Pixel 10, one week later

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Just tell me what your initial thoughts are. I want to hear them not hands-on level. I want to hear using it every single day. So the Pixel 10 Pro feels exactly like the 9 Pro. Grabbing it blind, you cannot tell the difference year over year. It's the same exact industrial design, the exact same hand feel. nothing has changed in a significant fashion. And it's like a real part two in a way. Do you mean that in the sense that...

Yeah, you pick it up and there must be some element that gives it away. There must be something surely, right? Because it is supposedly five grams heavier. Can you tell that? I do agree with you. I can tell because I'm going from the 9A. I still love the 9A so much with the flat, the camera bar. I thought the biggest appeal of the camera bar was you can hook, you can...

Your forefinger, you can put it underneath the camera bar to hold it. But if your phone is light enough, you don't really need that. And I still like the 9A so much. I totally agree with you having now used a Pixel 10 since Monday and it's Thursday. So I'm not I'm not quite as deep as you guys, but it feels exactly like the Pixel 9. It's similar to the.

9 Pro and 10 Pro. But yeah, I, you know, I don't hate this design. I like this design. I have found this series to be top heavy since last year. And obviously. There are no changes to that this year. It still feels a little top heavy to me, which does help with the camera bar. You can hook your finger under it. I do the exact same thing, but.

I would agree the 9A is the more comfortable phone to hold as much as the design. Some people may find a little more bland, but to me, it's just it's comfort over appearance. And I would say that the weight difference between the 10 Pro and the 10 is negligible. There's no real savings if you're looking for that.

Well, so let me play devil's advocate for a moment. I have had the 10 and I've had the 10 Pro XL. So for me, I can't tell the difference between those two devices. But I do wonder if there's going to be some people out there who... Like, go ahead and pick up the regular 10 and then...

they maybe go ahead and someone else has a 10 Pro, there might be some confusion there. I mean, you're not going to leave phones lying around, but if they weigh the exact same, and I'm trying to remember what happened in the hands-on, and I am awaiting my 10 Pro in the mail.

I think I'm going to have some problems this year leaving devices around and picking up the wrong one. You got to look for that temperature sensor. You got to look. I put a case on the nine. That's the only way I can actively tell. I put a case.

Let's talk a little bit about the 10 then for a moment, because this is the one that I, maybe I set myself up for failure a little bit because I reviewed this device, well, I initially reviewed this device. I have some more thoughts in the next few weeks and months as I kind of get into it. I genuinely think I set myself up for failure by putting so much pressure on the changes being made exponentially improving the device in every single aspect. I feel like...

You could argue I'm maybe being a little bit harsh on it in some respects because, like I say, I had a very high bar. set for it. I do genuinely think the X is a fantastic device in its own right. They're just a few little things that have started to irk me now, like Google has done this with, let's throw the non-redesign to the side. There's a few things that they've made.

kind of clear that they're going to continue to do with their bass model. And I was always an advocate for the bass model. Like this to me screams A-Series is now the new bass. Like it is the bass of the bass and we should go there. Like, I don't know. It's a strange one, right? It feels like...

They've made steps forward. They made quite a few steps backward. And is it in the same position? I'm not entirely sure. I know you've been using the base 10, Will. I'd love to hear your thoughts as someone who has kind of just picked this up blind, gone in day one base model. Yeah, it's interesting. This is the first Pixel launch that I have not had to do a review for since the Pixel 6a, I guess, was the last time I didn't review a Pixel.

I don't know. It's it's it's refreshing to come in and not have to like have these like high expectations or really any expectations you can just kind of like. adopt a phone it's the analysis mode yeah like you as a review uh exactly what is it like criticizing critiquing every single thing the minute you get it to formulate your thoughts and opinions yeah what's it like to be a normal person who got this phone in the mail and is unboxing it and um

My experience has been has been good. I would say that like, you know, if I had, you know, I've obviously used the Pixel 9 series, but if I was I was. coming here from my pixel 8 if i had upgraded from the pixel 9 i would certainly feel like this is a very similar device to what i was just using but i think you know the 8 series and and backwards and only

Those changes obviously become much more apparent. And what I would say is that like this is the first this is the first pixel, you know, tensor powered pixel that has that did not like. get uncomfortably warm in my hand while i was setting it up it was do you know that is so weird you said i was literally about to ask you i was like did it get warm no i think not really the thermal it's weird because i'm seeing conflicting reports from like there are obviously anecdotal evidence from people

and yeah you know what it's like on social media when something can snowball and then all of a sudden it's group think everybody thinks the same thing but I've heard people talking about thermals and I've I mean don't get me wrong I live in England so it's not really very warm but yeah all the time but there's been like 20 plus I don't know what that is in freedom units, but you guys will have to convert that on the fly for me. Maybe like 70s, maybe low 80s, which is...

pretty warm for the UK. I've not had any issues with overheating with either device. And that is like, I was really surprised because my Pixel 9 Pro XL can still get really warm for just no apparent reason. Granted, the thermals are better over the Pixel 8 and better over the Pixel 7. So at least there's some sort of like incremental thermal improvements, which is important, I guess. You don't want to be touching your scorching device, right? But Damien, I'm actually glad you brought it up.

temperatures because i hadn't thought about it but like it has been an unusually warm summer in buffalo it's it's typically fairly moderate here that is kind of the the trade-off you get for having a fairly harsh winter is that you have a very like comfortable temperate summer um but we've like much of the u.s have been in like fairly record-breaking like heat temperatures for this like it's been a lot of like you know uh in celsius like like 30 or above days like 90 or above days um and uh

