It’s been about two years since my last phone review and its time for a new one! When I had the ability to get a new phone I decided to forgo the Pixel 11, I have no interest in a light bar. It’s just influencer vomit.

Though google has to take one knock here on the pixel 11 , they took away the temperature sensor which is a huge loss to people who love the world around them. Searching for a hotspot on a motherboard or piece of electronics bust out the phone and find it. Your kid says she doesnt feel well you bust out the phone. Testing food to see if its done you bust out the phone. seriously google tripped on itself on the pixel 11 by putting in a gimmick rather than a tool!

Give or take it has the ability to bring back the oh so good notification lights! but anyways enough about the Pixel 11.

I ended up getting the Pixel 10 pro XL. As far as an upgrade at the surface from the 9 pro xl you spend a few days looking at the phone and go “So?” . Then, three days in, you glance at the corner of your screen and realize you haven’t plugged the damn thing in once, and it’s still sitting on a fascinating level of charge.

The worst thing about the smart phone generation was the fact you just about had to charge it every day. Google is finally seeing the sweet spot that most other phone developers have missed, A fucking phone that lasts.

My old metric for measuring phones was as so and it was valid for many many years. Phones have come away from just being a phone to the portable PC. All of this is good but as my old metrics I think we can make a change to come up with the times.

The new Metric is as follows (it closely follows the old but is more refined.

1: Communications & Media
2: Configurability
3: Durability:
4: Good battery life

Sure making phone calls is good but there was a time in smart phones that you could send a Telegram before you made a call, Im specifically looking at the Sprint EVO and some Samsung phones.

1: Communications & Media: The phone is much like the 9 to some point but you gain one more speaker out of the deal better sound at the earpiece and seamless Bluetooth connection and it sounds really good with the Bluetooth.
2: Configurability: What can I say when I am using a google pixel, It’s a Pixel it remains the modular Lego kit of the Android world, unlike Samsung where you can get yourself in trouble with Knox you can do just about anything, Install another OS, Install whatever you want within reason.
3: Durability: The frame on the pixel 10 seems a bit more rigid than the 9, While I dont want to drop it it seems like google had paid some attention to that years model.
4: Good battery life: The Pixel 10 Pro XL is much the same as the pixel 9 but with the changes under the hood no one sees anyone who does not pay attention to the phone would think that the 10 is not an upgrade, The 10 on many levels you could completely ignore and think you are not missing much. The phone has a fantastic battery life, I have gotten up to 4.5 days of use between charges. In smart phone terms that is another universe as far as usage.

The return of the temperature sensor is a welcome device because most people do not realize how useful that tool is. If you are working on a car engine and you are not sure about something you can pull the phone out and avoid the touch test to see if something is hot. If you have a kid that’s not feeling so good you can take the phone out and take their temp. If you have questions about food, surfaces and the world around you the pixels temperature sensor is your tricorder of the phone world. Given the inclusion of the ships computer of Gemini it gives you a tool kit that comes closer to the tricorder of starfleet with you pair a pixel watch to the phone.

Given that the Pixel 10 feels like a Fox Body ford mustang. While the economy version looks cool the pro version is the 8 cylinder of the phone world that actually has some good fuel economy. The 9 introduced the fox body and the 10 refines it into a monster.

Google needs to stop with the pixel A/B lines of Pro being a phone with all the bells and just make the pro the base model than market to engineers with an engineering model that has options to interface with machines using a OTG cable and keep the sensors and other stuff useful.