Pixel 10 Phones
(blog.google)435 points by gotmedium 5 days ago
435 points by gotmedium 5 days ago
I find it kinda scary that this is marketed as "zoom" and "recovering details", when the reality is that it quite literally makes stuff up and hopes you won't notice the difference. You and I know that it's completely fake, but we (or at least I) don't even know how much is faked, and probably 99% of people won't even know that it's fake at all.
How long until someone gets arrested because an AI invented a face that looks like theirs? Hopefully lawyers will be know to throw out evidence like that, but the social media hivemind will happily ruin someone's life based on AI hallucinations.
I actually think it's a cool feature, but it shouldn't be called "zoom". "Zoom & Enhance" would make sense. The UI should also have a clear visual indicator of which modes are pure optical zoom, which (if any) are substantially just cropping the image, and which are using genAI.
Digital has never been light-to-pixel.
At a minimum, you have demosaicing, dark frame subtraction, and some form of tone mapping just to produce anything you'd recognise as an photo. Then to produce a half-way acceptable image will involve denoising, sharpening, dewarping, chromatic aberration correction - and that just gets us up to what was normal at the turn of the millennium. Nowadays without automatic bracketing and stacking, digital image stabilisation, rolling shutter reduction, and much more, you're going to have pretty disappointing phone pics.
I suspect you're trying to draw a distinction with the older predictable techniques of turning sensor data into an image when compared to the modern impenetrable ones that can hallucinate. I know what you're getting at, but there's not really a clear point where one becomes the other. You can consider demosaicing and "super-res zoom" as both types of super-resolution technique intended to convert large amounts of raw sensor data into image that's closer to the ground truth. I've even seen some pretty crazy stuff introduced by an old fashioned Lanczos-resampling based demosaicing filter. Albeit, not Ryan Gosling[0].
Of course, if you don't like any of this, you can configure phones to produce RAW output, or even pick up a mirrorless, and take full control of the processing pipeline. I've been out of the photography world for a while so I'm probably out of date now, but I don't think DNGs can even store all of the raw data that is now used by Apple/Google in their image processing pipelines. Certainly, I never had much luck turning those RAW files into anything that looked good. Apple have ProRAW which I think is some sort of hybrid format but I don't really understand it.
[0] https://petapixel.com/2020/08/17/gigapixel-ai-accidentally-a...
By my understanding, demosaicing almost always just "blurs" the photo slightly, reducing high-frequency information. Tone mapping is unavoidable, invisible to most people, and usually doesn't change the semantic information within an image (the famous counterexample is of course The Dress). Phone cameras in recent years do additional processing to saturate, sharpen, HDR, etc., and I find those distasteful and will happily argue against them. But AI upscaling/enhancement is a step further, and to me feels like a very big step further. It's the first time that an automatic processing step has a very high risk of introducing new (and often incorrect) semantic information that is not available in the original image, the classic example being the samsung moon.
It's just crazy that demo they show, imagine the vehicle is actually a truck but you zoom in and it becomes a porsche...
conspiracy tangent, try to take a picture of something you're not supposed to and your phone won't let you ha, well money could be an example which I get the reason (it's printers but that idea)
the car looks mutated and slimy. most stuff that's used computational photography before now didn't imagine things from whole cloth
Agreed, I was recently looking through photos from my Pixel 5 and realized that it had "helpfully" modified an image of a bunny, making the fur look wavy and adding a weird faded-out eye on the body. On top of that, it applies skin smoothing to every photo, even with the beauty filter disabled. It irked me enough that I'm looking for a new third-party camera app. Despite using exclusively Pixel/Nexus phones for the last 12 years, I might abandon them entirely once this phone dies.
Unfortunately these new phones don't fix the main issue with the Pixel: the hardware.
The performance is just unacceptable, it's already 50%+ slower than a snapdragon 8 elite flagship released in the same year.
This affects everything, pixels just don't last nor have great battery life for this reason.And the big issue is they aren't even much cheaper anymore.
I like GrapheneOS, but my pixel just randomly stopped working after being laggy and having the worst battery life on cellular (less than 2h SOT with a 5000mah battery)
It's hard justifying buying another pixel after such a horrible experience, were it not for GrapheneOS I would never consider buying a pixel in the first place.
Heck even the camera isn't that good anymore, most photos are just gray, and the hardware is also very lacking.
https://www.androidauthority.com/google-pixel-image-processi...
I found Mrwhosetheboss overview really good, he explains how the pixel just comes short in every way.
>The performance is just unacceptable, it's already 50%+ slower than a snapdragon 8 elite flagship released in the same year.
This is the one thing I don't understand. How many people actually need the top end SoCs that other flagships come with. Phones have been more than fast enough for a long time now. Other than playing some games with tough visuals mid range SoCs are still more than powerful enough.
Complaints about battery life and the modems are fair (though I never had complaints about my Pixel 7 Pro battery life until it failed).
I also found that the photos from my Pixel were by far the best I'd ever seen from a phone. Every phone I had prior was only used for quick snapshots, if I was expecting to want to take something decent I would make sure to pack my mirrorless, with the Pixel I could actually trust it to take an acceptable photo.
It matters when the phone is supposed to last more than two years.
Poor battery life is a symptom of a slow CPU, things that don't require full performance on a snapdragon 8 elite take double the time in a pixel while needing full turbo performance.
Don't get me started on the terrible modem efficiency.
These issues are there since the Pixel 6, and Google clearly just doesn't care.
The Pixel 7 Pro is essentially 3 years old and I notice next to zero difference compared to my Galaxy S25. I argue for most people they wouldn't notice a speed difference between even a 3 year old mid-range SoC and today's flagship SoCs.
Poor battery life has much more to do with the size of the battery and how the CPU speed is managed in software. Today's SoCs, even mid range ones could suck a battery to zero in short order. At the end of the day, even if you have a newer SoC built on a more efficient smaller process node they turn around and run it at a higher clock speed and you lose the benefit.
5000mah is the standard battery size for XL phones. Still the pixels battery falls apart immediately on cellular, while heating up like crazy. Have you used your phone for navigation while on cellular? My pixel would be dead in two hours with this. Even just normal browsing on cellular data would get it to heat up and kill the battery life.
I don't personally care about top performance at all (I've been a happy user of Fairphones for several years). But as phones start doing more and more AI tasks (from camera post-processing to computer vision tasks, and now LLMs) the added processing power does make a difference in how usable and snappy the phone feels. For most users it's not about being constantly fast (like for gaming or for long AI tasks), but for being able to handle peak load more smoothly.
race to idle, if your soc has the same power consumption, you want to finish the job as soon as you can and go to sleep.