I've noticed in the past, you know, I remember setting up like or reviewing the Pixel 7 Pro, which came out in October and not having many heat issues with it. And then the next summer I reviewed the the Pixel. uh 7a which had the same chipset but in a warmer time of year and had like noticed many more like overheating issues and and it is interesting that like

Here in Buffalo, we finally hit like a dip in the temperature. And I do wonder if maybe that is something with it where like now we're at like, you know, 20 degrees Celsius, 70 Fahrenheit or whatever highs and. I hadn't considered that. I do think this is a more efficient, more. uh uh or better cooled chip in general but um but but that could be playing a role i had not thought about the fact that i'm no longer in a heat bubble um but that said i mean like

To not heat up at all during setup, in my experience, and it's going to be different for everybody. But I was, you know, doing the entire data transfer from my Pixel 8. I had to convert a physical SIM card into an eSIM. Yeah, that was I was nervous about that. was totally fine like i i uh i didn't run into any hiccups which which which can be rare i i sometimes run into issues like setting up a new pixel specifically and i never know why and and um

I have had maybe it's because I'm not reviewing it, but I've had good luck this time. Like I've had. Practically no complaints on efficiency or thermals or anything. Really, my big issue is what everybody seems to be saying, which is that the battery life is not what I think we all expect. It's not bad, but I think we all expected a little bit more. performance out of the battery and so far it's fine.

I guess my question is, why are you holding your phone during the setup process? I did. I did. OK, during the app transfer, I put it on a table for the rest of it. I was holding it just because you are you're moving through menus. But yes, I definitely set them both down when when it was doing.

data transfer but when i picked it back up it was not and then you put on a table and then you move it like 10 minutes later to make sure it's not in a warm spot i like the clinical nature of that abner i really like how clinical you are abner's gotta gotta stop watch out just like all right and 10 minutes move it i um yeah i i didn't time it or anything but like when i looked you know we were just watching tv

or whatever i was setting it up at night and and yeah when i noticed that hadn't finished i picked back up and it was i i felt this phone get warm twice and both times it was fairly like typical smartphone warmth not

you know older generations of tensor warmth so yeah you mentioned the tensor chip let's dive right into it so tensor g5 first on first built by tsmc right this three nanometer process so going in there was so much hype it was rumored almost two years ago more because more summer 2023

because the rumors were that it was coming with the pixel 9 tensor g4 but they had to push it back a year and that would explain lining up a new design language with a new chip but neither here nor there but yeah it's i guess the high level for all of us is that it's not a massive cure-all for tensor issues it's not a panacea it is just

another google chip i think the way i phrase it in my review was every tensor's chip is better than the last one but any gains any performance head rooms google is spending all that back into AI. Like you will get traditional performance gains, like a better CPU this year, 30 plus percent, but everything else is spent on AI. And I think that's, at this point, we need to accept that.

Google does not necessarily want to compete with the Apples and now Qualcomm's of the world in their chip. They're so focused on AI performance. Do you think that's kind of sad though? I'm thinking of it from a position of... I mean, I have noticed some, like initially I thought, oh, there's no difference in performance, but there is some differences in performance. Certain things definitely load quicker. Processing, AI, AI, image post processing is definitely a little bit faster. New ISP.

And the, yeah, which is obviously tied to something else on that in the hardware, obviously. So it's, it's a full. almost like a meal, as it were. You have your starter, your main course, and your dessert all combining together to complete the experience. I feel like with the Pixel 10 Pro XO, I didn't expect huge performance gains anyway, so everything's kind of been...

been tempered a lot and I wasn't really overly annoyed with the performance on the Pixel 9 series. Neither was I. I feel like maybe there is a bit of a disconnect and I don't...

This feels like diminishing what people say when they claim that they want, oh, you're almost brushing under the carpet the fact that people want to see major performance gains. And don't get me wrong, if Tenser... g7 for instance said okay that's it that's our benchmark for when we're going to catch qualcomm we're going to have an a series level chip on on on android effectively then hey

I'm pretty sure all of us would snatch that with both hands. I just think it's very much a case of Google kind of went down the rabbit hole of making their own chip, and obviously with the help of Samsung and Samsung Foundry, it feels like now they're with TSMC.

And people kind of expected this huge performance leap. It's not necessarily been that initially, but I do think now we're in a good position whereby if there's thermal efficiency there, there's some other power efficiencies which will probably come with software improvements.

It's a really good starting block, again, because it always feels like every pixel we're getting a new starting block. This feels like very much the ceiling is not a million miles away anymore. It feels like there can be some progress over time. Maybe I'm being a little bit kind of getting way ahead of myself, but as it stands, everything seems to be pretty snappy so far. I know there was some benchmarks online that people were sharing and I don't think they...

they seem to match with what I've seen in terms of experience. But yeah, I do think Google's core focus being on the experience is probably better than worrying about, oh, we hit a benchmark figure or we hit a... Because that's not going to make much difference, is it, in day-to-day? Like, oh, yeah, we got 10,000 on Antutu. I don't even know if that's a score. Because, as you can tell, I don't know benchmark scores.

