Technologies

Pixel 10 Pro XL vs. Galaxy S25 Ultra: Android Camera Battle

Commentary: Which top-tier Android phone offers the best camera system? I took hundreds of photos in and around Seattle to find out.

Smartphone cameras carry a lot of responsibility. They need to automatically make great images in any situation at a moment’s notice. They’re limited by the physics of small lenses, small sensors and less-than-ideal ergonomics. The photos they create need to be ready to share immediately, with no expectation that the images will be edited and refined later.

Many phones hit a few of those targets, but a small number strive to be the best smartphone cameras you can pocket. The Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra is one that we’ve previously pitted against the iPhone 16 Pro, and now it’s time to see how that Android phone fares against its newest competition, Google’s Pixel 10 Pro XL.

I took both phones to Seattle and nearby Mukilteo, Washington, to compare how each performed. Over hundreds of photos, I kept the camera settings as close to the defaults as possible, occasionally switching between the 12-megapixel shooting modes and the high-res 50-megapixel modes where available.

Because we’re talking about photography, my personal preferences as to which are the «best» photos might not be the ones you choose, and that’s fine. With either camera, you’re going to get good photos. But if you’re in the market for a new phone and pondering which high-end camera system is for you, or you want to check out the current state of the art for Android cameras, follow along.

And for even more Pixel 10 Pro XL photos, be sure to follow along with CNET’s Andrew Lanxon on his first-look photo walk through Paris.

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Pixel 10 Pro XL vs. Galaxy S25 Ultra: Overall performance

I wandered around Pike Place Market, a haven for local shopkeepers and scores of late-summer tourists, where snapping smartphone pictures is part of the fabric of the experience. This nook — a bend in a stairway — is one of my favorite spots at the market in the morning when light comes through the window. Both cameras have done a good job balancing the exposure between the bright day outside the window and the mixture of bright sunlight and shadowy corners on the inside. Of the two, I prefer the Pixel 10 Pro XL because it’s a bit warmer.

Seattle is known more for its clouds than its sunny days, so when the sky is blue, the bright light can feel harsh. Here, the S25 Ultra photo pops more by lightening the shadow areas of the car, but almost too much. The Pixel 10 Pro XL image looks more natural, even though the car is darker.

Just down the street, though, the contrast between the cameras swings in the other direction. The Pixel 10 Pro XL brings out all the vibrant colors of the flowers, the orange awnings and the bright red umbrellas. The S25 Ultra’s shot is more muted. I couldn’t tell if perhaps some of the sunlight was hitting the lens from the side and causing that washed-out appearance. Both cameras still did a fine job of keeping details in the shadows, though.

Pixel 10 Pro XL vs. Galaxy S25 Ultra: Zoom quality

To be honest, zooming much past 10x on a phone always seemed like a futile gesture to me. Pushing past the optical range of the telephoto camera (5x on both cameras) puts you into digital zooming territory, where the camera upscales a small portion of the sensor so it fills the frame. Although digital upscaling has improved in recent years, when you get past 20x or so, photos tend to become a mess of fuzzy enlarged pixels — it’s rarely worth it.

Google decided to take a different approach to extreme zooming on the Pixel 10 Pro and Pro XL. Up to 30x zoom, it uses Google’s Super Res Zoom technology to upscale and sharpen the results, which generally turn out well.

In the extreme range from 30x to 100x, though, the Pixel 10 Pro uses generative AI to rebuild the image based on the original capture. It takes a few seconds for the processing to happen, and it’s all done on-device, not with assistance from cloud resources. The results can be impressive, particularly for static subjects like buildings or landscapes. But when you view them with any scrutiny, it’s almost always obvious that the photo has been treated with AI, with a flat, angular look — and it doesn’t handle most text in a photo at all. But that’s also me scrutinizing the image; it won’t look good printed or viewed on a large screen, but it comes across perfectly fine on a phone screen.

The Pixel 10 Pro keeps both versions of the image: The original capture and the AI-generated one.