My last two Pixel phones - 6a and 7a - were both "recalled" with battery issues. I got almost a complete refund for both, and got keep the phone (my 7a died a few months after the recall, 6a is still going strong).
I got a 9a to replace them just because I didn't want to have to deal with learning iPhone, but I'm fully expecting the 9a to fail with a similar issue so looking at buying an iPhone soon as a backup so I can get up to speed.
Both my 4a an 6a got the battery nerf update. I had no idea this impacted the 7a as well. I prefer Pixels for Android Development but my trust in Google is at an all time low.
The tech specs: https://store.google.com/us/product/pixel_10_specs?hl=en-US Says it has vpn capabilities..But then there is a footnote:
>12. Restrictions apply. Some data is not transmitted through VPN.... See https://g.co/pixel/vpn for details.
Does anyone know what data doesn't go through the vpn?
On the positive side it lists a 24+ hour battery life!! This is huge for me!! ..but it has a footnote, as well
> 6. Battery life depends upon many factors and usage of certain features will decrease battery life. Actual battery life may be lower. Over time, Pixel software will manage battery performance to help maintain battery health as your battery ages. See https://g.co/pixel/battery-tests and https://g.co/pixel/batteryhealth for details.
Which I guess is understandable
The help section article lists
# Data that isn’t protected by the VPN
Not all network data from your device is protected by the VPN. Examples of data that aren’t protected by the VPN include:
- Tethering traffic
- This includes USB and Wi-Fi hotspot.
- Wi-Fi calling and other IMS services
- Work profile app traffic
- This applies if a work profile is configured on your device.
All of which make sense to me except push notifications. My guess is they might mean syncing notifications to e.g. a watch.
I think it might be because push notifications use long-lived connections that are already open when the VPN is turned on.
I wonder why tethering traffic doesn't go through the VPN. I could be wrong, but I think it works the same way with iPhones.
I might test that later, but this (old) SE question seems to confirm my memory: https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/266871/is-there-a-...
I bought a Xiaomi 14T and bought my gf a pixel 9.
I like my phone more, but battery life on hers is way better to the point I regret buying mine, it barely lasted a day out when on vacations, and I'm not a super heavy phone user, but look for restaurants, open maps, take pictures, ask Gemini stuff and I'd be at 50% by the time she was at 75.
> Does anyone know what data doesn't go through the vpn?
I can't speak to exactly what data doesn't go through their VPN but I know carrier apps tend to not play nice with VPNs, especially the Google Fi app (as it relies on its connection and what IP its on to coordinate switching between their various carrier contracts and that seems to break under a VPN).
And also seemingly Wi-fi calling has been problematic over VPN for as long as I can remember so that's usually a safe bet for exclusion.
I am considering switching to Google, I am getting annoyed by Apple more and more, but the critical feature for me is AI assistant.
I am the first to criticize the LLM hype and I do not expect much out of them - but the fact that I cannot get Siri to turn a single light in my room instead of all of them is just FUBAR from my perspective. Siri is such garbage at this point that the gap between it and ChatGPT app is unbelievable. I can't even get it to reliably call people in my contacts, meanwhile my 4 year old can talk to ChatGPT in Croatian. Google Gemini seems to be on par so their assistant should be at least semi competent.
I switched to the previous google phones (9) for the folding phone, even though I'm not too much of a fan of the android experience I cannot switch back to Apple right now because:
* the AI integration on google phones is just amazing
* the folding phone has insane screen estate on-demand anywhere any time, I wouldn't be able to go back to a single screen
> the AI integration on google phones is just amazing
Genuinely curious, what's your favorite aspect of AI on the Pixel? I'm on a 9 pro, coming from a Pixel 6 and a Pixel 3 before it. I don't think I'm ever using AI on this thing, so I'm interested in hearing where it turns up for you.
What do you like about the AI integration? I'm considering leaving iPhone just to have basically native chatGPT integration, assuming gemini works that way, and assuming it can read and write to my calendar and access other personal data.
Well if you switch to Google you can enjoy a timer app that takes between 12 and 16 repetitions of "Stop!" before it stops beeping!
The lack of a physical SIM tray is just one more way to lock users in Google's walled garden. eSIM support is not implemented in Android itself (AOSP), but part of the proprietary GMS package. This means Google-free Android forks like LineageOS will be unusable on the Pixel 10 series :-(
>The lack of a physical SIM tray is just one more way to lock users in Google's walled garden.
Seems to be US only? iPhone also has the same thing, so it's probably something that US carriers are pushing, not something from OEMs.
>eSIM support is not implemented in Android itself (AOSP), but part of the proprietary GMS package. This means Google-free Android forks like LineageOS will be unusable on the Pixel 10 series :-(
OpenEUICC works fine
better than what they did with pixel[6-9] where they shipped a dual injection crap to save 0.00001c on production and if you traveled 5x and swapped local SIMs, the tray just crumbled and you had to buy another for $20 on ebay because they don't stock it or replace under warranty.
you don't even need google's proprietary esim app. OpenEUICC works fine if you grant it priv-app permissions.
GrapheneOS support eSim : https://grapheneos.org/usage#esim-support
Graphene supports eSIM https://grapheneos.org/usage#esim-support
It supports eSIM. Two months ago, I bought a Pixel 9a, immediately put GrapheneOS on it, and registered an eSIM.
> Pixel 10, Pixel 10 Pro and Pixel 10 Pro XL are all available for preorder today starting at $799, $999 and $1199.
Sigh, still not going to pay more for a phone than I paid for my computer.
Also, what is up with that camera module? This doesn't look like it can physically slide into jeans pockets. At least round the corners or add little ramps. I guess this is what happens when design folk are allowed to trump engineers.
> This doesn't look like it can physically slide into jeans pockets.
I'm interested to hear more about this, because it's always interesting to understand how other people interact with things who have different use cases or usage models.
How tight are your jeans, and how do you fit anything else in your pocket if something ~1in thick doesn't fit comfortably (without having to force the pocket open in a way that would require a "ramp")?
Are you using your back pockets? I have never once understood the utility of those; I have no desire to sit on anything in my pockets.
A lot of people buy clothes for their looks with minimal weighting towards functionality (or rather that is the functionality). If you've got a body in reasonable nick then tight pants can look good.