That's not going to change how you make a phone call, send a text message, interact with Gemini, interact with all these services. It does feel like a more human-centric approach to chipset design, I guess. Is that the best way to describe it? I don't know. Agreed. I think the one valid concern that people bring up is gaming performance, a GPU. I believe there's a new GPU this year, which Google did not want to really talk about.

mobile gaming is a thing it's a big thing it's a for the play store for android it's fit it should be very important and i believe jordan was talking about how uh

you can't get the highest possible graphics with this tensor and that remains unchanged. Maybe that's something that needs optimization down the road, but it's... you can play the games let's get that out of the way you can still play them it's not the highest fidelity but you can still play them do you think that's enough do you think that's enough for some people i guess

I guess when we look at the crazy keynote that we had the other week, the kind of people that they're targeting are not the kind of people who are going to throw. Yeah. they're going to play Asphalt 9 Legends which has run on the calculator for the past four years and don't get me wrong graphically it's quite nice I just feel like again I think it definitely comes back to that idea of

human-centric like if you're if you're a hardened mobile gamer you're not going i feel like you already know that the galaxy s25 ultra is the phone that you should buy and i don't know i don't know if maybe i i want to i'll ask you will because obviously i know that the audience you had you guys had at andrew police

definitely very, very like kind of high end. We want to have everything top, top spec. Do you think that that's something that is going to hinder the pixel 10 launch? No, I, I, I think, I think there is a disconnect between, um, what maybe enthusiast pixel fans want especially because pixel has these uh links to nexus that it can never

lose right it will like like even if not everybody knows that the enthusiast market knows it and i don't think that's ever gone away and so i wonder if there is this idea of like well the pixel is supposed to be the benchmark of Android. It is the Android device for all other Android devices to match or whatever. And I don't think Google sees it that way. Maybe they did.

pre-tensor but i i think since the switch to tensor there has been like a very apparent like this is this is a device that they are trying to make uh uh ai centric and and to your point Damien human centric, first and foremost, they don't I don't think they care very much as long as it can play modern games in general. I don't think they see that Google sees a reason to push forward on.

graphics performance when there are other devices fulfilling that role whether it's the the s25 ultra or or like a more gaming specific phone something from like red magic or something like i i think that market they that market is there i also think that they're like You know, a lot of their focus is on with these phones are on North America and like mobile gaming.

like high end mobile gaming is less of a thing here. It's not not a thing here, but like it's not nearly as much of a thing as it is in China or South Korea. And I wonder if if there is just kind of a disconnect between what like enthusiasts and like R slash Google Pixel.

like subscribers want out of this device versus what Google is trying to accomplish. And I've thought this for ages. I've been, you know, I feel like for the better part of a year, I've been like, people are setting themselves up for disappointment. disappointment with tensor g5 i don't think google is going to deliver like a snapdragon 8 elite style chipset i think it's very clear that they see

TSMC as the way to squeeze more efficiency and cooler thermals out of the chip. But I didn't. I think they see TSMC as a truly custom solution. Exactly. It has nothing to do with cranking out. the most performance possible. Whereas I think Qualcomm is trying to crank out as much performance as possible on all metrics. And that does make the Snapdragon Elite maybe more of a well-rounded chipset.

But simultaneously, if you want those AI centric features that Google is pushing, like they are optimizing their chipset for the features they're building in a very Apple way. Yeah, no, that's a really fun. I think that's. Probably the most salient point about Tensor, really. It feels definitely much like they don't need to keep relying on an off-the-shelf solution or the solution that someone else has provided for their problem. They can kind of tailor the...

Taylor the solution to the problem, if that makes sense. You can go end to end. That's definitely made a big difference in this device. And just briefly talking about the gaming thing, I do wonder if...

Google even cares in that respect, though, because I know you mentioned about mobile gaming being huge. I think you mentioned it briefly, Abner, and they take a lot of money from the Play Store. But I thought the biggest people who spent the most amount of money were the kind of people who played Candy Crush and all those games.

and they run like a dream. I'm not going to lie, they run like a dream. And I have broken my highest of high scores playing Bellatro on the Pixel 10. That's also my test. Can a device grow Bellatro? That's all I care about. It's a great gaming device.

If you want to play Bellatro, that's all you need to know is that it runs like a dream and Candy Crush and all those basic games are fantastic. So, yeah, gaming for me is an on-starter, but yeah, I can kind of see. I would like to see a little bit more horsepower. Yeah, I'm not even saying it's... When GPU driver updates get there, they can kind of crank a few more frames and stuff. But it doesn't seem too bad for me so far. I don't think it's like...

I don't think it's the wrong or right answer. I think it's just that like Google has its priorities where they lay and that is going to annoy some fans, some potential pixel buyers who maybe are going to see benchmark scores or still care deeply about benchmark.

scores or they are like dedicated mobile gamers they love hoilverse games or whatever like those are the that's the stuff that is going to need that processing power and and they might choose a different phone because of it and i think that is a bet that google is willing to make. Like, I think I, I, with every generation, it, because the story about these phones becomes more and more about what it's doing for you on everyday tasks, not, you know, the, like.

are you pushing, you know, 4K video at 120 FPS? Like, like, I think that's where they fall. And Google is. has clearly done the math internally and realized they don't care that much. As long as it can play those games to a certain extent, that is what they see as satisfactory. Yeah, definitely. Let me just quickly, before we get into those lifestyle things and those...

those extras that Google is doing to make this phone, I guess, seemingly feel more in tune with what you want to do on a day-to-day basis and make your life a little bit easier, as they would say. The change to the faster storage. I know you guys have been using 128 gigabyte models. Yeah. Just looking at the performance for a minute, though, I definitely think that UFS 4.0 is that big. It is a leap. I can definitely tell the difference. I've switched between the Pro XL and the X.