Google says that if the camera detects people in a Pro Res Zoom image, it won’t attempt to use generative AI on them — it could easily create a person that looks nothing like the actual person in the image. When that happens, you can tell: In this shot, the sailboat has been rendered (complete with a nonsensical guess about lettering on the sail), but the people on board are sharpened but still fuzzy.

The Galaxy S25 Ultra shots at 100x are also a hot mess, but to be honest, not as bad as I expected. They’re heavily processed to compensate for the upscaling, but… not terrible? I feel like I’m giving the S25 Ultra a «good job, buddy!» for showing up and not face-planting when, in fact, the photos are objectively not great, but they’re better than I expected.

Pixel 10 Pro XL vs. Galaxy S25 Ultra: Low-light situations

Pike Place Market is a maze of levels and long, shop-lined corridors and alleys that don’t get a lot of direct light. The notorious Gum Wall — yes, an alleyway where people stick used gum on the brick walls — is dark at one end and brighter at the other depending on the sun’s position in the sky. Neither phone fell back into its respective night mode, and both made acceptable shots in the midst of a lot of color and texture. Here again, I give the edge to the Pixel 10 Pro XL for its warmth and brighter overall tone. However, in both shots, the details on the wall suffer — note the pixelated «Extra» wrapper at top left. My apologies if you’ve just lost your appetite; at least photos don’t include the specific aroma of an alley filled with thousands of fruity gum globs.

Speaking of colors and textures, this barbershop in a muted hallway lit by what look to be fluorescent ceiling bulbs and a prominent ring light is another example of each camera taking a mixed-light situation and making a good exposure. I give the edge to the Pixel 10 Pro because the neon Open sign hasn’t been turned into a flat red, as in the S25 Ultra photo.

Leaving the bustle of downtown Seattle for the beach near the Mukilteo Lighthouse about half an hour north, this beach at sunset looks much better using the ultrawide camera on the Pixel 10 Pro XL compared with the ultrawide on the S25 Ultra. And in this case, I can’t say that either picture impresses. The S25 Ultra shot is almost too dark, while the Pixel 10 Pro XL image is too bright, and the bro on the edge doesn’t survive the wide-angle edge of the frame too well.

But what about engaging the actual night modes? Here, back in Seattle, this guardian troll by Danish artist Thomas Dambo at the National Nordic Museum retains a lot of detail on the Pixel 10 Pro XL, while the S25 Ultra photo comes out a little soft and saturated. (The lights inside the museum change color, hence the blue versus purple hues behind it.) Advantage Pixel.

And for a true night test, I put both phones on a tripod to capture this section of Shilshole Marina. Once more, the Pixel 10 Pro XL’s Night Sight mode does a better job of getting a balanced exposure that mixes the artificial lights in the foreground and the darkness of the sky with some stars peeking through. The S25 Ultra looks like it’s throwing as much processing at the image as possible, making the brighter areas look overexposed and introducing a lot of noise in the sky.

Pixel 10 Pro XL vs. Galaxy S25 Ultra: Portrait modes

One of the improvements Google is touting for the Pixel 10 Pro is in the quality of portrait mode photos, specifically high-res 50-megapixel shots.

In this indoor cafe with screened window light, the Pixel 10 Pro XL is really trying to contain the flyaway wisps of hair, but it’s made them ghostly and more evident instead. Everything else about the photo looks good, from the colors to the soft background — in fact, the hair at her shoulders shows better separation than on top of her head.

On the other hand, the S25 Ultra’s Portrait mode photo has made the top hairs nicely distinct, but the falloff at her shoulders and the general smudge of background make the depth of field in this photo more obviously synthetic. Also, once again, I prefer the tone and warmer temperature of the Pixel photo.

Outside, the S25 Ultra’s Portrait mode is improved, with more natural blurred areas — note the hair over the subject’s left shoulder that’s slightly blurry but not as soft as the foliage in the background. The flyaway hairs at the top of their head also look natural. The high-resolution Portrait mode version from the Pixel 10 Pro looks entirely natural to my eye, with a soft background and all of their curly hair in focus. Once again, I prefer the Pixel’s version, but they both look good. (Although I probably should have tried Camera Coach to compose the portraits better in the frame without so much space above their head.)