The traditional solution to poor pockets is a purse or bag. Phones are interesting in that they can demand attention and that they are probably the most used item that people carry around with them. Thus people compromise their lines/comfort to actually use the faster accessibility of pockets. Probably explains the popularity of ridge wallets and key wallets too.
I don't wear tight jeans and I've come to loathe having to put my phone in my pants pocket. If you're walking around a lot, the feeling is just annoying, you can feel it pressing on your leg the whole time. When I sit down, the bunching feeling is even worse, so I immediately put the phone on the table.
This wasn't an issue when phones had 4.7"-5"-inch screens. Nowadays the phone goes into the cargo pocket if I'm wearing shorts, or back pocket if I'm walking.
I've got a single short that does that (re: bunching feeling) and it's just because the pocket isn't deep enough for the phone to sit flat against my thigh.
I'd rather choose my shorts more carefully in the future than switch to a smaller phone (that might still have the same problem if not tiny) just because of that.
Not that I'm trying to justify the prices, but I'm interested by the take that a phone should cost less than a computer. To me, the phone has an actual camera and is significantly smaller (and, if you are talking desktop, has a screen) so should cost more for the same sort of power. Of course, there are phones and computers at all different prices so it's hard to compare.
It's smaller, so it should cost less, not more. It's 2025, miniaturization isn't that expensive. It's less screen and less battery than a laptop, cooling the CPU can be done passively because it's so low-powered, it has less RAM and less flash and fewer ports and a simpler mechanical design, no keyboard or touchpad... it's a slab of glass with a plastic/aluminum case containing a PCB, battery, and camera.
Written on my $250 Motorola
> It's smaller, so it should cost less
That is... not how the physical world works. The laws of physics hate the large and the small. Or perhaps less glibly parameters do not scale equally. Making a phone is more difficult and expensive than making a laptop for the same reason a 30ft tall human would break their own legs attempting to walk.
To put it another way: A thread rolling screw machine can churn out 12mm/0.5" bolts all day long for a penny each. But if you want to make tiny screws for small pocket watches you're going to pay more (relatively) even though that tiny screw contains way less metal than the larger bolt and the operation is similar. A .00001" error in the larger bolt threads doesn't matter. That much error makes the tiny screw completely unusable. Making a thread-forming die with less than .00001" error is very difficult and expensive and the one for smaller screws accumulates error faster relative to allowable error so must be replaced more often. The steel is just as hard in both bolts but the form of the tiny one is proportionally much thinner.
And similarly if you want a 6m/12ft long bolt you are going to pay a lot more than just the proportional cost of the extra metal because finding machines that can even put that much tool pressure on the dies is not easy. It has to be lifted with a crane. It is just more difficult in every way.
Miniaturization is more expensive. Water and dust proofing is more expensive.
For most things there is a sweet range where cost is lowest and utility highest. Prices go up on either end of that middle ground.
By this logic a Ferrari should cost less than a Toyota Camry because it has less seats and luggage space.
I.e. you’re conveniently leaving out the _entire_ set of reasons this isn’t the case.
As a side note, computers DO cost more than phones, in general. You can barely get a graphics card for that price these days, so you’re not really comparing apples to apples if your computer is that cheap.
While I mostly agree with you that it is counterintuitive to have mobile costlier than laptop, this year's Pixel Pro models have 16GB RAM. That is better than most entry level laptops on the market right now.
The Pro having more ram than the average entry level laptop doesn't imply very much.
When I search '16gb laptop' on Amazon the first result is $320 and the third result is $220. The first one also has 512GB of storage, and I can upgrade to 24GB of ram and 1TB of storage for only $50. And it has a plenty good CPU with two fast cores and four slow cores.
The upgrade part is especially nasty for phones. Laptops and phones use the same production lines for ram and flash chips, so no price excuses there. And you can fit 2TB into a microSD these days. But if I want 1TB on my Pixel I have to start with a Pro and then add an extra $450.
> It's less screen and less battery than a laptop,
Phones have higher resolution, higher refresh rate, and brighter screens at the price point vs a $1000 laptop. (Also higher density screens are harder to make, 12" 1080p panels cost nothing, phone screens are often bespoke resolutions.)
RAM is the same or higher at the $1k price point - 16GB.
Fewer ports sure, but most ports are USB-C anyway, the cost of the connector is not the expensive part.
The mechanical design I'll push back on as well, phones are expected to put up with a lot more physical abuse than laptops, and also be resistant to dust and water. You can dunk a pixel phone in 3 feet of water for half an hour, good luck doing that with a laptop. As someone who got to watch the ME's sitting next to my team work on making our product water resistant, that process sucks, it takes multiple iterations ($, and time) and it is non-trivial to get right.
Tear downs of the Pixel 10 are obv not available yet, but the estimated BOM for a Pixel 9 is ~$400 USD. Figure ongoing support (7 years!), all the cloud services that come with it, and all the other costs that went into making it (the army of engineers, an entire OS team, all the apps that come with it, etc), the $800 I paid for it isn't half bad.
Edit: Oh and phones also have a modern miracle of an RF stack in them. My phone can hold onto a BT connection across my yard and through 2 brick walls! And they do this with barely any space to but the antennas. Meanwhile laptops can run antennas willy-nilly with the absurd amount of volume they have to work with.
(Apple's Laptops also have really good wireless performance, but the base models aren't trying to support the three generations of cellular protocols and standard that phones do.)
Also Google stuff always lacks SD card slots and have tiny storage. The $250 Motorola can add a $50 1 TB SD Card, which is enough to fit your entire music collection, all of wikipedia, and an offline ad-free routable map of the world from OSM, and still have probably like 700 GB left over for photos/videos. Google meanwhile charges $100 for a 128 GB storage upgrade. Probably because they want to funnel you into their cloud storage, want you to use their online maps/music services, etc.
Phone cameras are also absolute trash anyway, and pulling up some comparisons in Google Photos right now, I'm fairly certain that my Pixel 6a takes obviously worse photos than my Nexus 5x did 10 years ago, even comparing high light for the 6a to low light for the 5x. I'll probably buy a Motorola when my current phone dies because the only ostensible reason to buy a Pixel is the camera. Or I suspect the real big-brained solution lives in the handheld gaming PC space.
>Sigh, still not going to pay more for a phone than I paid for my computer.
As much as I loathe the consumerism of buying the latest phone every year, I realized that if the trade-in value is good enough, it's a pretty good strategy in terms of overall technology spend.
