Now for the news you've been waiting with bated breath for: LG's 2026 TVs from CES finally have prices. (Well, some of them do, anyway.) Surprisingly, the evo G6 and C6 series OLED TVs aren't increasing in cost from last year's models. But the bad news is, they’re still expensive as all get-out.
The flagship LG evo G6 series ranges in price from $2,499 to $24,999. (Cue spit take.) Fortunately, that five-figure price only applies to the 97-inch model, which nobody this side of Elon Musk needs. The entry-level price is for a 55-inch OLED. Moving up the ladder, the 65-inch one costs $3,399, the 77-inch model is $4,499 and an 83-incher will set you back $6,499.
The evo G6 line includes all the OLED upgrades from the head-turning LG Wallpaper TV, for which LG hasn't yet announced pricing. You'll find the company's new "Hyper Radiant OLED" panel and optimizations to black and color levels in both lineups.
Meanwhile, the evo C6 line, which sits a notch below, ranges from $1,399 (42-inch) to $5,299 (83-inch). Rounding out the list is a 55-inch model for $1,999, a 65-inch one for $2,699 and a 77-inch model for $3,699. The C6 and G6 lines are powered by LG's Alpha 11 AI Processor Gen3. Both series support gamer-friendly features such as 4K at 165Hz with VRR, NVIDIA G-SYNC and AMD FreeSync Premium.
The evo G6 and C6 lines are available to order today from LG's website. Retail availability will follow later this month. Just keep in mind that, if you can hold off a little while, the entire history of TV pricing suggests you'll soon be able to find them for less than MSRP.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/entertainment/lg-reveals-pricing-for-its-2026-oled-tvs-203923873.html?src=rss
Most sunglasses get two lenses. That’s the standard, the baseline, the thing nobody questions because why would you? Two lenses. Two eyes. Done. But Issey Miyake Eyes just released UROKO, a pair of sunglasses with eight lenses, and it made me stop and genuinely reconsider what we accept as default in design.
UROKO is part of the IM MEN Spring Summer 2026 collection, titled “Dancing Texture,” and the name alone tells you this isn’t a collection built on safe choices. The eight-lens design draws inspiration from the ceramic works of Shoji Kamoda, a celebrated Japanese potter known for his distinctive scale-like surface patterns. In Japanese, “uroko” literally means scale, and the connection between the pottery and the eyewear is direct, visible, and surprisingly earned. This isn’t one of those cases where a brand name-drops an artist and calls it a day.
Four lenses sit on each side of the frame, arranged in sequence to mimic the overlapping scale motifs found in Kamoda’s pottery. Each lens features a concave cut, meaning they curve inward rather than outward. That engineering decision is clever. By pulling the lenses inward, they can sit close together without the whole structure ballooning into something unwearable. It’s a practical solution wrapped inside an aesthetic one, and I appreciate when design works that way. Function hiding inside form, each decision earning its place.
The 3D-printed frame goes through a finishing process that intentionally leaves slight surface variations intact. No two pieces are perfectly uniform. That part matters because it mirrors the very thing Kamoda was known for in his ceramics: surfaces that resisted smooth perfection. What could have been a production quirk becomes a design language, a deliberate echo of the source material. It’s the kind of detail you don’t notice immediately but can’t unsee once you do.
Made in collaboration with Kaneko Optical and crafted entirely in Japan, the frame is lightweight titanium, which strikes me as both the right material and the obvious one. Eight lenses on your face need a frame that won’t drag you down by the end of the afternoon. The brushed finish shifts subtly depending on how light falls on it, giving it that quality where the object looks different from one moment to the next. That feels intentional rather than accidental, which again speaks to how much thought went into this.
Seeing UROKO from a distance, I understand why one description floated around: it looks like a necklace before it looks like sunglasses. Only when you get close enough to see the hinges fold and the scale-shapes settle into the familiar form of a pair of frames does the full picture land. That delay, that moment of working out what you’re looking at, is actually the design doing its job. Not all eyewear needs to announce itself from ten feet away.
