lot more lifelike. Now, let's exit these camera settings and go see the last thing I want to talk about here, and it's the pro [music] manual control. So, if you come inside of here, we can have full manual control on the photos. And [music] what I really like is the shutter speed now can go up to 16 seconds instead of being limited to 1 second like in the past. I honestly haven't used that much the manual controls, but it's great to know that if I want control, I can use them. And what is even better is that you still get the full photo pipeline. So, the great result from Pixel even when you're using the pro manual controls. [music] If you've been enjoying this video up to now, definitely let me know by hitting the like button below. And for YouTube, the only thing to care about these days is that you watch as much as possible. So, definitely continue watching to learn more about this Google 10 Pro XL. While we're heading to the next location, let's talk [music] about the picture quality of the photos coming from the Google 10 Pro XL. There's one [music] word that resumes it very well, and it's natural looking photos. This is because the HDR encoding and also the P3 gamut allows [music] to get a lot more information inside of the photos. And once viewing them on an HDR screen, they look a lot more natural and a lot more lifelike when you were taking [music] them. There's a lot less of the pixel look, and this is because there's more shadows inside of the photos. This is unlike the iPhone that likes to make everything look gray inside of the photos because it hates shadows. The Pixel loves shadows, which is really good to get better looking photos. And also the bright parts of the image are not crazy bright like on the iPhone where the skies are always unnatural. Here they look very natural. Yes, they're brighter, but they're not unnatural, which is very [music] important. It's also not oversaturated like on Samsung phones. So overall, I just feel that they really tweak the algorithm and skin tones, [music] landscapes, whatever you're taking look very natural when viewing them on the phone at least. [music] I was planning to film the next part of the video right here, but sadly the birds took over it and there's bird poop everywhere on it. So, I'll probably have to go back to the cottage to continue filming this video. We made it back. Okay, so I've made it back to the dock here and I want to talk about one of the most surprising features for me on this phone. During the keynote, when I heard Google starting talking about AI zoom, in my head I was telling myself, "Oh no, now here they go again talking about AI zoom." I always thought it was kind of a gimmick in the past and never really worked that well. All the lenses in the background here are all 48 megapixel. So whenever they do a two time zoom, which gives you about 12 megapixel output, you can get pretty good results. And overall, I think the two time zooms options work really well, whether it's on the full lens or on the telephoto lens. My biggest issue is actually between 20 to 30 time zoom. The quality is just honestly not that good. And I would try avoiding it as much as possible. But once you get to 30 time zoom, there's this new feature called ProRes zoom that changes everything. It basically allows you to use AI to take a photo and then replace everything with a much sharper version. It has a really good UI whenever you're taking a photo because holding a phone when you're zooming at 50, 75, or 100 time zoom is really hard, but there's a little rectangle that moves around to tell you where to move your camera to be able to get what you want inside of the shot. And then it's surprisingly stable to hold it even if you move a little bit your hand around. Now, there's a very important thing to talk about here. and it's what is a photo because basically they're going to take the input use AI to recreate basically everything inside of it and generate a new much more sharper image but they're basically inventing stuff at that point the good thing is that all the photos are now tagged with C2PA not just the ones that are created with AI all the photos on your phone are properly tagged with C2PA so you can know whenever the ones are created with AI and the ones that are not let's talk about the results for most of the cases using the ProRes Zoom I got really solid results results. Yes, sometimes it doesn't get some parts. For example, the other day I was taking a picture of the Lon and the beak came out all weird in the end. It's not perfect. It's AI at the end of the day. But overall, I would say that most of the results I got were very solid. The big difference here, I would say, with all these new zoom features on the phone is that I allow myself to use a zoom a lot more than I did before. I used to just not zoom inside of my photos because I was like, the quality is going to be terrible, so what's even the point of zooming in? where here having these options allows me to take shots that I would never take before with my phone. And I think this is a really, really positive thing for the Google 10 Pro. One of the features that's supposed to be improved on the Pixel 10 Pro XL is actually the better [music] portrait mode. So, we come inside of here and we go into portrait mode. It should allow to get some much better looking portrait mode shots from it. Another thing I want to test is that it's also supposed to now work with the 15 megapixel lens. But for this, it only works on the main lens