Despite higher prices and new hardware with the Google Pixel 10, battery longevity and consistent everyday reliability remain questionable.
As much as there is to love about Google’s Pixel lineup, it’s occasionally had more than its fair share of issues. Tensor’s performance remains lackluster, Google is only now fixing its lifeless photo colors with the Pixel 10 series, and — perhaps worst of all — the intermittent battery problem seems to have reared its head once again.
From Pixel 6 cellular drain to faulty batteries in some A-series models, battery woes have long been the Pixel’s Achilles’ heel. Yet Google is charging more than ever for phones that still can’t match key rivals in arguably the most important metric for everyday users.
In fact, last year’s Pixel 9 series outperforms the Pixel 10 in some of our battery tests. Crucially, the new models seem to fare worse in more demanding tasks like video calls and content capture, though they do score wins in web browsing and video playback. At best, battery life might average out to around the same as last year’s models, but that’s hardly convincing for phones touting larger batteries and more efficient processors.
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To see exactly what the issue is, I dusted off my testing gear, grabbed the Pixel 10 Pro XL and its rival, the Galaxy S25 Ultra, and ran some low-level power drain tests. The results: Pixels can have higher power draw with poor cellular signal, but also that the Pixel 10 Pro XL fared worse than last year’s model in some scenarios. Whether you spend a lot of time on Wi-Fi versus in poor signal areas can significantly impact whether your Pixel 10 makes it through the day.