And there is a, it is snappier when it opens things. It feels smoother. This feels like the culmination of a few things. I think not getting into QPR one, two. but it's nice that it's here. I like that aspect of it. It runs like a dream on the Pixel 10 Pro XL. I have the 256 gigabyte option, which is sadly where you're going to have to go to get that faster storage. I don't think the, I don't think...

The kind of people who are going to buy the base model anyway probably won't care. It's a little bit sad. I do believe that's due to the fact that you cannot get 128 gigabyte UFS 4.0 storage modules. Then Google should bump it. Then Google should absolutely bump the base storage.

especially because i i don't know maybe this is just a a me problem but like with all of the ai stuff like like just the local models in general take up like like 10 gigabytes of data now like yeah they need to just bump all of these they're pushing 50 megapixel uh portrait mode the camera and video will always demand more storage so i think at this point where somebody should read on doing 256 base

I I already have 50 gigabytes filled on my phone. I don't have that many apps. I have not taken that many photos and I typically clear them out from from from once they're backed up to Google Photos. So like.

to already and i haven't downloaded any music or anything i think a few podcasts but like it it's uh it's remarkable how fast that storage fills up these days you know 128 used to feel comfortable and another forward-looking consideration is if we start using desktop modes and whatever it's it's

beyond ready for 256. Yeah. I do wonder about that as well. I do wonder if you, if we start using slow storage on desktop mode, then the performance is going to make a, take a really big hit because you take, you put in data through an old, well, I know, I know they are US. usb 3.2 so that's a good thing for data transfer rates but when you have that slower storage on your device yeah don't get me wrong it's still it is solid state right but

You kind of want that best in class performance when you have a desktop mode on a phone. I don't know. Maybe we're looking into it too deeply. We're looking at it from that tech enthusiast side of things. And Google was like, well, it's going to be fine. The average person who's going to use desktop mode is going to get the big storage. Storage is storage. It's more stuff. I don't know. It's just a very obvious sell in light of how many videos people take these days.

Yeah, I mean, obviously with the base model, the Pixel 10, you're not getting that video boost. So maybe there's a little bit of an excuse there. You don't have quite as much big files with the base model, but it's a little bit disappointing. But let's...

Let's talk a little bit about some of the tangibles and the AI. Yeah, I think some of the demos ahead of time, I think sometimes you kind of, you have to... hold disbelief a little bit in terms of how it's going to affect you. But I know that you've seen Magic Q a lot more than I have, Abner. How have you been finding using it so far? Magic Q is, it's...

conceptually, philosophically, it is the right way to surface these suggestions to people. It's by using the existing smart reply bar in Google messages. or adding it to gboard or notifications that is the light absolutely the light surface so the good thing is that google got that light out the gate they have the ui and the ux down

It just takes one or two to really appreciate how, oh, this saved me some time from switching apps. It's on device. And I think what... when people start getting their devices on Thursday, I think it will take... a solid week or well officially it's 24 hours like after you charge it overnight it starts indexing stuff but i think it'll take a good proper week and beyond

people to start seeing these magic cue suggestions and i think that's a bit unfortunate uh but afterwards i i just think you need even a handful a day will make you realize that wow this is convenient the caveat there is that you need to be more judicious about putting your life in google calendar basically putting information in google keep Yeah, you have to log a bit more than you might already have to get the full benefits and potential.

Yeah, I think I've seen it a few times. It's surfaced a couple of times recently, mostly with maps related things. So when I've searched for location, gone into Google Maps and it's pulled up the... I had a little pop-up and it kind of shocked me at first. I was like, why is it giving me that information? And I was searching for a location for Andrew, actually.

As we're recording, this is currently in the UK at an event. So he was asking me about some recommendations for places to eat. He got some good recommendations, hopefully, from me, which is a rarity. And it made life a little bit easier because I could just quickly search the location on Google Maps.

just tapping the, the, the G board and like it, it did make a big difference. It's almost like a clipboard, but like, um, I guess it's proactive, like a more proactive clipboard, which is something that you don't necessarily think you're going to use, but. if it's there all the time anyway, then you may as well use it. And I think that's kind of the best thing about certain quality of life features that if people want to sell them as that, then they just work without any input. And I think...

Maybe they could expand this to more applications. I'd love to be able to use it in WhatsApp and things like that and people asking me questions. But yeah, using Google Messages for me here in the UK, it's a bit of a tough one to be quite honest with you. I also don't use Google messages, so I haven't even had it. I haven't experienced Magic Q yet, which is a bummer. But I'm I. Yeah, I'm fascinated by Abner's.

experience with it i i wish like i i hope it comes to because i'm mostly on telegram these days and i i hope it comes to to more third-party apps eventually i don't know how that would work but i'm sure google yeah i'll probably be gboard yeah yeah exactly these apps or it's just to gboard or to notifications, messaging apps, notifications specifically. There's the ways for doing, yeah. That's probably a big service for them. I haven't used the phone app. Like I haven't, who?

calling airlines is a necessary evil so i see why they put it but yeah um that's the other big surface the other thing is daily hub which is man they're attempts at a

new Google Now successor. Basically it can surface your calendar. pretty straightforward. But the other interesting thing is it can surface things you need to know from Gmail or knowledge you put in Google Keep. If you use apps like Pocket Cast or YouTube Music, you get media recommendations and there's this bottom carousel that gives you like suggested prompts to send to gemini to have more of a broader discussion about things um

daily hub you can find it in alegrance you can find it to the left of the of the pixel on your first home screen in the discover feed it's an it it's right now it's a bit on the basic side that not to say that getting seeing calendar in one place is pretty useful and interesting but um i think i really hope they commit to this and build this out as a major

UI going forward for MagicQ and Day Rehab? I have not seen it on Discover, but I have seen it in At A Glance, which is weird. I find that the way that it's worked has been really weird. This to me screams, I think, is it the now brief that's on Samsung? It's basically that, but with more actual usable, useful information. I found that it surfaced some...

