The iPhone 17 You don’t have to settle with cheap garbage, nor do you have to purchase the latest and greatest Apple gadget, especially when that device is an iPhone and especially when that iPhone is the iPhone 17.
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It looks great on paper and in the hand. But in the end, if you make me pick a device I actually want to live with, for now I’ll take Google’s Pixel 10. The cause has little to do with benchmarks and everything to do with how the phone steps from one moment to the next.
It’s AI over brute force, every day of the week
Apple’s silicon advantage is real. The A-series usually has stellar showings in synthetic tests, and third-party reviewers have noted its single-core performance advantage for years. But the kind of gap that makes a difference to most people day to day is in assistive features, and there Google has been shipping stuff that’s useful and polished on Pixels for multiple generations.
Photo edits with Magic Editor as well as Help Me Edit are not party tricks — they are routine on the Pixel 10. Stay With Me, get rid of a nagging sign, move a subject, or fill in context and the result is usually convincing and quite free of artifacts. Apple’s Clean Up works better than before, but for the models and scenes I’ve tried, it still falters with intricate textures and distracting backgrounds. Google’s lead here came as a result of years of iteration on-device and in the cloud with Gemini, and it shows.
Google’s voice calling is still best-in-class, to the extent that you can find a signal. Screen unfamiliar calls, get call-handling help when you’re stuck in phone-tree purgatory, and receive contextually aware cues: Features like Magic Cue, which surfaces relevant information from a message or email at the moment that information is actually needed. Apple’s new tools — from Writing Tools to expressive Genmoji — are great, but they never alter my day-to-day flow the way Pixel’s seasoned assistant does.
Cameras: true telephoto trumps clever cropping
Both phones get the basics right, but the Pixel 10’s camera system feels designed for the moments I actually take shots. Google marries a wide and ultrawide with a telephoto, making for clean optical reach all the way up to useful zoom levels and cleaner hybrid zoom beyond. That matters in a kid’s game, on a city rooftop, or when traveling — anywhere that you can’t zoom with your feet.”
Apple’s 2x crop from the main sensor is sharp, and the new 48MP ultrawide is transformative to macro and ultrawide detail. But there’s a limit to what computational 2x can pull off against real optical telephoto. Google combined this hardware edge with computational flourishes such as Best Take, Add Me, Motion Mode, and Astrophotography — the kind of one-tap victories that reliably yield shareable successes. On video, Apple still has a solid reputation for stability and color consistency, and rankings from lab testers like DxOMark have often reflected that. But when it comes to my photography, Pixel’s flexibility trumps all.
Speed is table stakes, polish is the difference maker
The iPhone 17 finally bringing 120Hz to the base model is long overdue and much welcomed. Scrolling is liquid, and the UI’s responsiveness is vintage Apple. Google has included high-refresh displays on Pixels for a number of generations now, so parity here is more to be expected than revolutionary. Both panels are bright, punchy and legible outdoors.
Where I do perceive the difference is on the software side when I am stressing the system. Pixel’s proactivist touches — from savvier call handling to context-aware prompts — shave micro-frictions all day long. Material You’s personalized theming helps keep the phone feeling new without micromanaging home screens and, deeper down in Android the overhauls let me make the device feel home exactly to how I work. Apple’s method is consistent and neat, if not as flexible unless you’re willing to play by its rules.
Longevity, updates and real value
Google’s current update strategy is a high bar to meet: seven years of OS upgrades, security patches and feature drops on those recent Pixels. That’s pretty much parity with, and in many ways clearer than, Apple’s historically long support windows. What sets that apart is Google’s quarterly Feature Drops, which introduce capabilities during the middle of the cycle instead of saving them up for an annual refresh. The phone you purchase today evolves in a meaningful way in the future.
Camera credibility also isn’t theoretical. In broad public blind tests, Pixel phones regularly end up at the top place or near the top; one such recent public blind test put the Pixel 7a in first place in a big community blind comparison process which is a strong testament to the consistency with which Google excels at computational photography. That DNA persists in newer Pixels, too, and it’s a big part of why I have faith the Pixel 10 can grab the shot I want with as little fiddling as possible.
Why I’m going Pixel 10
The iPhone 17 is a good upgrade — fast, fluid and capable in a way that the base version has not been in a long time. For those who live within Apple’s ecosystem of services and like the structure of iOS, it’s an easy recommendation. But in my day to day life, I lean toward the Pixel 10: a camera system with a real telephoto, AI tools that I’m already fluent in, and a software cadence that continually adds tangible value.
The best phone is the one that makes it easier and more enjoyable to do more of the things you actually do.
And for me, that’s the Pixel 10 — as not-great as the iPhone 17 isn’t, the combination of Google’s hardware, computational photography and mature assistive features is just-greater where it counts.