My camera test: The $499 Pixel 10A compares to the Galaxy S25 FE and Motorola Edge

Google $499 Pixel 10A It uses almost the same cameras as last year Pixel 9abut I wanted to see how its visuals stack up directly to its mid-range Android competitors: Samsung Galaxy S25 FE, $650 and Motorola Edge price is $550.

I traveled with all three Phones Throughout St. Petersburg, Florida, checking out how flexible each is in different environments, from bright outdoor spaces to an indoor café and an evening brewery. All three environments can be a challenge for the small image sensors found in each phone.

Although I find that the cameras on all three phones have different strengths and weaknesses depending on the setup, I’m very impressed with how the Pixel 10A keeps up. In my tests, images have a lot of detail, although some settings seem like they require a lot of processing to improve.

Wide and telephoto cameras

Starting with photos taken on the sidewalk in downtown St. Petersburg, I noticed that all three phones handle bright sunlight a little differently, especially the way they’re photographed on the street.

For the Pixel 10A, the sun provides a slight exposure mark above the Bay First mark at the top of the frame, but remains somewhat encircled to focus on the rest of the street view. By zooming in, you can see the 21st century location, but the street was captured in as much detail as possible, with the phone’s camera retaining its natural gray color.

For both the Galaxy S25 FE and Motorola Edge, the sun has a more pronounced effect on the rest of the image. The color of the pavement has become noticeably brighter. I also find that both the S25 FE and Edge have greater visibility to the commercial signage on the Bay First building, including the aforementioned Century 21 logo.

Since both the S25 FE and Edge include a telephoto camera that supports 3x optical zoom, I took a photo at that zoom with each phone. The Pixel 10A uses digital zoom on the phone’s 48MP wide camera, but a lot of scene detail remains preserved.

This pixel zoom image provides a clear view of the 7th St N sign, trees and plants. However, if you look back at the next intersection, you will notice that the 7th St S and Colony Grill sign is difficult to see. It’s those small details that are captured by the S25 FE and Edge, both powered by telephoto cameras, making them even more apparent.

Of the three close-up examples, I feel the S25 FE has the best color reproduction while also retaining detail like the previous banners. Even though the photo was taken using the S25 FE’s 8MP telephoto camera rather than the 50MP wide camera, the colors remain integrated when comparing 1x to 3x. Meanwhile, the Edge’s 10MP telephoto camera looks very different from the 50MP wide camera, with the entire image having a more yellow tint.

Ultra wide cameras

As I moved to Southern Grounds Cafe, I decided to use the ultra-wide cameras to capture sausage, eggs, and cheese on toast. The three pictures were completely different.

The Pixel 10A’s 13MP ultrawide camera and the S25 FE’s 12MP ultrawide camera have a more balanced range of colors and details, in my opinion. Wheat toast appears lighter in the Pixel image compared to the darker colors captured by both the S25 FE and Edge.

However, when I zoomed in on my notebook, the Pixel and S25 FE picked up more page marks, details that are more blurred together in the image captured by the Edge. While the Edge’s 50MP ultra-wide camera is higher-spec, I noticed that it had difficulty distinguishing between levels of toast, giving more of it a darker appearance. If I hadn’t eaten it myself, I would have thought it was burnt based on Edge’s photo.

Night photography

Moving on to the night setting, I used all three phones to take photos outside 3 Daughters Brewing. I felt that all three did a good job of reproducing the building’s colors, but they differed in how they handled light sources.

The tone of the Pixel and S25 FE supports glare from different lighting fixtures. Meanwhile, Edge images show noticeable lines dominating the sky. Upon closer examination of the images, I found that the Galaxy captured a sharper view of the furniture, such as in the Connect 4 group next to the blue chairs in the center of the frame. The same details appear in scene photography on the Pixel and Edge, but they look smeared by comparison.

This type of scene needs to take advantage of the phone’s processing power in order to resolve viewing issues, and I find that the Edge comes up short here in this regard, with a lot of noticeable image noise.

Personal photos

Each phone takes selfies with notable differences in style and color choices. In this test example, I’m in a well-lit day room with natural light from a window. The 12-megapixel front camera on Google’s Pixel 10A illuminated my face as if there was a headlight, and captured a fair amount of detail in my hair and face.

The front camera on the Samsung Galaxy S25 FE shows a noticeably darker tone, but still picks up a similar shade of orange on the wall behind me. Of the three images, I felt the S25 captured the most detail, including hair strands, and opted for a closer crop than the other two.

Photos taken by the 50MP selfie camera on the Motorola Edge look a bit smooth. The orange color on the wall is noticeably different from the Pixel and S25 FE, though it picks up a lot of the details of my face, from strands of hair to the texture of the fabric on my shirt.

The $499 Pixel 10A’s camera keeps up with, and in some cases exceeds, the detail captured by the slightly more expensive $550 Motorola Edge and the $650 Galaxy S25 FE. I’m a big fan of how the Pixel camera handles colors and low-light environments, but the phone’s processing work sometimes makes scenes appear brighter than they are in real life.

The Galaxy S25 FE is no slouch either, with a third telephoto lens to capture more detail at further distances. Although I found the Motorola Edge to struggle in low light, it’s one of the less expensive phone options currently available for someone who must have a 3x optical telephoto camera.

But if you can live without the telephoto lens, the Pixel 10A’s lower cost and photography capabilities will likely be fine for most people.