Google Pixel 10A review: Just buy the 9A

I’m not entirely sure why the Pixel 10A exists.

Google hasn’t upgraded the chipset, cameras, or battery in the new phone, and the tweaks made elsewhere are minimal at best. I think the flat camera island is good! On the one hand, this is not a big problem: The Pixel 9A is an excellent deviceAnd last year it was easy The best phone you can buy for $500 in the US. The new 10A is available to purchase now for the same great price ($499 for 128GB of storage or an additional $100 for 256GB), but with the 9A still selling out and dropping in price, there’s one big question: Why not just buy the 9A — which is almost the same phone — for $50 less?

When Google first showed me the 10A, I struggled to get a good idea of ​​exactly what had changed, so I studied the spec sheets to point out every hardware change Google had made, no matter how small. And here they are:

That’s not a lot, and none of these features individually seem like game-changers, except perhaps introduction SOS Satellitewhich allows you to contact emergency services even when you are out of cellular coverage. If this, or perhaps slightly faster charging, is enough to make a dent in 10A, then great! I think you may be in the minority.

Exterior updates are subtle, but welcome. Last year’s 9A dropped Google’s usual camera bar in favor of a smaller camera barely It rose from the back of the phone. With the 10A, Google has pushed this design even further, making the phone a little thicker so that the camera is now not only flush with the body, but a little recessed inward.

It’s a welcome welcome relief to the bulbous cameras on other phones with bigger ambitions. They justify their designs with high-end camera hardware, but since Google has instead decided to stick with older, smaller sensors and focus its photography efforts on software, I applaud the decision to pay that back with the least obtrusive camera design on any smartphone right now.

The phone as a whole looks great, even if the design isn’t particularly new. It is simple, elegant and comfortable to hold with one hand. It’s a little bigger than $799 Pixel 10Despite using a similar 6.3-inch display, the 10A is noticeably lighter, which makes up for the extra size. Typical black – sorry, Obsidian -It looks a little conservative, but the berry and lavender versions look great if you want a pop of color.

The 10A has the same 5,100mAh battery as the 9A, although Google claims the phone can last an additional 20 hours in max battery mode. Presumably, this will be thanks to software optimization, although in a press conference Google refused to comment on whether the 9A will receive these same improvements or has already received them. Either way, this is a large enough battery to last one day, but not two, which is basically a good thing. The slightly faster charging speeds are welcome, though they’re still slower than many Android alternatives — and Google hasn’t expanded the charging range Qi2 magnets for the Pixel 10 line All the way to 10A, which would have really seemed like a worthwhile upgrade.

The phone also runs on the same Tensor G4 chipset as last year’s 9A. It’s fast enough for all your daily phone tasks, even if it’s less than the most powerful chipset on the market. Google’s decision not to upgrade the chip for a year seems a bit stingy, but it’s only likely to cause a headache if you’re hoping for a powerful phone for gaming (which it’s not), or plan to keep it for seven years of OS updates, at which point the G4 will be nine years old and feeling a bit old.

The cameras are the same between the phones too, which was inevitable in the past: a feature in Google’s lineup means the Pixel 10 has the same 48MP main and 13MP ultra-wide cameras as the 9A, so this phone gets them too. These cameras looked good enough on the 10, but for a $499 phone, I can’t complain too much. I’m a fan of Google’s somewhat natural handling, especially at night, when it mostly resists the temptation to over-brighten everything. However, the sensors are small, so you’ll encounter limitations fairly quickly in low light, with noisy details and blown-out highlights, especially on the ultra-wide range. However, there aren’t many better cameras at this price, nor are there any in the US, where you’ll need to spend at least a few hundred dollars to get a meaningful upgrade.

The camera is also where you’ll find the two massive software features found on the 10A but not the 9A: Camera Coach and Auto Best Take. Camera Coach is an AI feature that will give you step-by-step instructions on how to frame a photo, most of which boils down to “zoom in to focus on the subject.” I get an error message and refuse to work most of the time when I try it anyway. Auto Best Take is pretty much what it sounds like: an automatic version of the existing Best Take feature, which combines group photos to get the best expression from each person in the same shot. There’s not much reason to spend more on the 10A compared to the 9A, and at a press conference Google didn’t confirm whether it would remain exclusive anyway, or simply roll out to the 9A in a future software update.

We’ve been getting some very frequent phone updates lately: Samsung flagship phones Galaxy S26 I feel like a routine spec update, Apple iPhone 17E phone Mostly it just adds MagSafe and more storage. But both versions put the Pixel 10A to shame – at least they’ve changed Something.

The funny thing is that the Pixel 10A is still the best mid-range phone in the US right now, and one of the best options worldwide as well, which is mostly an indictment of what the rest of the industry is doing at this price point. In six months, when the Pixel 9A sells out its remaining stock, the Pixel 10A will be the best way to spend $500 on the phone. But while last year’s phone is still around, Google’s biggest competitor is Google.

Photography by Dominic Preston/The Verge

March 13 update: The score was changed from 6 to 7.