The Pixel 11 Pro's Magic Capture feature is truly magical, but I'd still buy the cheaper Pixel 10 Pro this sales season | Tech Radar
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The Pixel 11 Pro's Magic Capture feature is truly magical, but I'd still buy the cheaper Pixel 10 Pro this sales season
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This year's Labor Day sales are just around the corner in the US, and Black Friday won't be far behind in the UK, so it's safe to expect big deals ahead for the best Pixel phones.
We've just reviewed the Google Pixel 11 Pro, and were mightily impressed by its new Magic Capture feature — but I'd still recommend picking up the Google Pixel 10 Pro this sales season, for reasons I'll explain in a moment.
Magic Capture on the Pixel 11 Pro automatically takes high-quality stills while you're shooting a video. Simply press the shutter button once, hold the phone as if you’re shooting a video, and press it again when you’re finished — you'll then be presented with a regular video and photos showing key moments from the scene.
In other words, this camera mode removes the need to choose whether you want photos or a video, and gives you both instead. You can see how Magic Capture plays out in the photos and video below, all of which were captured with a single tap of the shutter button when Magic Capture mode was selected:
A photo captured using Magic Capture on the Pixel 11 Pro
A photo captured using Magic Capture on the Pixel 11 Pro
A photo captured using Magic Capture on the Pixel 11 Pro
Magic Capture is hands-down my favorite feature on the Pixel 11 Pro, and it’s something I can imagine most people making frequent use of. But despite its exclusivity to Google's new flagship, I'd still say the Google Pixel 10 Pro is the better buy this sales season — for several reasons.
The Pixel 10 Pro costs less, and is likely to be further reduced during sales periods (Image credit: Future)
Firstly, unlike the Pixel 11 Pro — which is brand new and probably won’t be reduced for a while — the Google Pixel 10 Pro is likely to be heavily discounted for Labor Day in the US, and it’s already available at a reduced price from many retailers in the UK (it's just £649 at Amazon, for instance).
That makes the 10 Pro a much better bargain than the
And if you’re worried about missing out on things — don’t be. There’s a good chance Magic Capture itself will land on the Pixel 10 Pro and Pixel 10 Pro XL within a few months, as Google’s software features tend to trickle down to the previous generation of phones over time. That 'exclusivity' I mentioned earlier may be short-lived.
The Google Pixel 10 Pro has most of what the Pixel 11 Pro does (Image credit: Philip Berne / Future)
And beyond Magic Capture, there’s really not that much to get excited about with the Pixel 11 Pro. Hi Light under-delivers, and you actually get less RAM here, at least in the starting capacity, with the Pixel 11 Pro starting at 12GB, while the Pixel 10 Pro has 16GB in all configurations.
The new phone has a slightly more powerful chipset, sure, but for the average user, the Pixel 10 Pro should deliver strong performance anyway. And there’s little difference in their respective camera hardware, batteries, or screens (other than a higher peak brightness on the new phone).
So, if you’re in the US, I’d recommend keeping an eye out for Pixel 10 Pro sales this holiday season, before settling on the new model. And while the Labor Day sales won’t apply elsewhere, it’s still worth seeing if anywhere’s offering the Pixel 10 Pro at a heavily discounted price outside the US too — because if so, you should probably grab that rather than the Pixel 11 Pro.
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James is a freelance phones, tablets and wearables writer and sub-editor at Tech Radar. He has a love for everything ‘smart’, from watches to lights, and can often be found arguing with AI assistants or drowning in the latest apps. James also contributes to 3G.co.uk, 4G.co.uk and 5G.co.uk and has written for T3, Digital Camera World, Clarity Media and others, with work on the web, in print and on TV.
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