I’ll admit there’s a part of me that wants to ask whether eight lenses actually changes how you see. The short answer is probably no, not in any technical sense. But I don’t think that’s the point. UROKO isn’t positioning itself as an optical innovation. It’s positioning itself as a wearable object that carries a conversation between contemporary manufacturing and Japanese craft tradition, between function and sculpture, between an artist who shaped clay in the twentieth century and a design house still finding new ways to reference that legacy.
Available in Dark Gray and Brown, and offered in both optical and sunglass versions, UROKO is priced at ¥99,000 JPY, approximately $632 USD. It’s not a casual purchase, but it’s not trying to be. It sits firmly in the category of considered design objects, the kind you buy because you’ve decided to live with something that makes you think a little, even on an ordinary Tuesday.
The real takeaway isn’t about the lenses. It’s about what happens when a design team takes a constraint, in this case the question of how to honor a ceramic artist’s vision through eyewear, and decides not to answer it predictably. Eight lenses is a strange answer. It’s also, once you see UROKO in person, kind of the only answer.
When cooking pizza with the high heat of an outdoor oven, you have to rotate your pies to ensure even cooking. That’s usually done by hand, but Ooni’s latest accessory automates the process. The company announced the Rotating Stone for its Koda 2 lineup, which helps distribute heat evenly across the surface of a pizza so that it’s consistently cooked all the way around.
Ooni says its Rotating Stone has a mechanism around its perimeter rather than a central pivot. According to the company, this takes care of any wobbling or stalling that might otherwise occur — even when heavy cookware is used. The new accessory also has two rotation modes, continuous and 90 degrees, so you can conserve battery life if you don’t need the full range of motion.
The Rotating Stone’s external module houses a LIDAR sensor for hands-free control. By simply waving your hand or a pizza peel, you can start or stop the rotation. What’s more, Ooni says the Rotating Stone can be installed in less than 10 minutes.
The Rotating Stone is available for the Koda 2, Koda 2 Pro and Koda 2 Max for $329, $349 and $399 respectively. If you need the oven too, bundles are priced at $799, $1,099 and $1,649.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/home/kitchen-tech/ooni-debuts-a-rotating-stone-for-its-koda-2-pizza-ovens-200000857.html?src=rss
At the start of February, OpenAI upgraded its Codex coding app to give it the ability to manage multiple AI agents. At the same time, it released a standalone macOS app. If you've been patiently waiting for Windows to get that same treatment, OpenAI just released a dedicated Codex app for Microsoft's operating system.
Like its macOS counterpart, the software allows you to coordinate multiple coding agents to work on the same task. There's also support for automations to streamline repetitive tasks like bug testing. To help users get started, Codex includes a dedicated "Skills" section. Skills bundle together instructions, resources and scripts the software can use to connect agents to specific tools and workflows. OpenAI has also included native sandboxing to help make Windows developers feel at home.
Codex is available to ChatGPT Free, Go, Plus and Pro users. If you decide to give the app a try, know that your session history is saved to your OpenAI account, meaning you can start coding on Mac and then move to Windows without losing your work.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/openai-brings-its-codex-coding-app-to-windows-195345429.html?src=rss
The official title is Assassin's Creed: Black Flag Resynced, and that's about all we know for sure. The company released some concept art but it's just protagonist Edward Kenway hanging out on a boat.
We don't know when Ubisoft will release this thing into the world, but the company did recently say that a previously unannounced game would be released by the end of the coming financial year, which happens on March 31, 2027. At that time, Black Flag Resynced had yet to be officially announced. It's possible we could be playing this thing sooner rather than later, particularly if the company has been working on it for years.
This announcement came as part of a franchise roadmap, which included a slight mention of the next mainline Assassin's Creed entry. This is being developed under the name Codename Hexe, with Ubisoft promising a "unique, darker, narrative-driven Assassin's Creed experience set during a pivotal moment in history."
The creative director of that one, Clint Hocking, recently left the company after a 20-year tenure. He's been replaced by Jean Guedson, who had the same job for the original Black Flag 13 years ago.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/ubisoft-confirms-assassins-creed-black-flag-remake-193629862.html?src=rss
Google is officially doing away with its 30 percent cut of Play Store transactions, and rolling out changes to how third-party app stores and alternate billing systems will be handled by Android. Some of these tweaks were proposed as part of the settlement the company reached with Epic in November 2025, but rather than wait for final judicial approval, Google is committing to revamping Android and the Play Store publicly.