in the back. So, we're [music] going to have to come here in the back. And I'll use the hand gesture to be able to trigger the shot. So, if we go like this, it detected me. Now, let's put the 50 megapixel [music] mode on and see how well it works with the portrait mode. Okay, so now 50 megapixel mode is on and let's see if it's any better in the results. H. So, the hand fit gesture actually doesn't [music] seem to be working in 50 megapixel mode. So, I'll just use the buttons on the camera to take the shot. I'm very curious to hear about what you think about the photos from portrait mode using the 50 megapixel mode. [music] I personally think they look a lot better than 12 megapixel ones. Yes, there's less blur in the background, but the result just look more natural. I think this can be explained by the fact they have more megapixel to work with. So, it's a lot easier for them to find the contours and do a better job. Just remember, it uses more [music] battery. It's more intense on the phone. It's slower, but overall, the results are a lot better. One of the flagship features they announced during the keynote was actually the camera coach feature. I'm very excited about this one [music] because when I was in high school, I tried creating something that was very similar, but AI didn't [music] exist at the time, so it's almost impossible for me to create something that was even close to what they did. Basically, how this feature works is that you hold your camera, select the button to enable camera coach, and then it's going to think about it a little bit and give you different options of shots that you could get that should be better than the one you're looking at right now. Once you select the type of shot you want to get, it's going to give you step-by-step instruction and wait for you to accomplish these instructions to make sure you can get the best shot possible. I've tried a few times up to now. I will say the results were pretty mixed up to now. Sometimes it did give better results. Sometimes it didn't. But I will say that this is going to be very useful for people that are trying to learn how to get better in photography, but don't always know how to get there. One of my favorite camera modes is taking some panorama shots. The reason I love C panorama so much is that you can show a whole scene, not just a smaller part from it. The good news is that the Google 10 Pro XL has a really good panorama mode. They updated in the last version, I think, of the phone where now when you take a panorama, it actually takes individual highquality shots one by one and then merges them all together. The UI is much more intuitive and you also get to use the two time zoom and the five time zoom. I really love [music] this feature. There's so many more camera features that I can cover inside of this video, but I'm actually going to go out tonight if the conditions permit to take some pictures of the star to see how well the astrophotography night mode works on the camera. I will dedicate a full other video about all the camera features inside of the Google 10 Pro XL. So, if you're interested about this and you haven't subscribed to the channel already, now would be a great time to go do that. Go down in the bottom and hit the subscribe button. Now, let's talk about my favorite mode on the Pixel camera and this is the astrophotography mode. So, [music] for this to work, you have to open the camera and you have to make sure that it's on a tripod. It will not work if it's not on a tripod. And then you simply come here on the night side option and after a few [music] seconds if it's dark enough outside and if it's perfectly stable on a camera there's going to be little stars that going to appear on the button here. So now if you press here it's going to do a countdown and it's going [music] to take 4 minutes to take a shot. But there's actually a lot more that I just realized inside of this camera that [music] is very exciting. First of all you can now use the 0.5 zoom here. So [music] you can you zoom out in your shots and get a lot more of the stars. This is very exciting for astrophotography because usually you want to get as wide as possible in [music] the shot to get the most stars possible inside of it. But it's actually something that's even more interesting. So when I was looking at the specs of the camera, they mentioned that there was maybe an option to be [music] able to take some time-lapses at night. And if we come here and we look at the video mode and we scroll to time-lapses, you're actually going to realize that now there is a nightight option that appears here. And if we click on it here, it will show night side. And if you look at the details here, [music] it's actually going to explain that if you film for more than 20 minutes, send the video up to the cloud and come back down, you should be able to get some time-lapses at night. [music] So, it might be true that we can finally take some longer astrophotography time-lapses on the Google Pixel phones without having to do all [music] that processing. [music] [music] Okay, so before I head to my bed, there's two last little things I want to talk about. The first one is just [music] that it resisted to the cold really well. It was around 3° C for the last 4 or 5 hours I was outside and had no problem at all. My Google 6 Pro that I had with me died 20 minutes in this. So, I'm really happy that this one resists [music] a lot better. The second one is actually the battery life is doing really good on