Pocket Casts podcast that I already listened to and forgot that was new episodes of. That was great. That kind of reminded me. Obviously, you have your daily brief in the morning and in the evening. So it's effectively the same thing as Samsung's Now Brief. But I'd love to see this be a bit more kind of... How would I describe it? Interactive would be kind of cool. Like obviously if you're searching for stuff and then have it come up and give you more cues. I mean, I'm...

I'm currently planning a trip to Japan in November. So I've been getting a lot of like little advice things like, oh, where to visit in this city, Osaka, wherever it is. And it's been pretty useful. And I have been asking Gemini those things already. I just wish it was a little bit more. Like you say, it does feel bare bones at the moment. And once they start to build it out, I think this could be genuinely quite useful.

doing that extra research on subjects because i mean we all do that thing right where you search for something and then three or four days later you're like what was i searching for and if that can be tied into it And I think it is trying to. Some of the suggestions I've had are a little bit duff, but very, very few and far between actually. It's been pretty darn good. And I don't even have search personalization on. So if it's doing that without the search personalization, then that's...

impressive in and of itself just pulling from gemini i don't know if you've seen it as well yet well i don't know if you you have the same problem as me where it's not working in discover i do actually i just in and it's not in um it's not my home screen either so i just had to go to the play store and find the app which is annoying um i i would say i'm like fairly negative on it kind of for the same reasons i'm fairly negative on

We just said it. Now brief. Now brief. I can't daily hub now. These are bad names, guys. These are not very bad names. You know, it's giving me the weather. It's giving me stuff from pocket casts. But I frankly. I know what I want to listen to in pocket. I'm sorry. I know that's probably an annoying thing to say. And then the YouTube recommendations are. Odd. I guess it's a lot about football right now for me personally, probably because I was I had my fantasy draft last night. I was looking up.

okay stuff so i guess that makes sense but not really and then like all the suggestions at the bottom and i was scrolling through i was like oh it's it's telling me to explore buffalo's culinary scene let me see what what it what it uh recommends to me And instead, it's just like it's just a Gemini prompt. And it just gave me.

like news it didn't even give me actual recommended like led with like like restaurant news mcdonald's in the air so good yeah it's a mcdonald's drive-thru that would be so funny honestly it's not a couple of the things on this list are not that far off where i'm like This is not if someone was like restaurants in Buffalo, do you recommend? I wouldn't pick these like one of them was like it was like sourcing from like a new like random.

like chicken sandwich restaurant that is opening downtown and it's like nobody like in a year like nobody cares about this um i don't know i i i guess like i guess the problem is that google now was good Oh yeah, Google Now is fantastic. Everybody loves Google Now, right? We just want Google Now 2. Just call it Google Now 2. So if you're not hitting that standard a decade later...

I'm like, well, what are we doing then? Like, why is this not even a tenth as useful as Google Now was when I was in college? So the thing about Google Now is that there are ways... to make intelligent seeming features on phones that don't require ai yes there's a very programmatic way

to surface stuff from your emails, to surface stuff from your calendars, to prominently put up your upcoming tasks in the feed. There's absolutely a way to fake it, but at the same time to make it genuinely useful. And I think that... thing that drives me insane is that in the past decade, Google has not done that. They haven't done the simple programmatic solution to building intelligence or faux intelligence.

Now we're here. Now we have Gemini. These models should be able to look into your life, your Gmail, which is the thing that people have, the thing that Google hasn't tapped too hard yet. It's here. Hopefully this is the final approach that they'll again invest in and build on. So the promise is there for this iteration. Just we have to hope they keep at it. I must admit, I do think that the daily hub is better than...

The Discover feed, because the Discover feed in the last few years for me has deteriorated into just sensationalism and the stuff I don't care about. Like the amount of times I'm having to say I'm not interested in this, it just doesn't improve. And I think if this can be a bit more...

If it takes over that section and does have a little bit of a news element to it and like a carousel, I guess in some respects it kind of mimics the Google News application, which I have no problems with if you're going to do that. That would be way better than Google Discover.

And if Google wants to make it Pixel exclusive, then I do think maybe have a little bit of screenshots in there as well. I mean, I'm getting ahead of myself. There could be some really nice integrations that they could do pretty darn easily, at least from the outside looking in, obviously.

Not a programmer anymore, but I think, yeah, it feels like a good starting block. And I think that's kind of where we're at with a lot of these AI features. They have to start somewhere and they have to build out, but yeah. Google Now, they could have just brought that back as Google Now 2, and I think everybody would be happy. I totally agree with you on Discover, first of all. I turn off the Discover page to the left. I am a Discover unicorn.

and I have a perfect view. You have mastered the Discover algorithm. I have not. I have found new story. Like I found post-light based on what's surfaced in Discover. Not my experience. I wish I wish it was useful like that. I also want to point out really quickly that the other I agree with you. It reminds me of Google the news layout a little bit. I also it.