The biggest change is to how Google will collect fees from developers publishing apps on Android. Rather than take its standard 30 percent cut of in-app purchases through the Play Store, Google is lowering its cut to 20 percent, and in some cases 15 percent for new installs of apps from developers participating in its new App Experience program or updated Google Play Games Level Up program. Those changes extend to subscriptions, too, where the company’s cut is lowering to 10 percent. For Google’s billing system, the company says developers in the UK, US, or European Economic Area (EEA) will now be charged a five percent fee and "a market-specific rate" in other regions. Of course, for anyone trying to avoid those fees, using alternatives to Google's billing system is getting easier.
Google says that developers will be able to offer alternative billing systems alongside its own or "guide users outside of their app to their own websites for purchases." The setup, as described by Google, appears to be more permissive than what Apple settled on in 2025. For iOS apps on the App Store, developers interested in avoiding Apple's fees can only direct customers to alternative payment methods on the web through in-app links. Allowing for these outside transactions is part of what prompted Epic to bring Fortnite back to the App Store in the US in May 2025. The developer added the app back to the Play Store in the US in December of that year, and Epic CEO Tim Sweeney shared alongside today's changes that Fortnite will soon be available in Google's app store globally.
Fortnite will return to Google Play Store worldwide soon. Epic Games Store continues supporting Android worldwide alongside Windows and Mac, and installation on Android will become much easier later in 2026.
Epic is ultimately interested in getting people to use the mobile version of its Epic Games Store, and Google’s announcement also includes details on how third-party app stores can come to Android. Third-party app stores will be able to apply to the company's new "Registered App Stores" program to see if they meet "certain quality and safety benchmarks." If they do, they'll be able to take advantage of a streamlined installation interface in Android. Participating in the program is optional, and users will still be able to sideload alternative app stores that aren't part of the program, but Google clearly has a preference. Changes the company plans to make to sideloading later in 2026 could deliberately make the process more difficult, which might force developers to apply to Google’s program.
App stores approved by the Registered App Stores program get a simpler installation interface.
Google
Given the scale of the changes, not all of Google's tweaks will be available everywhere at the same time. Google says that its updated fee structure will come to the EEA, the UK and the US by June 30, Australia by September 30, Korea and Japan by December 31 and the entire world by September 30, 2027. Meanwhile, the company's updated Google Play Games Level Up program and new App Experience program will launch in the EEA, the UK, the US and Australia on September 30, before hitting the remaining regions alongside the updated fee structure. For any developers interested in offering their own app store, Google says it'll launch its Registered App Stores program "with a version of a major Android release" before the end of the year. According to the company, the program will be available in other regions first before it comes to the US.
Google has made changes to how it collects app store fees in the past, the most significant being in 2021, when it lowered its cut to 15 percent on the first $1 million developers earn, and 15 percent on subscriptions. The difference here is that the regulatory scrutiny brought about by Epic's lawsuit against Google and Apple seems to be a key motivator for its changes. Well, that, and an entirely separate business deal the company made with Epic. Google and Epic's settlement served as the basis for these changes, but The Verge reported in January that the companies also agreed to an $800 million joint partnership around product development and Google using Epic's "core technology." Letting developers keep more of their money is ultimately good, but it's a business decision Google felt comfortable making, which likely means it has its own share of upsides.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apps/google-ends-its-30-percent-app-store-fee-and-welcomes-third-party-app-stores-185248647.html?src=rss
Apple is looking to gain a foothold in the more budget-friendly end of the laptop market with the MacBook Neo. The system starts at $599, which is darn inexpensive for an Apple laptop — it even has the same starting price as the M4 iPad Air.
As such, the MacBook Neo should help Apple compete with cheap Windows laptops and Chromebooks. Pricing it at $499 for educational use won’t exactly hurt either.
Apple is really lowering the cost of entry for those looking to pick up a new MacBook here. The base MacBook Neo costs $500 less than the cheapest M5 MacBook Air, which is now officially Apple's midrange laptop.
Of course, there are a lot of tradeoffs you'll make by opting for a MacBook Neo instead of a MacBook Air. If you’re curious about all the differences between the Neo and the base 13.6-inch Air (and perhaps what you’ll be foregoing if go you with the cheaper option), we've got you covered.