this one. It was around 60% when I started, but I've passed four or five hours [music] with the screen on non-stop and taking photos, videos, taking night videos, and had no issues for all of that. It's still at about 15% battery. So, I actually think that's pretty impressive because I was really intense on the phone and it's still not dead. I just reviewed the footage from last night and I must say I'm pretty amazed at the results from the Google 10 Pro XL in the astrophotographing mode. There's a lot of stars in the sky. It's detailed. The handles highlights well. There's so many things that it does so easily by simply pressing one button. I really love this. Now, the little disappointment I had was that the time-lapse night sight option actually didn't produce good results at all for time-lapses of the stars. I would have expected them to be able to handle a little bit better, but you barely see the stars inside of the footage. So, I definitely would not use that one for astrophotography if you want to do that. Okay, so I'm just about to leave on the run and this is a perfect time to test the video features of the Google 10 Pro XL. I must say I was very hopeful that the video would be a lot better and there would be more pro controls and things like that. But I'll just say it right now, it's still one of the weakest points of the Google Pixel 10 Pro phones is that the video is not as good as it could be. [music] And it really frustrates me because I think that's one of the last things that's really holding back these phones. Here we go. It's always nice running here with the fall colors. [music] [music] Now, let's start with the positives of the video on the [music] Google 10 Pro XL. I really enjoy how the colors look. They're actually very similar to the photos, so they look very natural. They're a little bit more saturated, but I don't think that's a big issue. And I really like how they handle HDR. Another great thing here is actually the telephoto lens looks a lot better than it used in the past. It seems to have a much better sensor, much better lenses. So, that's a big improvement. One of the most [music] improved things on the camera is actually the video stabilization. I don't know if you can see how wobbly it is right now, but when it's on the frontfacing lens or the backfacing lens, the videos are much much more stable. The only issue is actually that I cropped so much inside of the video to be able to stabilize this. I've always loved running down here and the view of the colors in the fall in front. One of the great things about the video here is that the autofocus is actually really good. So, if I just move around here, it keeps focusing exactly where it should on all the different objects. It's very sticky on objects that are in front of it, so it won't be wobbling around between different points. So, overall, I have no problems at all with the autofocus on the Google 10 Pro XL. This little hill is always pretty hard, but the good thing is that it doesn't last too long. So sadly, this is where the good stuff about the video mode on the Google 10 Pro ends, [music] and it's where I start talking about the things that are not as good. So, first of all, the video is still oversharpened. It's much better than it used to be, but I still would love to have a slider allowing me to reduce the sharpening because it's just too much. One of the features I was the most excited to test out is the cinematic blur. So, basically, it's going to make the blackgrounds even blurriier [music] uh using some AI to detect the objects inside of the shots. But, this is such a disappointing feature. So, if we test it here, it works. It's not great, but [music] yeah, it does work. But the thing that's very frustrating is that there's basically no options. There's no HDR. The video is maximum full HD. there's no 4K. So, it's basically a useless mode at the end of the day. [music] Why do they even implement it if they're not going to support 4K, HDR, and all the other things that would actually make this a great video mode? This background blur mode would also be so much more useful on the front-facing camera because this would basically allow me to get some nice blurry backgrounds whenever I'm filming with the camera. But if you try clicking on the blur mode here, it simply sends you back to the backfacing camera. It's not even an option to have it in the front. So again, I don't even know why they have this mode because it's so useless. [music] Let's quickly get through some other issues I have with the video mode on this Google Pixel phone. So, first of all, the HDR is disabled at 60 frames per second, which is very frustrating considering that the full uh slow motion modes at 120 frames per second and 240 frames per second is only 1080p and still doesn't have HDR. Then there's no pro uh options at all. There's no pro menu. You cannot control anything basically in this other than the exposure a little bit, which is very frustrating. And there's no way even with thirdparty apps to get access to a true log profile or a raw profile like it's possible on the iPhone to get a lot more quality out of the cameras. Okay, I've done a totally terrible job at my run. I've only run 20 minutes and it's already been over an hour since I left the cottage. So now I'll have to concentrate a lot more on my run than actually doing the video because I have a half marathon coming up in just 4 weeks. So I have to get ready for that one. [music] [music] The run is done. Let's head