Do you guys remember what assistant driving mode looked like the first time they showed it? Not what launched, but what they showed in 2019. It looks like that weirdly. Like it's very sparse with tiles. I see it. I absolutely see it. Yeah.

Um, and it's, it's, I totally wonder if they like looked back at the design that they never shipped and were like, well, like, I don't know. We could just kind of base it off this. Um, yeah, I, I, I, I guess my only issue and we can move on after this with, with. It's just, you know, if we're if we're celebrating that Daily Hub is better than Discover.

current day discover and, and Samsung's now brief. I just feel like the bar should be a little higher than that. Like I know it's a preview, but I just, I would hope for a little bit more from this feature and I'm not, I'm not seeing it. The why not is... Okay, so I think the main sentiment of... the main sentiment about my ai focused review was that this is an ai phone not a gemini phone um just to touch upon that briefly i am maybe concerned is too strong a word

MagicQ, Dairy Hub, these are on-device features from a privacy perspective. Everything is processed on the device. Everything is analyzed on the device. That's kind of why it takes MagicQ so long to appear. Okay. It is admirable, I guess to say, that it's entirely on-device. It's good from a privacy perspective, et cetera, et cetera.

But I do wonder if this would be so much more powerful if it were cloud-based. And I do feel like eventually the Gemini app's homepage is just barren and sparse right now. It's just a great thing. Eventually becomes Dairy Hub. to surface what's happening in your calendar all that and i do feel like eventually you have this thing you visit gemini on your desktop browser you

It's in the app on your mobile phone. I do wonder if that's a Daily Hub S experience eventually. But to your point, Will, I think on-device AI, which... honestly i'm pretty uh i google is pushing it a lot but i don't think the utility is there yet yeah i think all the utility from cloud-based stuff and i wonder if day rehab or a proper thing surf process in the cloud if it would get so much more immediately yeah no totally agree

Yeah, the Gemini thing in Daily Hub, yeah, that makes the most sense. Because like you say, it's quite barren. And I do think if you're going to sell Gemini, you need to make it useful from the get-go, not just be like, hey, have Gemini.

and you don't really know what to do with it like i sometimes feel like that when i use gem i'm like what should i search for what should i ask it what should i do and having all of those prompts kind of like here try this here is some information we can help you with xyz i think that might be kind of useful so yeah i think that's a really salient point let's get i want to get i want to talk about something that

The big thing that was added this year, I want to ask you guys what Pixelsnap slash MagSafe accessories you've been using because I'm currently looking at the Google Store homepage. There are some things on here that I have ordered that are due to arrive in the next few hours. How are you finding...

MagSafe compatibility, if I can say it. Have you been using anything so far? Is there any cool stuff that you found that does work or doesn't work or vice versa? Because I've had a few things that have been... So with my review, I got the Pixel... God, this name is horrible. pixel snap withstand, which is, uh, the, there is one pixel snap cable. If you're familiar with Mac, say, if you're familiar with this, it's a puck and. It slots to this heavy piece of plastic. That's the stand. It is...

I wished Google made a proper Pixel Stand 3 with active cooling, with a fan, with all that. It gets hot. That's my main takeaway from using it for the past week. It gets hot. And the other thing is to max it. The pixel snap cable is way too short at one meter. They need to make two meter version. So they should have made the default 1.5. But yeah, at a high level, that is, I think it'll be fine for most people. I wish they made a dedicated thing. Yeah, it's Pixelsnap, horrible name.

Yeah, I think the name is terrible. But at the same time, I think we're all calling it MagSafe, right? Which is, I think the mindshare has been won by MagSafe. I'm very excited to try out that PixelSnap ring stand. Which I have, which I bought yesterday. in Moonstone. Interesting color. It is $30. It is a nice fidget toy, which I think it's a nice fidget toy. Let's leave it at that.

I wish they had done more colours of it because it's only available, I think, I don't know if it's available in the US in different colours, but Moonstone is the only one available, which is... a pretty, an odd decision to make. I feel like there will release a new cover every single year and that begins, I mean, I collect this item. To be fair, I don't think I'm going to use it that much because I have like, like where I put my phone, I have dedicated stands, that kind of thing.

And I'm not going to bring around. I'm not going to attach the magnet. It's very, you've barely feared. It's very thin. It's very slim. But still, I'm not going to do that. I do think there's some utility there for me. I think I'm the kind of person who... props things up quite a lot and and wants to look at things and i'm very excited about thing whatever the craze pop what is it yeah yeah pop pop sockets yeah i mean i mean i guess i put one on there we go people love that

Yeah, it's great. Perfect. That's such a toddler thing, right? Oh, you said it. Famous last words. But in terms of existing MagSafe accessories, the one I've used is my... i have a apple wallet case thing that's just a simple thing it it's so initially it feels so weird that it works it's such a disconnect yeah after all these years

I must admit, I think the biggest problem for me so far is switching between the two devices is the Pixel 10, and I'm guessing the Pro as well, very, very easy to line up those magnets. Pixel... 10 pro xl you can have issues like i'm i mean obviously sadly this is not a visual element but i have the peak design i don't know what it's called it's like a magsape tripod type deal and it has a little allen key or allen wrench as you guys in the states would call

Oh, so British. Basically, it has like a rubbery texture on the back, and I assume that was because of the kind of almost sandy texture of the iPhones, that it meant it could grip on or whatever the Peak Design case material's made of. I found that on the Pixel 10, because it's a very glossy glass, certain MagSafe accessories slide a little bit or some can. Oh, interesting. Whereas with the Pixel 10 Pro XL and 10 Pro, I'm assuming.