MacBook Neo vs. MacBook Air exteriors
Apple
Let's start with the things you'll notice at first glance about the two laptop lines. The Neo has an arguably more eye-catching array of colorways with silver, blush (a light pink), citrus (light yellow) and indigo options. The Air comes in a more muted batch of sky blue, silver, starlight (a sort of champagne) and midnight (a very dark blue).
The weight of the two laptops is identical at 2.7 pounds and the differences in the dimensions are negligible. Blissfully, both laptops have a headphone jack. Please have the courage to keep those around in MacBooks, Apple.
Apple
Alas, the Neo does not have a MagSafe port, so you'll need to use one of its two USB-C ports (it has one USB-C 2 port and a USB-C 3 port) for charging. The MBA has two Thunderbolt 4 (USB-C) ports to go with its MagSafe connector.
While we're on the subject of charging, the MacBook Neo comes with a 20W power adapter. The MBA includes a 40W Dynamic Power Adapter with 60W Max, and it supports fast charging at up to 70W.
The Neo has a 36.5-watt-hour lithium-ion battery, which Apple claims has enough juice for up to 11 hours of web browsing or 16 hours of video streaming on a single charge. As for the MBA, that has a 53.8-watt-hour lithium-polymer battery. Apple says you'll be able to use that laptop for 15 hours of web browsing or 18 hours of streaming video before you need to recharge.
Back to the exterior of the laptops and in terms of audio, the Neo has a side-firing dual-speaker system with Spatial Audio and Dolby Atmos support. However, unlike with the MBA (which has four built-in speakers), there's no mention of Spatial Audio support for AirPods. The MBA has one more microphone than the Neo as well, and both laptops support Voice Isolation and Wide Spectrum microphone modes.
MacBook Neo vs. MacBook Air opened up
Apple
If you were to place a MacBook Neo and MacBook Air side by side and open them up, you might spot that the former's screen is a little smaller at 13 inches on the diagonal. While both have Liquid Retina displays with 500 nits of brightness, the Neo's screen has a lower resolution of 2408 x 1506 vs. the MBA's 2560 x 1664. The Air also has a P3 wide color gamut and support for Apple's True Tone feature, which tweaks the screen’s color temperature to better fit your surroundings. The Neo has an sRGB display instead.
While the webcams in both laptops can capture 1080p video, the one in the Neo is lower-specced and has fewer features. It's a 1080p FaceTime HD camera. The MBA has a 12MP camera that supports Center Stage, a feature that keeps you in the middle of the frame as you're moving around. It also supports Desk View, which allows you to show your face and what's on your desk simultaneously.
The MacBook Neo has a Magic Keyboard and multi-touch trackpad (which we didn't feel were super sturdy in our initial hands-on time). The MacBook Air, on the other hand, has a backlit Magic Keyboard and a Force Touch trackpad. It also supports Touch ID as standard.
If you want Touch ID on the MacBook Neo, though, you'll need to pay extra. A version of the laptop with Touch ID costs $699. That upgrade (which is the only one available for the Neo as things stand) also doubles the internal storage to 512GB. And that feels like a smooth segue into comparing the internal specs of each machine.
MacBook Neo vs. MacBook Air on the inside
The M5 MacBook Air comes with 512GB of storage as standard and you can equip it with up to a 4TB SSD. The Neo tops out at 512GB.
It's a little disappointing (though somewhat understandable given the surging costs of RAM) that the Neo only has 8GB of unified memory. That's half of what you get in a MacBook Air as standard, and you can expand that laptop’s RAM to 32GB. Memory bandwidth is nearly three times faster on the MBA as well at 153GB/s, compared with 60GB/s on the Neo.
The chip that runs the Neo is significantly less powerful than the M5 you'll find in the MacBook Air too. The Neo uses an A18 Pro, which is the chip that debuted in the iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max. It has a 6-core CPU (two performance, four efficiency), 5-core GPU and 16-core Neural Engine. Measure that against the Air's M5, the base version of which has a 10-core CPU (four super cores, six efficiency cores) and 8-core GPU, though that too has a 16-core Neural Engine.