back. Let me myself [music] get my breath back and talk about how Google thinks they can solve this issue. [music] While I'm getting the lunch ready, let's talk about what Google is doing about it. Because with everybody that seems to want to [music] become a content creator, they surely want to have better video on their phones. The answer to this issue from Google is actually to create something that they called video boost. And this is basically a feature that allows you to take the videos you're capturing in much higher quality and then they send that file to the cloud. It comes back to your phone [music] and then the original video is deleted and replaced by the new optimized video. In general, I found that the videos are much more stable. So, if you want to have more stable videos, video boost is a [music] much. I still think there's too much sharpening because they seem to be applying even more sharpening with Video Boost than they actually do with the normal one. So, that part I don't really like. But there's a lot of issues [music] with this mode, too. First of all, you have to upload all of your files, which is really annoying. But the really annoying part, and that I discovered the hard way, [music] is that you actually have to use Google Photos, and you have to have your full resolution mode on. So, you have to pay for storage to be able to send it. So, this means you [music] probably have to pay something like $100 a year in storage to be able to use this mode. But what's even worse is that even if you're paying [music] for a subscription, they still force you every single time that you open the camera app to go in and enable that mode. you close the app or you just close the phone, you have to reopen the mode. So, you always keep forgetting to have to do this. So, it's actually really hard to use. And if you're going to force me to pay $100 a year to get some storage, I would want this feature to be enabled all the time. Please Google, this makes no sense at all. Is it actually as bad as I made it sound? I would say if your goal is just to take everyday videos, then it's a great camera. It actually takes really good videos. You're probably going to be happy with how it looks. If you're especially going to look them on your phone, [music] they're going to look great in this case. But will it replace the my pro cameras I use to film YouTube videos or things like that? [music] Definitely not. I don't think it's a camera that people are going to start using to film music videos that are going to use to film shoot films or things like that. And I really don't understand [music] why Google doesn't invest more to make this a great video camera, too, because they own YouTube and it would be great if they actually created a phone that could capture amazing videos so you don't have to carry an extra tool with you when you want to shoot some videos. Now that we made it to the other side of the country, let's talk about something different. The build quality of the Google 10 Pro XL is amazing. It's a little bit heavier and feels like it's built to last, which is a really good thing. One little downside is that the back here can be pretty smooth and a little bit slippery in some situations, but I can say that I dropped this phone quite a few times and it resisted them no problem. There's no scratches or anything visible on the phone from those files. One unexpected improvement are actually the [music] speakers. They're loud, they're clear, and they're great for listening to music, YouTube videos, or anything like that. I'm not a nod file, so I cannot say if they're the best speakers, but for everyday use, they are amazing. I can't overstate this, but I love the fact that this phone has both face unlock [music] and a fingerprint scanner. For a lot of situations like when I want to access my password manager or access Google [music] wallets, I can simply bring the phone in front of me and unlock it right away using my face. But for more complex situation like at night times or things like that where face unlock might not work, I can simply use my finger and access stuff really [music] quickly and in a secure way. I think all phones should have this. Yes, I'm looking at you, Apple. [music] While we're talking about temperature sensors, let's talk about how the Google 10 Pro XL handles [music] heat and cold. This one handles both of these situations no problem. I haven't [music] had a ton of days to test it, but both of the days where I had those temperatures, no problem at all using this phone in [music] these temperatures. And this actually makes sense because Google mentioned that the XL version has a little bit more space inside of it. So, it can [music] better handle different types of temperatures. Now, with that being said, I have to be very clear that this phone can still get hot, especially when you're taking 15 megapixel photos, 4K videos, or anything else that's intensive on the CPU. The XO Mark rated the screen of the Google 10 Pro XL as the best screen on any smartphone. I honestly don't know if this is true or not, but I can say that this screen [music] is fantastic. It's very bright and also produces very nice and natural looking colors. And this is very important whenever you want to be using your phone in sunny [music] days or under a bright light. One downside is actually that this screen got scratched after about 2 weeks of using the phone and I was pretty much babying the phone all the time. So I have no idea how this