I tested the Pixel 10 Pro zoom, here’s what the iPhone 17 Pro needs

By Nirave Gondhia Published September 9, 2025

The Pixel 10 Pro has fewer changes compared to the rest of its namesake lineup. The regular Google Pixel 10 has a new telephoto lens, the Pixel 10 Pro XL has faster charging and a 100x in-camera zoom, and the Pixel 10 Pro Fold is the most durable folding phone made.

In contrast, the Pixel 10 Pro only features the 100x zoom capability of its larger sibling, but this is a significant enough feature to set it apart, especially when compared to key competitors like the Samsung Galaxy S25 Plus and Apple iPhone 16 Pro.

Against the latter, especially, the Pixel 10 Pro’s camera zoom stands out as unique, as it offers similar zoom capabilities to the flagship Galaxy S25 Ultra and Oppo Find X8 Ultra in a smaller, more ergonomically-friendly body. Meanwhile, the iPhone 16 Pro lacks detail above the 5x optical zoom and maxes out at 25x.

I’ve tested the Pixel 10 Pro’s zoom over the past few weeks, and just hours before the iPhone 17 launch, one thing is certain: Apple needs to boost the zoom performance on its upcoming flagship, as the Pixel 10 Pro’s zoom is significantly better. Here’s what the iPhone 17 Pro needs to do.

Here are the key details of the Pixel 10 Pro camera, compared to its three chief rivals in the US, including the OnePlus 13.

The Pixel 10 Pro features the same camera hardware as the Pixel 9 Pro, but Google is using AI to improve photos above 10x and enable the same camera hardware to zoom considerably further. 

It’s a similar feature to the one found on the OnePlus 13 and other phones like the Oppo Find X8 Pro, which both use a similar-sized sensor and AI enhancements to zoom to 120x. However, those two phones use a 3x telephoto sensor and offer a 6x hybrid zoom mode, while the Pixel 10 Pro offers 2x through in-sensor cropping, and 5x via the optical zoom.

The Galaxy S25 Plus offers 3x optical zoom, but it lacks details beyond the 5x point thanks to a lower resolution, while the same 12MP telephoto on the iPhone 16 Pro is better than Samsung’s, thanks to the native 5x optical zoom. This year’s shift for Google means it’s much closer to the best smartphone cameras than ever before.

One of the more interesting aspects of the Pixel 10 Pro’s zoom is that Google makes it easy to compare the photo with and without AI processing. It’s the first phone to make it this easy to compare both images. It also saves both photos in your camera roll and storage by default, making it much easier to publish comparisons like the ones we have below.

This is a prime example of how AI can be particularly effective. The left original image shows the raw abilities of the Pixel 10 Pro zoom camera, but the right shows how AI can be used to enhance the image tastefully. An AI-edit like this doesn’t particularly change the image, rather it simply enhances and balances the finer details for a more pleasing overall image.

This shows how the Pixel 10 Pro zoom camera struggles with text or finer details, as you might find in a retail hours sign. This is an area that Samsung and Oppo perform admirably well, so it’s surprising to see the Pixel 10 Pro zoom camera struggle as it has here. The AI edit shows how Google is avoiding the tempation to completely replace an image, although as we’ll see below, that isn’t always the case.

As I’ve been testing the Pixel 10 Pro zoom camera, one thing has become clear: there’s a lot of consideration about how much to edit the final image. As I found in our Pixel 10 Pro review, the image edits can take considerable time to process on-device. However, it can be worth the wait as it’s particularly effective, especially in scenes like this where the original image is virtually unusable.

This shows that the edits aren’t just at 100x, with Google applying AI edits to any shot that uses the new AI zoom feature. The feature has automatically kicked in at everything from 20x to 100x, and it’s so good that I wish I could enable it at any focal length.

The images and subsequent processing show that AI enhancements to images can be tasteful, although they’re often not entirely accurate. However, this isn’t a bad thing: ask yourself, or your friends, whether you’d rather have a photo that’s technically accurate or visually more pleasing, and the answer will almost certainly be the latter.

This year’s iPhone 17 Pro is expected to see Apple adopt a uniform 48MP camera setup across all three cameras. The main and ultrawide cameras are likely to be identical to last year’s, but the biggest improvement will be in the new telephoto camera.

These are the rumored specifications, but Apple is expected to increase from the 12MP telephoto in the iPhone 16 Pro to a 48MP telephoto in the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max. Early rumors suggested that this upgraded telephoto would continue to offer a 5x optical zoom, but the latest leaks indicate that it will offer an 8x optical zoom, with uniform 48MP lenses providing continuous optical zoom at up to 8x. 

If this is true, it could yet yield the best zoom on the best smartphone camera, and will likely mean that the upcoming Galaxy S26 series will undergo a further shift to match the best that Apple has to offer.