With iPhones, I upgraded every third generation. With Pixels, I went from 3 to 6 to 9, but given that I'm on Google Fi, I get a $450 discount on the phone, and I can get a base Pixel 10 Pro for $217, after trade-in. I got a surprisingly generous trade-in on my Pixel 6 when I bought the 9, and buying the Pixel 3 with Google Fi was pretty cheap too.
The last computer I bought was an M1 Max Macbook Pro w/ 36gb of RAM and a 1TB drive, for $2499, in 2023 (thank you B&H). Hopefully it'll be a long time before I'm paying that much for a phone.
> _starting_ at $799, $999 and $1199.
At 126GB storage, which is basically unusable in 2025 and it's a phone you want to last to 2030. This storage bait needs to be made illegal, it literally costs almost nothing to manufacture and exists purely to punish and trick the consumer.
That's beside the point but I don't game on my phone (s22 with 128gb) and constantly have to shuffle storage just for photos, videos and music streaming cache. Storage is so cheap it makes no sense to pay 1,000$ for a device and then be a slave to manually managing it. It's insulting.
I feel the same way about paying more for a phone than for a computer, but is it rational? I'm not sure. Sure you get a smaller screen and a smaller battery, and the phone doesn't have a keyboard and a trackpad (assuming you were referring to a laptop), but does the militarisation make up that difference?
Disclaimer: I'm not really invested in thinking about it carefully. I don't like any of the huge phones available now, and so far I'm getting by with the small phone I have, and buying into the idea of the Framework laptop either means I won't have to replace the whole thing or that I'll just go back to buying refurbished enterprise laptops.
Edit: I see other people have already picked up on the computer/phone cost thought more productively than I did! :)
I always amortize the coat of the phone over the months of security updates remaining. Sometimes the last gen is a better deal, on a per month basis, sometimes the new one is only a couple bucks a month more. i dont mind a few more dollars per month.
/s: B-b-b-but if you buy the Pixel 10 Pro Fold you can pay $1799 and, assuming your bank account can only hold amounts $1699 and lower, the amount needed to purchase will overflow at some point in the purchasing process, making it SEEM like you only pay $100 for that new phone!?
> Sigh, still not going to pay more for a phone than I paid for my computer.
My computer is ~$6,000, so that would be a pretty high bar for me.
Well, minor nit- cell providers offer it for 60% Google’s price to start[0], while locking it into a phone contract that subsidizes it. This is effectively bundling a loan for the hardware with your data plan. That price is more of a down payment on said loan.
[0] actually in the US at least they’ll frequently offer it for “free” with a new plan, that of course locks the phone to said plan.
Yeah, I bought a Pixel 10 Pro 256 GB yesterday. Should have been $1,099. But Google e-mailed me a $150 off coupon code, I got $450 off for being a Google Fi subscriber, plus $100 as a trade-in for my Pixel 6. My actual price for the 10 Pro was $399.
Have they fixed the ability to easily transfer your existing Android data to the new Android phone? I find that every time I upgrade, despite choosing the options to transfer apps/settings, that 90% of the apps I open just greet me with the login screen and I have to set everything up completely from scratch. I remember maybe a handful of apps, I think one was Uber, that were able to transfer everything including the login session. That was truly magic. That's how it should be for all apps. I understand banks might have special security requirements and I already know for Google Wallet, your cards need to be reactivated even if they transfer over, but most apps are not banks.
Blame the app developers, not google. They specifically added a backup/restore mode for device to device transfer, that bypasses backup blacklists[1]. However apps can still opt out by registering a backup agent, and returning no data.
[1] https://developer.android.com/identity/data/testingbackup
Google actively avoided providing a local, secure, and seamless backup or even an interface for 3rd party backup services to make users more dependent on Google cloud services. Of course many app developers decided the Google cloud is too insecure, being not end-to-end encrypted. And Google enables them by not giving the users ways to override those stupid decisions. This wouldn't have happened on PCs, where you can mostly just copy over the application's user directory.
>Of course many app developers decided the Google cloud is too insecure, being not end-to-end encrypted
But so far as I can tell D2D transfers don't hit the cloud?
>For a D2D transfer, the Backup Manager Service queries your app for backup data and passes it directly to the Backup Manager Service on the new device, which loads it in to your app.
https://developer.android.com/identity/data/testingbackup
If your app is opting out of backup by implementing a custom backup agent that returns no data, it's pretty clear you're against user backups, period.
Pixel to Pixel has been smooth for me since the Pixel 4. Haven't don't cross manufacturer for a while.
> For instance, when you're calling an airline, it can automatically find your flight details from your email and display it during your phone call.
Is this really the best example usecase they can think of? How often does an individual call an airline? I'm sure in aggregate they get a lot of calls, but I don't think I've ever had to.
It just seems really weird that this is the top example of on-device AI. The other examples mentioned, like "finding the right photos to share with a friend", seem more relatable.
> How often does an individual call an airline?
It's a very simple example that people can see the value for right away. It also acts as a good placeholder for hotel, car rental agency, restaurant, etc. Any place you'd have a ticket/reservation for that you might need to call.
It is odd that they considered that a common usecase.
Perhaps they really wanted to show a good looking widget and I suppose flight info was the best candidate.
I have had some calls with family or friends about an upcoming flight where this could've saved a few seconds.
Would I want to save a few seconds in exchange for their processing of my whole conversation even if offline? That's another story.
That 100x zoom looks a bit... sloppy...
The car has one wing mirror and the rear tire is wider than the front. Edit: this might be real, see child comments.
Is there someone who knows more about cars who can confirm that this is in fact, not real?
This looks to me like something resembling a 65 mustang.
If you look at some 65 mustangs they only had a driver side wing mirror as that was the law back then. The wider rear tire also makes a lot of sense, as it's a RWD car that needs wider rear tires to support the traction.
If the car in the photo is a 65 mustang, I think the AI did pretty good.
What looks off the most is the fact that the blinkers under the bender aren't even remotely close to looking similar. The rest of the car could pass as a restomod, but the fact that so many things are asymmetrical between the two sides just looks completely wrong. Blinkers, hood clips, mirror-no-mirror, etc.
No, it's definitely wider in the photo. The rear tire is about double the width of my mouse pointer while the front tire is about 1x the width.
That said, as other commentators have mentioned, it might also be wider in real life, so not necessarily an artifact at all.
