New Details Confirm Google's Powerful Pixel 10 Pro Upgrades
Pixel 9 Pro XL
Google's new Tensor G5 chipset is just one of many planned upgrades to the Pixel 10 Pro and the wider Pixel family in 2025, but switching from Samsung Foundry to TSMC for its fabrication is one of the core changes the Pixel platform has to deal with. What does that mean for the Pixel 10 Pro, what advantages will this offer and what impact can consumers expect to see?
The move to using TSMC's foundry means the Tensor G5 will be moving to a 3nm process. That brings with it some natural advantages. One of the most noticeable effects on consumers will be an increase in battery life. In general, 3nm chipsets will be more efficient than the larger 4nm chipsets—which the Tensor G4 is built around. The obvious impact will be longer battery life while the handset uses the same performance levels, or more performance for a similar battery drain compared to last year's Pixel 9 family.
It's worth noting that Google has not pushed the idea of the Pixel family as a platform for ultimate performance since arguably the Pixel 4, this last Pixel handset to ship with a top-of-the-line Snapdragon 8-styled chipset. Instead, the Tensor mobile designs have been built around offering a smoother user experience; in the modern smartphone world, that means running artificial intelligence routines as quickly and efficiently as possible.
Expect to see a significant volume of AI routines hard-coded into the Tensor chipset rather than loaded ad-hoc into memory via software.
The move away from Samsung Foundry requires switching out the Samsung-manufactured subsystems. Given the focus on imaging in every modern smartphone, Google is taking full control of the Image Signal Processor. While Google contributed some parts of this system, the majority was off-the-shelf Samsung hardware. Now, the company is going 'all-in' on this part of the photo and video processing toolchain.
Another area of change will be in the display controller. Samsung's display processing uni will be replaced by one from VeriSilicon, with the DC9000 being suggested.
Can you sell a phone to consumers purely for 'having better battery life"? Google is talking about a 25 percent increase in usable time on the Pixel 9a, and surely the Pixel 10 family will offer a comparable step up. What about 'this is a more efficient phone' or 'we're pushing the pixels to your display through a different methodology'?
There's probably a tiny percentage of the smartphone-buying population that is going to get very excited about those features. Still, they will not be enough to grab either the market share or the mind share that the Pixel project demands. However, the stronger foundations they offer open up more consumer-friendly upgrades.
Longer battery life offers more security to consumers. Faster AI routines mean consumer-facing features such as Magic Eraser to remove unwanted objects from photographs, summarising web pages, and processing personal information through Gemini Assistant. Google may not be chasing ultimate power but any increase in the benchmarking score of the Pixel 10 Pro and the rest of the Pixel 10 family will be seen as a boon to consumer expectations.
Last year saw the Pixel 9 family announced Aug. 13, 2024 before going on retail sale on Sept. 4. Google is expected to launch the Pixel 10 on a similar schedule.
The Pixel 9a will launch before the Pixel 10 Pro. Read more about the Pixel 9a's improved camera hardware and software here on Forbes…
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