happened. [music] This is really disappointing especially when you consider that this phone has the latest technology from Corning Gorilla Glass. One thing that's really important on a [music] phone is that it has good battery. And up to now, I'm pretty pleased with the results that I have from the Google 10 Pro XL. Most of the days I finished with [music] 30 to 40% battery, which is really good compared to my Google Pixel 6 Pro that would die in the middle of the afternoon. [music] But one thing I'm really, really happy that Google finally added is a battery health option inside of the settings. So now you can know how much of your [music] capacity of your battery is left and if it's time to replace it for a new one. Now, let's talk about some cool new accessories that weren't available on the Pixel [music] phones before. This is possible because of the new standard called G2 or Pixel Snap in the Google world or MagSafe in the Apple world. If you have no idea what this means, it's basically a bunch of magnets in the back of the phone that allow you to attach all kinds of accessories to it. This is also very important for Rails charging because allows it to be much more efficient. The cool thing is that whether you get a G2 compatible uh accessory, you get it for Mag Safe, or you get it for Pixel Snap, they will all work on the Google 10 Pro XL. If you're buying a Google Pixel phone, one of the reasons is probably for the great software. There's so many new things to cover inside of this phone, but I don't really have time inside the video to cover all of these. So, I decided to create a second part video where I only talk about all the software features from this phone. So definitely subscribe to the channel if you want to learn more about the software from the Google 10 Pro XL. Here are my final thoughts. As a photographer, it's very important for me to have a phone that takes great photos and that will last quite a long time and that won't break the first time I drop it. And I think the Google 10 Pro XL answers all of these things. My only real disappointment is that I would really like it if it could take some better videos straight out of the main camera app. If you're just looking for a phone that takes really good photos, that takes decent videos for day-to-day, the Google 10 Pro is a really good option. If you enjoy this video, please let me know by hitting the like button below and definitely subscribe for more content on photography and film making. See you in the next one.
Can a phone really be your best camera? I set out to answer this question with an in-depth look at the Google Pixel 10 Pro XL, focusing especially on what matters most to me as a photographer and filmmaker.
I start by walking through the camera interface and the essential settings you should enable before taking your first shot. The 50-megapixel mode, RAW plus JPEG capture, Ultra HDR, and those new advanced controls give you flexibility, but they come with trade-offs. I enable RAW mode by default because Pixel's processing pipeline—even in raw files—preserves all that HDR and computational photography information.
The photo quality is where this phone really shines. The images look naturally balanced: shadows are preserved, highlights aren't blown out like on iPhones, and there's no crazy oversaturation like Samsung phones. The colors look lifelike on an HDR screen, and that's the real test for me.
Then there's the zoom. I went into this skeptical about "AI zoom," but the results surprised me. Two-times zoom works great on both lenses. The weak spot is the 20–30x range, but that's where ProRes Zoom kicks in—it uses AI to reconstruct a much sharper image. Yes, technically it's generating detail, but Google tags everything with C2PA metadata so you know what's AI-assisted. For most shots, the results are solid, and it's made me actually want to zoom, which I never did before.
The astrophotography mode is genuinely magical. One button, four minutes, and you get detailed starfield photos. The night sight time-lapse feature exists but doesn't produce great results for star trails—disappointing there.
Video is where my frustration starts. The colors are natural, the stabilization is significantly improved, and autofocus is sticky and responsive. But it's still oversharpened, there's no pro menu, cinematic blur is limited to 1080p HDR-less footage, and slow motion only goes 1080p. Video Boost processes your clips in the cloud to make them more stable, but you have to pay for Google Photos storage and re-enable it constantly. It doesn't make sense.
Beyond the camera, the build quality is excellent—it's heavier and feels durable. I dropped it several times with no damage. The dual biometric unlock (face and fingerprint) is a blessing. Temperature management is solid. The screen is stunning. Battery life is good—I'm consistently finishing days at 30–40% remaining. And the new Pixel Snap accessories work seamlessly because they're compatible with G2, MagSafe, and Google's own standard.
So is the Pixel 10 Pro XL your best camera? As a photographer, absolutely. It takes stunning, natural photos and the zoom capabilities now open up shots I wouldn't have attempted before. As a videographer wanting to film serious content? Not yet. Google owns YouTube, and I genuinely don't understand why they haven't made video a priority. For everyday photos and casual video, this phone delivers. For professional work, I'm still carrying my dedicated cameras. But I'm closer than ever to leaving one at home.