If you own a pixel phone remember to do regular emergency call tests. They have a bug that has stuck around for generations but for some reason they get a pass.
https://www.reddit.com/r/GooglePixel/comments/1ano09x/pixel_...
https://www.reddit.com/r/GooglePixel/comments/1jzo5hu/pixel_...
> regular emergency call tests
This sounds like a huge waste of time for the dispatch operators if everyone starts to do such tests regularly.
On a similar note, it would be great (especially for these tests) if carriers provided a non-emergency / echo number that gets treated the same way as an emergency call (works w/o SIM card, gets preferential treatment, ...)
You can schedule test calls and call in the scheduled time slot (US only)
Test calls confirm that your local 911 service can receive your 911 call and has the correct location information. Test calls can be scheduled by contacting your local 911 call center via its non-emergency phone number.
In your preferred search engine, search the key words “emergency communications center non-emergency number" and include the names of the city or town, state, and county or parish in your search. Test calls may need to be scheduled and are usually based on the workload experienced at the PSAP.
For more information, visit the National Association of State 911 Administrators site.
Please do not call 911 to obtain the non-emergency number.
https://www.911.gov/calling-911/frequently-asked-questions/#....
When phones are no longer considered reliable to make emergency calls in certain places, what alternative is there?
Sure it sucks for the operator to get a call, "Sorry, just testing to make sure emergency calling works, thanks, bye" and it would also suck, probably even more, for an individual to not be able to make an emergency call. Squeaky wheel gets the grease, hopefully someone improves the system, lol.
You can't just say A less bad then B so we should all do A.
You have to consider number of A * badness A vs number of B * badness B.
If thousands of pixel users start doing test calls in mass you will actually start causing that unable to make an emergency call issue.
What's the threshold by which a phone isn't considered reliable enough to make emergency calls?
I've never personally had an emergency call fail on a Pixel device, and I don't know the broader statistics of how often they fail for other people compared to other phones. Do you?
For Australia, it needs to be on a whitelist.
https://isthisphoneblocked.net.au/
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-11-03/brand-new-phones-unab...
What I've done is write the dispatch center a friendly email explaining what I want and suggesting that they choose any off-peak time they find convenient.
A few days later, they called me and said that I could make the test call right now. Worked fine.
Looks like a minor improvement to the pixel 9 series. Honestly, that's fine, I'm pretty happy with my Pixel 9 Pro.
The built-in magsafe charging magnets are a nice addition, although a case with magnets in it works for me for now.
Of course, the #1 feature I'd like to see is expandable storage, which Google seems to be strangely against. #2 would be a headphones jack - Google has already reversed course on that one once, but another reversal seems unlikely.
Yeah, I am on Pixel 9 pro too and quick trade in check shows that upgrade would cost net ~500$(256Gb). Arguably ~250$ if buying 10 would extend the gemini subscription for a year -- not sure about the verbiage of the terms here.
100x "composite" zoom is nice but not sure if it's worth it.
As much as I'd love if phones still had headphone jacks, the inertia sure seems to be going the other direction. I fully anticipate the power port will be the next to go and wireless charging will be the only way to charge (and I don't want that either).
> It isn't just a simple crop; Pro Res Zoom uses Tensor G5 and an all-new generative imaging model to intelligently recover and refine intricate details.
Unclear what "intelligently recover and refine" means here, and I'd like to make a request of people who might also be unclear yet influenced by this idea...
If you build features that sound like this into the image-capturing stage (from the user perspective), and your target users include serious photographers who care about authenticity, please be sure to make any kind of "generative"/inferencing of image details be optional.
And fall back to nth previous generation of sensor processing, autofocusing, and anti-shake technology -- where the compute still influences the images, but errs on the side of missing/fuzzy detail rather than fabrication.
Imagine the priorities of photojournalists as a category of user -- not only users who want appealing snapshots, selfies, or professional editorial fashion/lifestyle shoots.
There's still a place for consciously fabricating/enhancing/fixing in interactive post-processing, when you you choose to do it, and it's clear to you what is being done.
I have the pixel 6. It's still fine. This looks like a very incremental update to me as have the previous few editions. Same with the OS. I can barely tell apart Android versions these days. And since most of the value is software based, there isn't much practical difference between different generations of Pixel phones.
My pixel 6 has the same 48 megapixel sensor in the camera as they still appear to be using. It seems camera sensors plateaued about 4-5 years ago. It's a great sensor; the raw images are pretty amazing given the form factor (tiny sensor and lens). And I expect it still is. People confuse the AI capabilities (removing subjects, adding missing detail, etc.) with simple operations to make the photo 'pop'. Boosting the contrast, saturating all the colors, applying some aggressive smoothing (noise) and sharpening, etc. Doing that manually on the raw files yields very similar results. It's good and convenient. But most of that is just the sensor being awesome and some tasteful defaults for these edits. Adding optical zoom is impressive. The digital/AI zoom is not something I'd use. They still seem to use different sensors for the different cameras; which is something Apple stopped doing with recent iphones. So, you have to choose between the right lens with lots of noise or the right sensor with the wrong focal range.
The AI stuff is interesting as a gimmick but not something I use a lot. It seems to be the main differentiator for Google these days but I just don't see that being worth hundreds of dollars. It's a bit of an artificial differentiator and a race to the bottom. The advantages tend to be a bit hand wavy and other phone manufacturers of course copy them.
I might go for the 10a when it comes out in six months or so. My Pixel 6 won't be getting major updates anymore and the battery is starting to deteriorate. The difference between a 500 euro phone and a > 1000 euro one are not worth it for me. And with the 9a at least it even had a slightly bigger battery.
My dream is to have a phone like this that supports thunderbolt host mode, runs grapheneos or similar and can drive a couple of displays via usb-c docking station. With the memory and CPU this phone could easily replace my work laptop (vscode and ssh for the most part). Sadly I haven't found any phone that would make this possible (Samsung Dex doesn't count because it's proprietary)
> My dream is to have a phone like this that supports thunderbolt host mode, runs grapheneos or similar and can drive a couple of displays via usb-c docking station
Sounds like you're thinking of the stock Pixel 10. Google worked with Samsung to bring the Dex experience to upstream Android, and their Linux VM work is almost fully baked in Android 15. Running VSCode and ssh can be done today with a Pixel phone plugged into a USB-C hub, keyboard, mouse and a monitor. I don't know why Google isn't promoting this capability yet,
I think they're waiting for the the big point release this fall.
When they rolled out 16 earlier this spring almost nothing changed from the user's perspective because it was just shipping a lot of the underlying supporting apis that aren't exposed via user accessible things at this point.