famous last words, the slightly etched glass is a little bit better at gripping certain things. So there's definitely going to be some trial and error, right? I think in the next few months. Yeah, to talk about the pixel, the ring, pixel ring. God, I hate these names.

pixel snap ring stand it is a five microfiber underline it's a microfiber surface underneath so i think they had that in mind going in and it ops helps you twist the phones more but yeah it's magnet strength where are we on we we all have iphones here um what do you think about the magnet strength uh you know i i

To be honest with you, I know we were talking about the group chat the other day, so maybe I'm the wrong person to go first. But I have noticed it's about about what I expect from an iPhone. Typically, like I haven't noticed a difference in. connection strength i um i have a bunch of different i i keep disappearing from the shot not that anybody knows this uh to like look for various other uh mag safe stuff just like rotting in my in my desk and i found a ring in that pop socket

And both of them snap on about what I would about as well as I'd expect and stay on as I'd expect. Maybe a little more wiggle. But again, that might just be because the back of the Pixel 10 is so glossy and slippery. You know, I have a peak design wallet that I use everywhere and I like it quite a bit, but I've always found the magnet in that to be a little on the weak side. I don't totally trust it. And that's true here, too. So I.

But like the charging pucks and everything that I have, those have all worked about as, they feel about as strong as I'm used to. You know, if there's a difference, it's very subtle to me. Yeah, I think sometimes it depends. Mostly on the accessory. I think that the magnet in the accessory, if it's a cheap accessory, they have cheaper magnets. And I think that might be the thing that is going to be the problem aspect. So the MagSafe on the iPhone is...

Yeah, it's pretty comparable. I think there's maybe, and I don't even want to put a figure on it, but I'm going to have to. I think maybe the Pixel Snap MagSafe. I mean, it's already terrible saying that out loud. Pixel snap MagSafe is maybe 95% of the strength of the iPhone one. That feels right. Do you think that tracks with you guys? I would say so.

I think it's easy, it's 100% easier to line them up on the iPhone, but that's because we probably have muscle memory of it for a decade, nearly, what, half a decade now, is it? Something like that. I think with the... Reams of accessories I've tested. Some of the companies that stand out with really strong magnets are Spigen.

Mofft. I don't know if you guys have heard of a company called Mofft. They make some like kickstand stuff and wallets. I probably will pick one of them up. Um, they're incredibly strong. Literally you can like, I've seen video. Well, I. tried it myself after i saw a video of it on on threads they had the tripod kind of extended and was shaking it and it wasn't coming loose so and i tried it out for myself and it's they are incredibly strong uh

Anker makes some good power banks that are decent. They seem to be sticking on a little bit better on the Pro, weirdly. I think it's because they're a lot bigger and they're a bit heavy, but... Yeah, I'm excited to see some more stuff come about. For me, it's mostly about the camera stuff. I want to see tripods. I want to get a proper in-car mount. I've never had a proper in-car mount for my phone with MagSafe slash PixelSnav.

But yeah, I'm excited. It's good. It opens up a real, it's already opened up, right? We don't have to wait for these things to exist. They exist. That's the best part. Yeah. Yeah. I just hope that Google can do some stuff on the software side of things. Cause I know that like.

it very much is just snap it on the back it's fine and for some for loads of things that's absolutely great but it would be cool to have some like extra stuff like maybe you could get i don't know maybe i'm going a little bit too far ahead of myself but like a an extra lens or something like that or like uh um

I don't know, something that works with an app on your phone. I can't even think. A telescope, something like that, that could track the sky when you use astrophotography mode. Little things like that would be kind of cool. i'm just yeah it's just exciting exciting it's as weird as it is it's exciting because we've been left in the in the dark with this for so long and i know that we've had cases that can do it but back of the phone oh god it's a revelation isn't it so yeah

mag safe i love it pixel snap mag safe whatever you want to call it i called it about 20 different things but i really really like it and i'm excited to pick up some some charging stands and integrated charging stands as well for like in the car and things because they're the kind of stuff that we've missed out on for a long time on pixel and um yeah pretty good so far but 95 strength i think that probably tracks right with you guys i agree

So I'm going to talk a little bit about colors because I know we want to give camera a little bit more time to percolate before we even talk about that. And the same with battery life. We're not really fully certain on that yet. But as for colors, guys, what do you think so far? Because I was... Genuinely, before we started recording this and even said it out loud, I thought I hated the Moonstone when I saw it in person. I thought it's the same as the Hazel and I regret buying the Hazel.

And that was the, in air quotes, standout colour. I cannot believe how much I regret buying that. I always have said to myself, get porcelain. But the Moonstone... Genuinely fantastic. I love this color so much. It's so nice. It's so different from anything else I've used recently. I have to stop you there. The back is non-committal gray AF. It is. It's gray.

The saving grace and to what you're saying is the bezel. I feel like the shiny bezel is what changes color depending on the room's current lighting conditions. I've seen it like. I don't know. It's the back. It's pick interesting colors. The premise, Google's underlying premise is that premium jewelry-like stuff needs stayed colors.

needs like luxury looking colors and i think the premise is fundamentally wrong because people want colorful phones they want this stuff to look fun yes you all put in a case anyways but I don't just have some fun with covers. You execute well on the lower end stuff, but it's just boring.

