Update, Tuesday Mar 25, 2025: This article has been updated with details on the Pixel 10 imaging hardware.
Following the Pixel 9a launch, Google will focus on the next version of Android and the upcoming Pixel 10 and Pixel 10 Pro family. This weekend saw its hardware and software strands cross over with the promise of faster code and improved performance.
Pixel 10 Pro ISP Changes
Update, Tuesday Mar 25, 2025: Google’s upgrade of the Tensor Mobile G5 chipset has some interesting consequences. By moving from Samsung Foundry to TSMC to manufacture the silicon, some of the components that Google could use “off the shelf” thanks to the Samsung partnership are no longer available.
Kamila Wojciechowska reports on the various swap-outs that Google is expected to make. Perhaps the most interesting is that of the Image Signal Processor. This takes the raw information gathered by the camera sensors and outputs high-quality image files that other applications and the operating system can then act on.
Previously, the Pixel hardware used Samsung’s ISP with a few additions designed by Google. For the Tensor G5, Google will be going all-in and developing its own ISP. This isn’t the first time Google has worked on imaging; the Pixel Visual Core launched with the Pixel 2, evolving into the Pixel 4’s Pixel Neural Core. The Pixel 6 moved to the Tensor chipset, which looked to stop those developments. Now, it seems little more than a pause.
The Pixel team will be hoping that consumers will not see a weakening of the camera due to this. Perhaps the opportunity to have a closer tie between the ISP, the CPU, the GPU and the AI routines inside the Tensor G5 will improve the resulting photos and videos.
Pixel 10 Pro Software Updated
The new details come from within the Android Open Source Project code—which manufacturers use to build their own Android versions, including Google.
Thanks to the notes left by a Google Engineer alongside the code chain, we know more about the gains to expect in the Pixel 10 family. In part of the “parallel module loading” routine, more performance has been found, which triggers when a device boots up: “Test: Pixel 10 reduces 30% loading time, and Pixel Fold reduces 25%.”
Given the Pixel 9, 9 Pro, and 9 Pro XL all ran the same Tensor G4 Mobile chipset when they were launched last year; it’s safe to assume that the new Tensor G5 will be standard across the new devices, in which case that 30% increase is likely to be across the board.
Faster Pixel 10 Pro Booting
The note that there is a speed increase, but not as high, could point out two angles. The first is that the code is running on the older Pixel Fold, which wasn’t branded with a model number when it was released in 2023. By the same read, it could be last year’s Pixel 9 Pro Fold. I’m more inclined to think this is the presumptively named Pixel 10 Pro Fold, and the engineer is simply using “10” for the whole family and “Fold” for the outlier. Given the smaller internal footprint of a foldable device, which can lead to physical performance constraints, the lower gain does feel reasonable.
Pixel 10 Pro Speed For All
Given these commits are to the main branch of AOSP, these benefits will likely cascade through the entire Android ecosystem over the next 12 to 18 months. However, with the Pixel handsets typically the first to ship with the latest version of Android, Google will once more use the Pixel range to show where it believes the platform should be moving.
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