I guess that's better than nothing! Still, it wouldn't allow connection to a thunderbolt dock with 2 displays, network and peripherals I guess.
Ideally it would run stock Linux with Android apps via waydroid.. reliance on banking apps makes this fully converged experience using only open source a bit of a pipe dream :(
Android 16 will have this (at least for a single external display): https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2025/06/developer-...
I want to know how the TSMC-manufactured Tensor processors compares to Samsung-manufactured Tensor processors and also how TSMC-manufactured Tensor processors compare to TSMC-manufactured Snapdragon processors. Samsung's Tensors (also Exynos) had the fame of getting superhot. I want to know if these problems persist in new Tensor chips.
> Pro Res Zoom uses Tensor G5 and an all-new generative imaging model to intelligently recover and refine intricate details.
Reminds me of https://www.theverge.com/2023/3/13/23637401/samsung-fake-moo...
I guess we'll never be able to trust any photos taken with a Pixel 10 or above.
"Smoothing" of photos has already been on by default in Android and iOS for years at this point. You'd need to go way back to "trust" any of them.
12 years later and still no availability in Middle East or Africa. Only available in 30-something countries. Google can't figure out retail, while upstart Chinese companies hit the global market immediately.
If you buy it in a country that's not officially supported you don't get 5G, most unique features, and of course no warranty, support, or repairs.
It's disabled geographically, not based on band compatibility or carrier or anything. Not sure about New Zealand because I heard it's not consistent.
It'd be 5G, VoLTE/Wifi, VPN, call screening, OTP autodelete, crash detection.
I'm pretty sure that was just an accident, if you pinch all the ways out it goes seamlessly to the wide angle lens.
0.5x is 0.5x, not "what it actually looks like."
The deceptive part is using AI to creatively fill in gaps in the picture, and saying "recover and refine intricate details" when the details are actually hallucinated, making that blue car look like a drawing of a toy.
> Exclusive to the Pixel 10 Pro and 10 Pro XL, Pro Res Zoom captures astonishing detail at up to 100x zoom. It isn't just a simple crop; Pro Res Zoom uses Tensor G5 and an all-new generative imaging model to intelligently recover and refine intricate details.
So it's not just a crop. It's a crop + hallucinate.
I really like their AI strategy. It’s much stronger than Apple’s, which seems to be nonexistent. The problem I have is I really like my Apple Watch Ultra. There is nothing like it in the android space and I can’t rely on Google. Actually caring about building a great product the way Apple does. Googles hardware products always seem to be some strategic wedge play to keep the ecosystem in check. They don’t seem to exist because they really care about building the very best watch, or phone, or whatever and at any point they might just cancel the effort.
I really wish they'd upgrade the Pro Fold to have the Pro camera system. :(
I don't know why they assume that someone buying a $2000 phone doesn't want the best available camera.
Looks slick.
> automatically find your flight details
I appreciate this but can they please go beyond search and instead legitimately find me cheapest price and overall best time to fly? Or strategies to find cheaper fight using different plans or maybe integrated credit point I have, coupons?
I'd love to see AI saving me big money and doing all the hassle for me.
Google launched a new tool for finding flights: https://www.google.com/travel/flights/deals.
More details at: https://blog.google/products/search/google-flights-ai-flight....
I wonder how they'll screw it up this time. I have to deal with a pink line down my Pixel 8's screen, because while there is an extended warranty for that issue, you need to flash the stock firmware (wiping the device) to put it in "service mode" so uBreakIFix can do their thing.
That's the problem with pixel. Everytime I try to switch from iPhone, ever year's line up has some glaring GC issue. I've tried every year since the 2XL. Most recent is the 9 Pro XL (only the XL size) the camera bar falling off.
The pixels could be amazing phones if Google could fix their crappy QC and invest in some actual customer support.
People like Apple - you can go to a physical store and get support. You can get AppleCare+ and have accidental damage replacements, battery replacements, etc just take it to the store.
Google doesn't have that, they don't have a physical presence, and it's nearly impossible to get a human and if you do, they are really stingy about RMAs.
I'm really picky. Creaks, screen issues (got the line down the middle of the screen on a 2XL, 3, and 6), speaker went out on 5, cell radio would randomly stop working on the 8, having to reboot multiple times per day. Most recently a 9 Pro XL, flexed more than my wife's, and the screen creaked when pressed (which my wife's didn't). The camera bump falling off didn't happen to me, but I've seen it on others.
If I'm going to pay Apple prices, I expect the same level of quality. I really want to like the pixel, but I can't trust Google's quality until they prove otherwise. Every generation of Pixel has had some sort of QC problem.
Unfortunately both Pixel 10 and Gemini is unavailable in Hong Kong. I have been trying move off Apple iPhone for a long time and Pixel is the phone I wanted to go for within the Android ecosystem. And I simply dont have that choice.
Wondering if anyone on HN could shine any light as to why.
The hardware and features seem great, but I'm not gonna buy another pixel phone. I've had a pixel 8 for 2 years the stability of the software has gone down so much. I frequently have an unresponsive UI, requiring me to turn off my phone with the side buttons. I also have had many issues with the keyboard and it not responding when using chrome, requiring me to kill chrome and restart it.
It seems like Google only tests on their latest device when releasing android because people I know who always get the latest phones don't have these problems. It's a very poor customer experience. It's the phone experience of an old super car. It's fast and does lots of cool things, but it feels like the wheels are gonna come off at any minute.
Same here (on a Pixel 7). Apart from there being absolutely no reason to upgrade, really, even with the generous trade-in values offered by Google around the time of release. I kind of miss the time when a new smartphone release was exciting.
Phones are not the hot commodity they used to be anymore and that's a good thing IMHO. I just bought a Px7 after breaking my 6a that I had for 3 years. I did look at the Px10 specs but with the price/value it was an easy decision. I'm now expecting the same 3y worth of battery I was getting out of my 6a (a day started getting tight at the end). Bigger still seems to be the definition of better but I had a CAT S60 for a while, so it's still small compared to that brick.
Overall very happy with the Px series and I'm happy they keep making them. On the software side it runs Graphene OS just as well as the 6a. Setup was super easy with the Chromium WebUSB based installer. I expect the Px10 to be supported soon too.
Yay, it has native wireless charging via Qi2, AKA Pixelsnap. The rumors on the internet were that you needed a special case to use the wireless charging. But that is not true after all and those rumors were false.