Like three shades that basically work the same on the Pro line. This is not just a Google problem. It's a Samsung problem. It's an Apple problem. It's all of these companies that they're... pro level phones they're all designed for the boardroom like they are all just shaded in this like boardroom like i'm i'm gonna go like we're gonna we're gonna read out our financial earnings and then i don't know like

And those people don't put cases on their phones. It's so weird. I don't understand it because like, as you said, Abner. They're kind of crushing the like lower end colors. I really I having now used it in person, this like.

yellow slash lime green color on the pixel 10 has really grown on me in a way I didn't expect it to it is extremely nike coded like it's it feels like i'm gonna go for a run every time i pick it up but i like it i really like the blue as well um and to the point where like you know you know my fiance was was who has always been or you know for the

last decade has been on on iphone was like looking at the pixel 10 while it was setting it up and was like you know and truly she's never said this you know i i'm not against switching to android and i was like really and she was like yeah i'm not like i'm not like totally against it and i was like what would make you want to want to switch and she was literally just like well you know like

Apple has really boring colors right now. And like, I really like that. Last year's color palette was so pastel. It is. Yeah. And she's. She loves her. She's got a yellow iPhone 14 that she loves, but and yellow is her favorite color. But I do think that it's this is the first time that I've had other phone colors she's liked, but this is the first time she was like, I'm not.

I'm not against switching, which is, I think, exactly what Google is hoping these colors and this design wins people. Exactly. It's familiar, but a little fresh. They should chase that and then pair it with maybe not quite to the extent of Motorola, but Motorola's ethos with the razor where it's like we are going to make these fun and flashy and fashionable because there's a market for that. And.

I don't know. I think we need to leave behind the trend of completely neutral colors for the pro devices behind. I really, I've been saying this for years, but I truly think we have to end this trend. At least one splashy color a year, I think, is more than fair for the pros. Yeah, I feel like as well, Google does this really well with accessories. So they have lots of accessories. Let's take the Pixel Watch 4, for instance. Obviously, we're not...

had hands-on with that but they have that really nice blue color for the strap yeah like if that i mean that i think that is what moonstone should be yeah like that slightly deeper blue i mean i'm the i'm in the minority here i've i've been smitten with this color because it's kind of like i think Yeah, because you've been using Hazel for the past year.

soured on hazel like i did like i i had i had when i saw it in person at the hands-on i was like i like this and then like i got my like review unit for it in hazel and i was like never mind this is so this is just great why did i like this

yeah i i very much i very much turned turned on it quite quickly because i was like i need to get a case with extra color it was like this isn't green this is gray um and it's already gray enough in the uk so we don't need any more gray no maybe that's why this little bit of blue It was giving me a little bit of kind of, yeah, looking for better weather, just kind of a bit of hope that we're going to get some nice skies in the UK at some point. But I have the...

I don't know what colour it is. Is it the pea green that's coming? in the pro it's is it oh jade yes yes yeah to me it looked like pea green like like i mean like urine like that's what it looks like so i went for that one because i thought that might stand out but again that could very i could very easily sour on that one um i think the indigo pixel 10 is very nice it's a it's a very deep brew that harkens back to really brew

the blue jeans phone and the original pixel. I like that. They're making that call back there with 10 generations and all that. Yeah. Yeah. That's a nice, it's a very nice color. It's. it has a personality and you can't say that about bloody grey. Yeah, you can't. I do think a lot of the personality in these grey phones comes from Materia 3 Expressive, but we will get into that next week. I think we've had...

A very nice discussion about Pixel 10. It's initial reviews. We haven't done deep, true, true out-and-out deep dives yet because, hey, you have a week with the device. Wills Bailey had a week with his. I think, like you say, you could all be like me in six weeks time and sour on the colour, sour on some things and completely change your opinion. But so far, I think it's a nice stable start. I think going for the...

The same phone design again. It didn't make sense optically for some people, but I think as a design decision and consistency for me, I think the biggest thing is consistency. Going out there and putting out a device. back-to-back devices that are competent is something Google hasn't been able to do for a long time and that feels like they're doing that this year. All the more reason they should have introduced better colors.

Well, before we shoot them, what would your dream color be for a Google Pixel? I mean, truly, even if they just extended the blue into the pros, I'd be happy with that. But dream color, I would love... A blight. green here yeah i was also gonna say like a like bright green or like like a teal or turquoise is my favorite color so like a bluish green or a greenish blue

Yeah, like something and like no one ever does that. So I don't really ever expect it. But like, that's my favorite color. I would love to see it. But I don't think I will.

I don't think we ever will. Well, I'd like to see a red, personally, like a really bright red phone. Red would be great. I haven't seen Google do that for a long time. Also, dual tone, just want to say they've done it before. I would love to see them bring it back. That panda experience. Yeah, let's see them do that in the future. Yeah, that would be sick. That would be sick. And yeah, so far, really good impressions. I think...

We'll have more in the coming weeks. As I say, we have initial reviews over on the website. We'll have more in-depth talks about all these other things, how people are coping with... moving to eSIM, all that kind of stuff. I think there's some, there's a lot of talk around that at the moment online, but yeah, I just want to say thanks guys for joining me.

it's been a blast i think it feels like the culmination of what the last nine months nine nine or ten months talking pixel 10 it's finally here and you just feel like it's a weight off your shoulders but we go again very very soon i was gonna say pixel 11 rumors when come on let's go yeah get that pixel 11 rumors out there guys and we'll uh we'll we'll be hot on that and yeah thanks for joining me guys and i will uh i'll speak to you soon bye