We don't yet have a direct comparison, such as Geekbench 6 scores, to directly measure the performance of each laptop. However, it's already clear that the MacBook Neo won't be nearly as powerful as the M5 MacBook Air. You probably won’t be doing heavy-duty video editing on a Neo. That said, Apple says that you will be able to use Apple Intelligence features on the laptop.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/laptops/macbook-neo-vs-m5-macbook-air-all-the-trade-offs-youll-make-to-save-500-less-190434959.html?src=rss
Humble Games' library has returned home, so to speak. Indie publisher Good Games Group (GGG), led by former Humble leaders, has acquired the full back catalog of over 50 Humble Games titles from Ziff Davis. Alongside the purchase, GGG has rebranded to Balor Games, positioning itself as a force in "triple-I" gaming.
"For the developers we have worked with over the years, this moment is a reunion," Balor Games CEO Alan Patmore wrote in a statement. "[It has] the same leadership and the same commitment to thoughtful publishing remain in place. What changes is our scale and our focus. Balor Games is built for inventors and backed by believers. To that end, it exists to be a seal of quality for independent games."
The Humble Games lineup includes (among others) Slay the Spire, A Hat in Time, SIGNALIS, Forager, Coral Island, Monaco and Wizard of Legend. Separate from the Humble transaction, Balor also bought the complete catalog of Firestoke Games (which shut down last August) and publishing rights to Fights in Tight Spaces. In total, the young studio now owns the publishing rights to over 60 indie titles.
Humble Games is separate from the Humble Bundle storefront. The latter is still owned by Ziff Davis.
Alan Patmore (l) and Mark Nash
Balor Games
The seemingly happy ending comes after quite the rocky road. In July 2024, Ziff Davis laid off all 36 employees of Humble Games. But later that year, Humble Games' former leaders (Patmore and Mark Nash) formed GGG and cut a deal to help manage their old studio's back catalog. Now, with Ziff Davis in a selling mood, that library is back in Patmore and Nash's hands. Balor Games, it is.
The pair view the newly anointed Balor as a developer-friendly publishing house. As for its name, Balor is a supernatural being in Irish mythology. It's sometimes depicted as having three eyes. Triple-eye, triple-I… Clever devils!
The triple-I moniker is a more recent addition to the gaming lexicon. It typically means something defined by indie creativity and passion — with a budget far less than AAA but more than a tiny two-person passion project. (Balor says it's about "high-quality, impactful games.") You wouldn't be blamed for wondering how that's different from AA. But the slant here is to define the genre less by budget and more by "indie" intangibles.
Nash detailed the company's vision in an interview with GamesIndustry.biz (which, curiously, is a Ziff Davis property). "We felt that what's becoming more and more critical is that as game development becomes more diverse, more complicated, and expectations continue to rise, we feel it's important that a publisher can match the needs of each individual project," Nash said. "We are spending a considerable amount of time with anyone we are partnering with, figuring out what they need specifically."
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/humble-games-former-bosses-buy-the-studios-back-catalog-183831194.html?src=rss
Gaming phones have a reputation for looking like they were designed by someone who just discovered RGB lighting for the first time. Big, chunky, aggressive, and occasionally embarrassing to pull out in public. The nubia Neo 5 GT takes a different approach: keep the silhouette clean, make the back completely flat with no camera bump, and deal with the overheating problem that plagues every long session by putting an actual fan inside.
That last part is worth pausing on. Nearly every smartphone manages heat passively, relying on vapor chambers and graphite layers. The Neo 5 GT adds a built-in active cooling fan, paired with a Through-Flow Duct design that channels fresh airflow directly over the CPU and battery across a 29,508 mm² cooling area. nubia claims it’s the only device in its price class doing this, and at €399, that’s a hard combination to find anywhere else.
Designer: nubia
The processor is the MediaTek Dimensity 7400, a 4 nm chip paired with LPDDR Max 6400 Mbps memory and managed by nubia’s NeoTurbo Engine. The phone is officially certified for 120 FPS gameplay on Garena Free Fire and Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, and reaches 90 FPS on Delta Force. Whether sustained frame rates hold at those figures over a full match, rather than just during benchmarks, is a question active cooling is specifically designed to answer.