You can just plop a Qi2 charger right on your phone and it will charge! Only bummer is that the 10 pro charges at 15w while the 10 pro XL charges at 25w. And I really prefer the smaller phones that fit in my pockets. Not some huge monster phone.
I recently discovered Pixel 7 (maybe older too, I dunno) is actually Qi compatible it just doesn't have the magnets to lock in place.
But if you have a case with those magnets in, it works great. And it turns out QuadLok cases (which I can generally recommend for cyclists) are compatible.
So now I just plonk my phone against the wall and it charges on an Apple MagSafe charger I mounted. This is actually really nice, turns out it's really convenient to have your phone in a fixed position, also not taking up any surface space!
Always thought wireless charging was a bit of a gimmick but with the magnets it's genuinely useful.
It's a shame the Pixels don't have IR sensors. One of the most underrated features that some Androids have - I was in a hotel in Poland this year and it had Aircon in the room (and was rather warm), but there was no remote. The IR sensor on my phone saved my butt as it could turn on the AC!
There's no end of times that the IR sensor has come in useful one way or another.
> Tensor G5 and the latest version of Gemini Nano work together to run Magic Cue privately and securely on your phone.
YES! Here we talk.
The fact we can now host a version of an AI model, and make sure everything is processed locally and is not sent to the cloud is the best feature of those phones. I just hope that data do not leave the phone OR are encrypted to be stored in Google servers...
All I really want to know is CPU/other efficiency and battery life.. If I use G1-G5 with exactly the same app that G1 CPU was adequate for the theoretical efficiency for the CPU is maybe improving 20% a generation but that manifests as some worthwhile (battery time) result or is drowned out by stupid features like even higher screen refresh?
That camera bump is huge. I guess that's how you get the great zoom?
Phone cases are doing heavy lifting to smooth out the back of this phone.
I made a leather pouch with a belt loop for my Pixel 6. Great when travelling or hiking. The camera band sits above the edge of the front of the pouch with the 'lid' covering that when the pouch is closed with a tuck lock.
The full-width band is just perfect for grabbing the phone and lifting it out of the form-fitting pouch, and doubles as a sort of safety preventing it from slipping from your grip.
I'd be curious to know if they did any surveys/research on how many people use a case or not. If the vast majority do (my anecdata-based hunch), why not just thicken the phone to add battery and use a thinner case rather than just having the case space the back of the phone out to be flat?
My partner got a Pixel 9a and it's nice that they went completely flat on that one, though it's obviously almost a straight rip-off of the recent non-pro iPhones aesthetically (not a bad thing imo).
Good point. Even my regular iPhone 13 is the heaviest phone I've ever owned and it's kind of annoying in that it actually hurts to drop on your face if you're vegging out watching a video while laying down.
Too bad it can't be smoothed out (with more battery or something) to start with.
That bump is more than 1/4 of the phone's total thickness. This is becoming comical.
I don't need it to "feel" less massive. Most wallets are thicker and I don't hear anyone complain.
not sure if you mean clip-on cell phone wallets (I assume that people that don't want a thick cell phone don't add a wallet since it makes their cell phone too thick), or actual wallets... plenty of people complain about those:
https://lifehacker.com/how-can-i-downsize-my-ridiculously-la... https://veryexcellenthabits.com/downsize-ridiculously-enormo... https://www.reddit.com/r/onebag/comments/5blfkt/my_wallet_is...
And a thick wallet causes enough health problems for it to be called "Fat Wallet Syndrome".
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Fat_Wallet_Syndro...
I hope there's an improved screen. I bought a 9 Pro XL with hopes of running GrapheneOS but the PWM on the Pixel was terrible. Instant headaches. I can more or less get by ok with recent iPhone screens but the Pixel screen didn't work at all for me.
Heard a rumor that Google was going to take eye strain seriously for this version. Hope that's true.
I'm delighted to see that they don't make you get the biggest phone in order to get the best cameras. I've been using Pixels since the Pixel 3 and always feel like I'm making compromises in the camera department in order to get a phone that will actually fit in my hand/pocket.
> Magic Cue ... to proactively offer the right information at the right time
That's one way to justify a permanent snoop on everything you are doing and saying in all your messages and calls.
Even if your data is kept on device, their telemetry could still reveal your activity and patterns.
> Also, what is up with that camera module? This doesn't look like it can physically slide into jeans pockets.
Pixel phones have been that way for a while now. Phone cases usually add the missing part to make it flat, e.g. https://www.spigen.com/products/pixel-10-series-case-tough-a...
I understand this might not be the best place to ask, but I have to: I'd like to try and switch from iPhone to Pixel (maybe different Android phone?) but there is one app that I can't find anything close to: Drafts.
Maybe I'm missing something? Any ideas?
I don't really need all functions of Drafts but the whole experience of adding notes with this app is something I haven't experienced with anything else.
PS: naive question: is there a way to "integrate" Pixel with macOS? At least to have common clipboard.
For that sort of integration I would use KDE Connect[1]. It works great between my phone and laptop. I can send the clipboard, files, notifications, media controls, etc between the devices. It has a MacOS version but it currently only has nightly builds (potentially a downside).
Interesting phones, but the snark in the live video wasn’t that amazing. Aren’t the products enough in and out of themselves to be attractive?
Complaining about Apple walled garden, but only able to pull off their AI help if you are part of their Google garden and a lot of it on the cloud.
Same for Pixel Snap being MagSafe (sounds like a camera feature at first).
7 years of software updates promised, that’s actually nice.
After trying out 6000/7000mah phones, I'm never ever using any phone with a smaller battery. Especially not the 3580mah or whatever pixel phones. I like pixel otherwise, but it's just impossible to revert back to a smaller battery once you've experienced the truly multi-day -- even for a unhealthy screen user like me -- battery life.
Pixel 10 has around 5000mah batteries. Sadly that does not meet your 6000mah requirement. Everybody makes choices ;)
Yeah. I can't wait for a "flagship" phone with 6000+mah. Provided it's not one with bloatware (xiaomi et. al) I would buy it immediately.
I just want a little phone that I can use with one hand and doesn't stretch out my pocket...
I wonder if these new devices will finally have support for the elusive APV codec.
The link you posted says Android 16 support. Why wouldn't Pixel run it?
I wonder will this make some of the older Pixels (say 7-9) cheaper on eBay. I have been toying with the idea of replacing my Samsung S10 for ages now, and the battery life is really starting to degrade so I might pull the trigger soon.