Pixel 10 Pro XL vs. Galaxy S25 Ultra: Which is the better camera?

I’ve certainly come down on the side of the Pixel 10 Pro XL for most of these photos, largely due to the warmer white balance and better color fidelity. But as you can see, none of the photos are outright bad. If you’re looking for a new flagship Android phone, both models will fill that need. And if you specifically want a great camera system, right now the Pixel 10 Pro has pushed into the lead.

OK, iPhone 17 Pro, it’s your turn. See you in September.

I Still Love the Look of Google’s New Pixel 10 Pro and Pro XL

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Technologies

Standalone AI Devices Are Back, Baby. The Note-Taking Plaud Note 3 Proves It

Plaud AI has already sold over a million AI devices. Is it time for you to add it to your tech collection?

There was a moment around 18 months ago when it felt like AI had unlocked an entirely new consumer technology category. The wearable Humane Pin and handheld Rabbit R1 were small, standalone devices that promised to be your AI personal assistants and threatened to be smartphone killers.

But almost as soon as the hype around them peaked, it died down again. The devices that hit the market during that initial wave of excitement overpromised and underdelivered, and today we remain just as reliant on our phones as ever.

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The tech industry hasn’t completely discarded the idea of standalone AI devices, which combine the power of sensors and large language models. Former Apple design visionary Jony Ive and OpenAI are working on their own AI-centric «screenless phone» concept. Meanwhile, smaller tech companies are also building interesting devices of their own — and making surprising successes of them.

I was recently introduced to Plaud AI, which has already sold over a million AI note-taking devices, and just unveiled its latest product, the Note Pro. This credit card-sized slice of tech perches on the table next to you and slides into a slim case on the rear of your phone for easy transportation. Its five microphones can capture audio up to 5 meters away, and 2 hours of charging will give you 50 hours of continuous recording time.

This third device from Plaud is an update to its original tabletop note-taking device (it also sells a wearable note taker) and comes with more powerful recording capabilities, along with a clutch of new features. First is the small AMOLED display along the top edge, which will display the recording status and battery life. The second notable adjustment is that the power button can also be pressed to highlight key parts of a conversation in real time.

The Note Pro has 64GB of built-in storage, but the core of its intelligence is in the companion smartphone app, which parses all the material the device captures, hopefully into something genuinely useful, intelligible and actionable. Plaud Intelligence relies on LLMs from OpenAI, Anthropic and Google, and is multimodal — meaning you can add in pictures and text, which it can analyze as a whole.

As with Plaud’s previous products, the Note Pro is designed for use in professional contexts and provides access to over 2,000 templates, including those designed for people working in specific fields — medical or legal, for example. As a journalist, I need to record many of my conversations and meetings, so I’ll be interested to see if Plaud can offer anything above and beyond Otter, which I usually rely on.

Note Pro vs. my phone: The real test

That brings me to the big question hanging over the Note Pro, which is why would I carry a separate device to record my meetings when my phone is more than capable? It’s a question I’ll attempt to answer as I test the device out in the coming week. Plaud CEO Nathan Xu laid out his vision for the Note Pro in a briefing, explaining why he thinks people would want to carry one themselves.

Xu said that he sees «lots of beauty in human intelligence,» but that he wants to help humans overcome our shortcomings — our limited memory span, tendency to get distracted and our inconsistent energy levels, are examples he gives. By applying the power of an LLM to our daily lives, AI can help pick up the slack, he said.

Yes, you could use an app on your phone to record a meeting and run it through AI, or rely on the AI tools built into Google Meet or Zoom, but they’re often captured in isolation. Instead, Plaud is with you all the time, filling in the gaps between those meetings, capturing nuggets from every conversation — including the face-to-face ones, which are often overlooked – and understanding them in the context of your entire day.

«Conversation is a form of intelligence — it’s where the ideas begin, the decisions are made and the meanings are shared,» Xu said. «So we exist to help people to capture, extract and utilize intelligence.»

