Update, Sunday Mar 16, 2025: This article has been updated with further details on the Pixel 10 camera hardware.
Google has made one significant change to the upcoming Pixel 10 and Pixel 10 Pro smartphones over the current models. What difference will the new Tensor Mobile G5 make to the flagship smartphone, and why is it a critical moment for Google?
The upcoming Pixel 10 Pro and the rest of the Pixel 10 family will offer significant changes to the hardware when launched in the fall.
Pixel 10 Camera Choices
Update, Sunday Mar 16, 2025: One other hardware change highlighted this weekend is expected to shake up the market. While not a mid-range device, the vanilla Pixel 10 will be the lowest-priced handset in the “flagship” range, equivalent to the iPhone 16 and Galaxy S24 base models. And the Pixel 10 is going to outgun these handsets in the camera stakes thanks to the debut of a three-lens main camera, the first of its kind in this class:
The usual way of the world would be to make this third lens a telephoto lens, but this would encroach on one of the Pixel 10 Pro’s selling points of equipping a telephoto lens (the current Pixel 9 Pro does, the Pixel 9 does not). It could be that rather than a periscope lens offering x5 magnification, the Pixel 10 could come with a more straightforward x2 or x3 telephoto lens.
This would give the Pixel 10 a significant selling point to consumers with a healthy contrast between Google’s smartphone and the S24 and iPhone 16. It could even challenge Apple’s decision to equip the $599 iPhone 16e with a single lens for its main camera.
Pixel 10 Pro’s Tensor Changes
Thanks to switching suppliers from Samsung Foundry to TSMC, the Tensor Mobile chipset is more than a simple upgrade. This is a fundamental reworking of the silicon. The Pixel 10 family is widely expected to launch a new Tensor Mobile chipset. Since the launch of the Tensor G1 on the Pixel 6, each new Pixel update has been accompanied by a new chipset.
There is a notable difference with the next Tensor. The Tensor G5 will be assembled not by Samsung Foundry (as all previous Tensor G chipsets have been) but by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company. This will allow the chipset to move from a 4-nanometer process to a 3-nanometer. It also means that Google will be designing much further down the hardware stack, as it won’t be relying on the Exynos base used by Samsung Foundry.
Pixel 10 Pro’s New Chipset
The move to a 3nm process should make the chip more efficient in terms of energy used while offering more power. The early benchmarks of the Pixel 10 were lower than the Pixel 9 with the Tensor G4, although i would not place too much emphasis on these numbers; they were taken in Nov 2024 when the Pixel 9 had been on the market for close to three months, and the Tensor G5 would still be in its early days of testing, nearly nine months before its potential launch date.
There is plenty of time for the Tensor G5 to be optimised to the Pixel 10 family hardware, and I would expect the benchmark rating to climb. Google’s Tensor chipsets have never pushed for the highest performance levels; instead, they focus on efficient generative artificial intelligence and machine learning routines running directly on the silicon backed up by software.
Discussions this weekend suggest that one of the goals of the Tensor G5 is the move from Samsung Foundry to TSMC; in essence, the Tensor G5 can be seen as the TSMC variant of the Tensor G4.
Pixel 10 Pro Questions
Those looking for Google to push into the same high-performance space as Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 (and the overclocked 8 Gen 3 For Galaxy) will be disappointed. The Pixel 10 family may be Google’s flagship, but the decision was made many years ago that chasing the ultimate performance was not the only goal. Of course, it plays a part in the design, but the hardware supports the software in general, and AI in particular. It’s a path that Apple can fully embrace with its Axx series on the iPhone and the close nature of iOS. Android will never be as close to the silicon as iOS, but in the Pixel 10 family, Google aims to shorten that distance to find more practical performance over raw numbers.
How much the performance difference will be and how much impact this will have on the day-to-day use of the flagship smartphone are key questions around the new Pixel 10 family.
Now read the latest Pixel 10 Pro, Samsung Galaxy, and Android headlines in Forbes’ weekly smartphone digest…