After they stopped releasing the device tree, there's really not a lot that will hold ROM developers to Pixels. I'll definitely wait to see what happens on that front before buying my next phone.
Does the camera module still fall off like on the Pixel 9?
I love Android, besides a few accessibility issues, especially when typing to Gemini and TalkBack not speaking the reply, but I don't like how sluggish TalkBack is on Pixel phones. I had the 8 and hated that.
my pixel 2 is still rocking too, what an amazing device! (although it now I only use it for flappy bird..) Highly disappointed that Google stopped updates a long time ago.
Only one question. Can you disable the stupid date on the home screen. No I don't want to spend hundreds of dollars on a phone and then load another launcher on it. Just hire someone competent at programming to make this an option.
https://support.google.com/pixelphone/thread/132929200?hl=en
Because even if your phone only breaks every 5 years on average do you want to get a new 5 year old phone because your last one died right before the refresh cycle? Having regular releases means that when you do get the phone you have a relatively up-to-date device with latest hardware improvements. You don't need to upgrade yearly because they release a new phone yearly.
People are on different phone cycles. Even if most people update once every 5 years, it only takes 5 distinct groups to warrant a yearly new phone.
From the on-device memory, UI, camera etc.
Also: "Voice Translate allows you to break down language barriers during phone calls. Through Tensor G5, our on-device AI translates your call in real time in what sounds like each speaker’s voice"
They advertise on-device AI functionality quite a lot.
I know it's a petty thing, but I quit using the Pixel when they forced an unmovable and unhideable search bar onto the bottom of the homescreen.
Can anyone report if that's still the case? I know custom launchers exist, but I'd really rather not go that route.
> I know custom launchers exist, but I'd really rather not go that route.
If you switched to a different phone, it is using a different launcher. If your only complaint is the launcher, it doesn't make sense to change the whole phone.
I'm not an Android user, so pardon me if this is a stupid thing to say, but it's weird to me that these phones apparently have some new UI unique to them. I thought Android was just Android. Won't other Android phones get this update?
Android is not just Android. The device vendors have to customize it to fit their devices by including drivers for example. Device vendors have the option to change the look pretty heavily, Samsung TouchWiz was infamous, Chinese vendors also offer very customized versions, including making it look like iOS. What you are seeing is material design 3 "expressive" which will be rolled out in the next minor Android version and Google apps
The look of the phone reminds me of Bender from Futurama.
anyone who knows about cars is pointing at that last demo video and going "What the fuck is THAT."
Yet again, Google announces another lineup of phones where a vast majority of the announcement is about software features that could be implemented on existing devices, highlighting the wastefulness of the yearly release cycle.
Ever since magic eraser we've been slip-sliding down the slippery slope that ends with all our picture memories being half-AI-generated with the same "look" based on whatever flavor generated them at the time.
In fairness it's AI "upscaled". What kind of car that is isn't actually present in the original image's data, it's a best guess from the AI.
I was surprised to see "more helpful support than ever" listed as a top line feature. Google actually offering good support to their customers?! I was impressed until I got to "Magic Cue isn’t just a single app or feature, it’s proactive support". Ah, so it sounds like the helpful support is just more AI slop.
> A camera with Gemini
and im out
> Exclusive to the Pixel 10 Pro and 10 Pro XL, Pro Res Zoom captures astonishing detail at up to 100x zoom. It isn't just a simple crop; Pro Res Zoom uses Tensor G5 and an all-new generative imaging model to intelligently recover and refine intricate details.
bro in your demo the car is a half el-camino half mustang
Still boring, indistinguishable from the rest, and still hideous. Hire a proper designer for fucks sake. Ridiculous everugly phone.
Don't all phones look extremely similar today?
Maybe I'm old but no two phones today seem as different as e.g. Nokia 8800 was from Motorola Razr
Yes, I don't know why they bother showing the phone turned off anymore. They all look the same.
The materials might be different, and that's where a lot of companies go wrong. The Pixel 10 uses polished glass, which is too slippery. It slides off uneven surfaces and is harder to hold.
> all phones
Eh...
https://www.samsung.com/ca/smartphones/galaxy-z-flip7/buy/
https://www.samsung.com/ca/smartphones/others/galaxy-xcover7...
Both from the same company and I think about an equal distance between them as the Nokia 8800 and a similarly dated Motorola Razr.
The only downside is that all of these new features will be supported for about 3 weeks, and then rapidly turn into another Google abandoned strip mall.
Fooled me once, shame on you, fooled me (hundreds of times), shame on me
Bet the people who launched these are already interviewing for their next gig.
.. as I sit here with my Apple devices that are 90% abandonware.
I feel your pain.
samsung is a lot better with keeping products staffed at least
> Pixel 10, Pixel 10 Pro and Pixel 10 Pro XL are all available for preorder today starting at $799, $999 and $1199.
No Pixel 10a was announced, and frankly Google's track record with hardware is a bit discouraging for someone thinking about spending a grand on a phone.
I got my entire family Pixel 4XLs when they were new. Every single one had the battery replaced once under warranty, and then they denied more batteries (it was actually the fragile connector). So I started replacing them myself. I even slightly modified the connector mount so it would stop failing. The third batteries ended up lasting years because of my modification. Finally, all 3 died around 2023 from motherboard problems apparently. Otherwise great phones. Sad that some weird hardware problems killed them all for most people.
No fold phones???
EDIT: https://blog.google/products/pixel/google-pixel-10-pro-fold/...
^ this should be the main post
Try Pixels with GrapheneOS. Most of that software is still "from Google" technically, but it's reworked in some important ways, especially on a service level. For example, by default it has no Google apps or services, you can install Play store sandboxed, etc.
They said Magic Cue is done entirely on device and as far as I can tell does not involve saving screenshots of your activities to the device like Windows Recall* did- rather it can look at things like your email and other data that is on the device to determine what to suggest
* Windows Copilot is different from Recall, which is the one that saved screenshots of what you were doing periodically
I would guess because the windows recall stores screenshots of everything you do forever while this just watches and pops up without storing information that could later be used against you. Of course, it could be secretly recording but if you are concerned about that you need to install grapheneOS or something.
Not that I like this feature or think there aren't privacy concerns.
That's likely your unreliable AP dropping offline and coming back frequently. Pixel thinks this is an attacker and stops joining it until it can hear the SSID consistently.
That fake zoom with AI is gross ugh
If I'm taking a picture of something I want it to be real light-to-pixel action not some made up wambo-jambo