Physical controls come through Neo Triggers 5.0, shoulder buttons running at 550 Hz with sub-5.5 ms latency and a 3,049 Hz touch sampling rate. The 6.8-inch 1.5K AMOLED display runs at 144 Hz with 4,500 nits peak brightness, genuinely useful for outdoor play. Magic Touch 3.0 keeps the screen responsive when fingers are wet or sweaty, a detail that sounds minor until a match-deciding moment slips through an unresponsive tap.
Battery life gets similar attention. The 6,210 mAh dual-cell pack supports up to 80 W fast charging, dropping to 45 W for European markets. Bypass Charging routes power directly to the phone during gaming without cycling it through the battery, extending lifespan over time. A 5% Extreme Mode squeezes out up to 23 additional minutes of gameplay or 29 hours of standby from the last sliver of charge, useful for anyone who routinely forgets to plug in.
AI Game Space 5.0 houses AI Copilot Demi 2.0, which covers real-time Gaming Coach updates for FPS and MOBA titles, a Gaming Chatbot for mid-session queries, and automatic message replies during play. Outside of games, there’s a 50 MP triple rear camera, AI Scam Alert, AI Translate, and AI Memory for everyday tasks. The nubia Neo 5 at €299 and the larger nubia Neo 5 Max, with its 7.5-inch display, round out the series with different trade-offs.
The Neo 5 GT’s real pitch is straightforward: sustained performance at mid-range pricing, in a form factor that doesn’t announce itself as a gaming phone the moment it leaves a pocket. The flat back and the lack of a camera bump are easy to take for granted until you remember what most gaming phones look like.
Over the past few years, Google's A-series Pixel phones have consistently been some of the best midrange phones you can buy. But with the AI boom causing memory shortages and the price of consumer electronics to rise, including smartphones, affordable devices like the Pixel 10a are more important than ever. Thankfully, Google's new phone still represents great value, even if it doesn't come with many upgrades.
Design and display
As before, the Pixel 10a has a 6.3-inch 120Hz P-OLED display.
Igor Bonifacic for Engadget
The story of the Pixel 10a is one of small changes, so let’s start with the outside. The phone is available in four colors: lavender (pictured), berry, fog and obsidian. Photos don't do the lavender color justice. In person, the light refracts beautifully off the surface of the aluminum frame and composite back. The back of the phone also has a pleasing matte finish that made the 10a feel secure in my hand. Another nice touch is that Google shaved down the camera module further, so that the 10a can now lie completely flat. As before, the entire phone is rated IP68-certified against dust and water. For DIY enthusiasts, Google has said it redesigned the 10a's internals to make it easier to repair. Hooray for that.
Beyond those changes, the 10a has a brighter 120Hz P-OLED screen that offers up to 3,000 nits of brightness, up from 2,700 on the 9a. The display also offers better protection against scratches and drops thanks to Google's decision to switch to Gorilla Glass 7i for the screen coating. Despite the minimal changes, there's not much to complain about here. The 10a's screen is fast, responsive and vibrant. The on-screen fingerprint sensor is also in an easy-to-reach spot toward the middle of the phone. After reviewing severalbigphones in recent months, it was also nice to go back to a handset with a sensible 6.3-inch footprint.
Performance and battery
The speakers on the Pixel 10a could be stronger and more defined.
Igor Bonifacic for Engadget
I've been spoiled recently by phones like the OnePlus 15R, which offers a 7,400mAh battery and 55 watt charging out of the box. By that metric, the Pixel 10a, with its 5,100mAh battery, leaves something to be desired. Putting the phone through Engadget's video rundown test, it ran for 28 hours before the battery died, which is exactly where the Pixel 9a landed last year. However, that score means the 10a is thoroughly middle of the pack when it comes to battery life. I can also see battery life becoming a concern as the phone ages. While that's true of every phone, the 10a's smaller battery makes that more of a pressing concern since you'll be charging the phone more often and therefore degrading the battery faster.
Google has improved wired charging speeds, with the new phone capable of charging at 30 watts, up from 23-watts with the 9a. You'll need to provide a compatible power adapter though; the Pixel 10a doesn't come with one inside the box. With a 30 watt charger, the 10a's battery went from dead to about 50 percent in under 45 minutes. A full charge takes approximately an hour and 45 minutes. Again, not great, but serviceable.
