The Google Pixel 10 might be less than two months away now, with rumors suggesting it could land on August 20.
Various tips have also given us some idea of what to expect from this upcoming phone, including some upgrades that we really want to see. But there are other improvements that we haven’t heard mentioned, yet still hope for.
So below, you’ll find five upgrades that we really want from the Google Pixel 10. These are a mix of things that look likely and some longer shots, but combined they could make the Pixel 10 a massive improvement on the Google Pixel 9.
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1. An Action button
The iPhone 16 Plus has an Action button (Image credit: Future)
The Action button is one of the more interesting and useful additions to the iPhone in recent years, with this being a customizable hardware key that you can use for all sorts of things.
Not everyone is convinced by the Action button, but if you find a function that works for you, it can start to feel near essential. Perhaps for example you’d want to use the Action button as a camera shutter, a shortcut to AI, or a quick translation tool.
The possibilities are almost endless, and we’d love to see those possibilities come to the Google Pixel 10.
Sadly, there’s no indication that this phone will get such a key, and in the absence of any rumors about this we don’t really expect it to, but we hope for it anyway.
2. Magnetic wireless charging
The Google Pixel 9 (Image credit: Philip Berne / Future)
Another feature that we’d like to see borrowed from the iPhone is MagSafe-like magnetic wireless charging, and this looks far more likely, since the tech to achieve this is available to Android phones.
Qi2 is a relatively recent wireless charging standard and it supports ‘Magnetic Power Profile’, which means chargers and accessories can be attached to a phone magnetically.
Sadly, for whatever reason this isn’t something that many Android phone makers have been quick to fully support, with the likes of the Samsung Galaxy S25 series supporting magnetic charging but only with the addition of a special case.
Right now, there’s disagreement over whether the Google Pixel 10 series will also need a case with built in magnets to achieve this, or whether these phones will have magnets built into them so there’s no case needed.
Either way, going by leaks it looks likely that some form of magnetic charging will be offered, but we really hope it’s native, rather than requiring a specific case to function.
3. A telephoto camera
The Google Pixel 9 (Image credit: Philip Berne / Future)
Despite being a fairly expensive phone, the standard Google Pixel 9 doesn’t have a telephoto camera – so you’re limited to wide and ultra-wide lenses.
Adding one to the Pixel 10 then is an obvious wish, and it’s something we’d really like to see, as it would allow for a wider variety of photos to be taken with the phone.
The good news is that it looks almost certain that a telephoto camera will be added to the Pixel 10, as multiple leaks have said as much.
This will apparently be a 10.8MP snapper offering 5x optical zoom, which is longer distance than some telephoto cameras allow.
The less good news is that the wide and ultra-wide cameras will reportedly use worse sensors than on the Pixel 9, perhaps in order to keep costs down while adding a third lens, so we just hope Google will get the balance right.
4. A more powerful chipset
The Google Pixel 9 has a Tensor G4 chipset (Image credit: Philip Berne / Future)
Google’s phones have for years struggled to compete when it comes to power, with even the Pixel 9 Pro XL having a chipset that’s substantially less powerful than what you’ll find in the top Samsung and Apple phones.
So – yes – we want (and expect) the Google Pixel 10 to have a new, more powerful chipset than its predecessor. But what we really want is a large increase in power – one that brings it in line with the likes of the Snapdragon 8 Elite, found in the Samsung Galaxy S25 series and others on our best Android phones list.
Will we get that? Well, that’s hard to say. We fully expect the Pixel 10 to have a Tensor G5 chipset (up from the Tensor G4 in the Pixel 9), but whether this will be an iterative or revolutionary upgrade – or somewhere in-between – is less clear.
Reports suggest Google could partner with TSMC for this, which might lead to better results than the previous Samsung-produced chipsets, but we’re skeptical that this will make for a truly transformative upgrade. We sure hope it does though.
5. New and pro-level AI features
AI on the Google Pixel 9 Pro XL (Image credit: Future | Alex Walker-Todd)
Given how many AI features it has, the Google Pixel 9 could certainly be described as an ‘AI phone’, yet it actually has fewer AI tools than the Pixel 9 Pro and the Pixel 9 Pro XL.
Most notably, it lacks some AI-powered video-boosting features, and while that may come down to hardware limitations, we hope the Pixel 10 will get all the same AI tools as the Pixel 10 Pro.
And we don’t just want the same AI tools as we’ve already seen – what we really want here is some new AI stuff as well. Perhaps things that are only possible because of the power of the new Tensor G5 chipset, so that they can really wow us and show how far the Pixel line has come in the last year.
It’s likely based on past form that some new AI features will launch with the Google Pixel 10, so that’s good. Though whether it will have all the same AI features as its Pro siblings is less certain.