There are other questions I still have about the Note Pro, largely based around privacy. Xu says Plaud’s privacy protections are «best in class,» which it will need to be if it’s capturing confidential and sensitive medical, legal or corporate discussions. Some doctors I’ve spoken to are already wary of using AI transcription services due to potential breaches of doctor-patient confidentiality, and many corporate environments may be resistant to people using these devices in the workplace.

A lesser, but still significant concern is how long it will take for me to lose the proprietary charging cable. The Note Pro is slimmer than a USB-C connector, so it’s clear why having its own charging connector is necessary, but it may prove tricky to keep tabs on.

I’ll be updating this piece with my impressions as I get to grips with using the Note Pro, but if you just can’t wait for that, it is available for preorder now for $179 (£169 or roughly AU$350) and will ship at some point in October.

Technologies

I Tested Honor’s Rival to Samsung’s Z Fold 7 and It’s a Skinny Powerhouse

The Honor Magic V5 is incredibly slim but it’s got more to like than just its size. Shame you can’t buy it in the US.

At only 4.1mm thick at its thinnest unfolded point, the Honor Magic V5 is incredibly skinny. In fact, the company has said it’s the world’s thinnest foldable measuring in just 0.1mm skinnier than Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 7. That claim is debated — it depends whether you include the built-in screen protector or not — but we’re almost literally splitting hairs at this point. World’s thinnest or not, it’s mind-blowingly svelte.

Well, it blew my mind, anyway. The other foldables I’ve been using recently include Google’s Pixel 9 Pro Fold and the OnePlus Open, both of which feel positively bloated when held against the Magic V5. Getting my hands on Honor’s latest foldable made me realise just how far the technology has come in a few short years.

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But you’ll pay for that skinny design. Starting at £1,700, the Magic V5 is hardly what you’d consider cheap, although it’s around £100 cheaper than Samsung’s equivalent. Honor doesn’t sell its phones officially in the US, so for reference that UK price converts to $2,299.

I’ve spent the last couple of weeks with the phone and here’s what I Iike about it.

Skinny design

It’s an obvious start, really. That thin body addresses my main concern about book-style foldables. It’s barely thicker than a regular phone when folded up, so it’s much easier to hold and easier to slide into a jeans pocket. Well, most of it is. While the phone’s body is only 8.8mm thick when shut, the camera unit protrudes an additional 7mm — almost doubling the overall thickness of the phone.

As a photographer I’ve never said this about a phone before but it’s almost a shame Honor didn’t really cut back on the cameras. I’d have loved to see what a foldable phone felt like that was so slender the whole way across.

While you’d probably imagine such a thin phone would be incredibly delicate, Honor actually boasted that it holds a Guinness World Record for the heaviest weight (104 kilograms) lifted by a foldable phone. How that actually translates to real-world durability over time remains to be seen, but the phone certainly felt sturdy in my hands-on time.

Its IP59 dust and water resistance will also help keep it safe from spilled drinks and other debris, but Google’s latest Pixel 10 Pro Fold takes the crown as the first foldable to offer IP68 resistance, giving it greater protection against dust or other particles getting inside and potentially harming the hinge.

The inner screen measures 7.95 inches and provides loads of room for videos or games. Like most book foldables, it has an almost square aspect ratio, so widescreen movies will still play as a strip through the middle. The crease isn’t especially noticeable under mixed lighting conditions. The outer 6.43-inch display fills the front of the phone and it’s bright and vibrant.

Powerful processor and Android software

The Magic V5 runs on the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite chip and it put in some great results on our suite of benchmark tests. Navigating around the interface is swift and games like Genshin Impact and PUBG play well, even at max settings. They also look great when played on the massive inner display.

It runs Android 15 at launch although an update to Android 16 is expected later in the year. Honor has customized the interface with its own UI which makes various changes to the layout, apps and text, although it’s still easy to get to grips with.

It comes with various Honor AI tools built in, including an image editor that does things like object removal or expanding the canvas — the latter giving me the infinitely long arms I always dreamed of. It also includes the image-to-video generative AI tool that rocked my world previously by bringing my dad back to life. It works just the same here.