Another disappointment is that the Pixel 10a doesn't support Google's new Pixelsnap standard. Wireless charging is faster on the new phone (it's now rated at 10 watts, up from five), but without a compatible third-party case, a charging puck won't magnetically align with the back of the 10a. It's not a dealbreaker, but Pixelsnap would have been a great addition.
The 10a has the same chipset Google used on the Pixel 9a, the Tensor G4, and the company has once again gone with 8GB of RAM. Other midrange phones like Samsung Galaxy S25 FE offer faster chips, but they also cost more. Moreover, I didn't feel like the 10a was worse for running on old silicon. The new 120Hz display does a lot to make the new phone feel snappy, and Google's in-house Android skin feels responsive as ever.
The 10a also does a commendable job of keeping heat in check. I sat down to play Diablo Immortaland even after an hour of playtime, the phone was still cool to the touch despite running the game at high settings and 60 frames per second.
Cameras
This time around, the Pixel 10a has a camera module that's flush with its body.
Igor Bonifacic for Engadget
The 10a comes with the same camera package as its predecessor. On the back, you get a 48-megapixel main camera with an f/1.7 lens that offers optical image stabilization and phase detection autofocus. Complementing it is a 13MP ultrawide with a 120-degree field of view. For selfies, you get a 13MP camera with an f/2.2 lens. As ever, Google's software is doing most of the heavy lifting here. That includes a pair of new features, Camera Coach and Auto Best Take, that debuted with the Pixel 10 series.
Camera Coach, like the name suggests, uses AI to analyze the scene you're about to capture, and offers tips on how to best compose and light the shot. It will also suggest the best camera mode for the job. While I can see how this tool could be useful, I found the fact it relies on a cloud model made it too slow for some situations. For example, when I used Camera Coach to help me snap a photo of my cat, a sassy tortoiseshell, she walked away by the time the 10a got a response from Google's servers. In more static scenes, Camera Coach is more useful, but much of photography is about capturing a fleeting moment in time, so its utility is limited.
Auto Best Take solves a problem I'm sure we've all experienced. You go to take a group portrait, and snap multiple frames to ensure everyone looks good, only to end up without a single usable shot. With Auto Best Take, Google promises to combine similar group photos so that everyone looks their best. This feature works as advertised.
Outside of those features, the 10a offers a predictably great camera experience. The phone consistently produces photos that are sharp with great natural colors. That said, I did miss having a telephoto camera, as you can see from the photos I shot during a recent Cat Power concert in Toronto. Given the 10a only costs $500, it's hard to fault Google for not including one.
Software
The Pixel 10a's side button can both activate Gemini and the phone's camera.
Igor Bonifacic for Engadget
Out of the box, the 10a comes with Android 16. Like all of Google's recent Pixel devices, the company has promised to support the 10a for an industry-leading seven years with software updates and security patches. The company's pledge includes Pixel Drops, which often bring new software features. One feature Google has brought over from the more expensive Pixel 10 line is Satellite SOS, which allows you to call for help during emergencies, even when your phone can't connect to a cellular network. Outside of a demo designed to make users aware of the feature, I wasn't able to test Satellite SOS (thankfully).
Notably, the 10a is still missing Google's Screenshots app. That's unfortunate since it's one of the more useful Pixel exclusives, making it easier to organize all your online clippings. Other AI features such as Gemini Live and Circle to Search are accounted for, and as useful ever.
Wrap-up
Overall, the Pixel 10a is a great phone, though I would have loved to see more year-over-year upgrades.
Igor Bonifacic for Engadget
The Pixel 10a is a tricky phone to grade. On the one hand, part of me wants to dock points because Google has added so few updates. On the other, the 10a is still a great phone for $500, and at a time when consumer electronics are becoming more expensive by the day, the fact it hasn't gone up in price is a small miracle. Even if Google is partly responsible for the current memory crunch, the company's hardware division has delivered an affordable device that’s still worth recommending. The Pixel 10a is still the phone to beat in the $500 range.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/mobile/smartphones/google-pixel-10a-review-small-changes-but-still-great-value-173026779.html?src=rss