You’ll also find the usual array of Google AI tools including Gemini Live and Circle to Search. Honor says the phone will receive a total of seven years of software and security updates.

The phone has a 5,820-mAh battery, which should be good for at least a full day of mixed use, depending on what you get up to with it. Spend the whole morning streaming video on the massive inner screen and you’ll probably need to give it a top up later in the day. Doing so is quick, though: It supports 66W wired charging, as long as you have a compatible charger.

Solid cameras for a foldable

That massive rear bump houses three cameras: a 50-megapixel wide camera, a 50-megapixel ultrawide and a 64-megapixel telephoto camera providing 3x optical zoom. I’ve not spent much time testing the cameras, but from my early use I’d say they’re decent. But they can’t quite challenge today’s top camera phones like the iPhone 16 Pro or Galaxy S25 Ultra.

This is pretty much par for the course for foldable phones. Most companies tend to outfit their foldables with more midrange camera hardware in order to try and keep the already high price from going any higher. While the cameras on the V5 are certainly decent (especially for a foldable), if photography is your main consideration when buying a phone then it may not be the handset for you.

Is the Honor Magic V5 a good phone to buy?

Its slim design alone makes it one of the more impressive foldable phones I’ve held. It feels like a totally different level of device from earlier book-folding foldables like the OnePlus Open and it’s absolutely worth taking a look for that reason alone. Add in the powerful Qualcomm processor, the promised durability and the solid camera performance and the Honor Magic V5 has a lot to offer.

And it does it at a price that slightly undercuts Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 7. Sadly, I haven’t had my hands on the Z Fold 7 so I can’t say how the two phones compare, but on paper it seems like it’s a close battle.

The main reason for those of you in the US to buy the Samsung over the Honor is simple; You can’t buy the Honor in the US. Everyone else, you’ll have a tougher time deciding.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Strands Hints, Answers and Help for Aug. 28 #543

Here are hints and answers for the NYT Strands puzzle for Aug. 28, No. 543

Looking for the most recent Strands answer? Click here for our daily Strands hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

Today’s NYT Strands puzzle is a tough one. The answers are long and a few of them are very tough to unscramble. If you need hints and answers, read on.

I go into depth about the rules for Strands in this story.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections and Mini Crossword answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: NYT Connections Turns 1: These Are the 5 Toughest Puzzles So Far

Hint for today’s Strands puzzle

Today’s Strands theme is: Do go on…

If that doesn’t help you, here’s a clue: Blah blah blah…

Clue words to unlock in-game hints

Your goal is to find hidden words that fit the puzzle’s theme. If you’re stuck, find any words you can. Every time you find three words of four letters or more, Strands will reveal one of the theme words. These are the words I used to get those hints but any words of four or more letters that you find will work:

SOLE, TOLE, VERB, HATTER, GREY, STAVE, CHAT, HATE, VEIL, LATS, SALE, LIVE, CAUL, QUOTE

Answers for today’s Strands puzzle

These are the answers that tie into the theme. The goal of the puzzle is to find them all, including the spangram, a theme word that reaches from one side of the puzzle to the other. When you have all of them (I originally thought there were always eight but learned that the number can vary), every letter on the board will be used. Here are the nonspangram answers:

GABBY, VERBOSE, VOLUBLE, TALKATIVE, LOQUACIOUS

Today’s Strands spangram

Today’s Strands spangram is CHATTERBOX. To find it, look for the C that’s two rows over to the right and then five letters down in that row, and wind around.

Toughest Strands puzzles

Here are some of the Strands topics I’ve found to be the toughest in recent weeks.

#1: Dated slang, Jan. 21. Maybe you didn’t even use this lingo when it was cool. Toughest word: PHAT.

#2: Thar she blows! Jan.15. I guess marine biologists might ace this one. Toughest word: BALEEN or RIGHT.

#3: Off the hook, Jan. 9. Similar to the Jan. 15 puzzle in that it helps to know a lot about sea creatures. Sorry, Charlie. Toughest word: BIGEYE or SKIPJACK