Traveling the world for tech trade shows is one of the best parts of writing about technology, but for almost two decades, I’ve had to carry a backpack that weighed at least 15 pounds, if not considerably more. As smartphone cameras have improved, I’ve searched for a phone camera that can permanently replace my camera.
Over the past two years, I’ve switched between several of the best Android phones, trying to find the best balance between portability, features, and overall camera performance. The former is key: even if I don’t use this phone as one of my two daily drivers, I carry it with me almost everywhere.
This year has already seen that phone change twice, but the Pixel 10 Pro could be the best yet. I used it as my only camera during the IFA 2025 tradeshow last week, and while it has a phenomenal camera, there’s one feature that needs to be on by default, as it makes my life so much easier!
Several changes over the past two years
Two years ago, the best smartphone cameras began to prove that they could replace a professional camera and multiple lenses, at least for some scenarios. First, phones like the Oppo Find X8 and Pixel 9 Pro replaced my camera for photography, which is the majority of my work.
Then, the Osmo Pocket 3 camera became my sole camera for videography, even though it is less convenient than the excellent video recording features on phones like the iPhone 16 Pro Max. While the new iPhone 17 Pro entices me back from the Osmo Pocket 3 with its ProRes RAW video capture, the battle to be my go-to camera for work is much tighter.
The Pixel 9 Pro was replaced by the Oppo Find X8 Ultra earlier in April, as Oppo’s 1-inch camera delivers incredible bokeh and zoom performance. Yet, the biggest challenge is its size, as I prefer small phones, and the Find X8 Ultra is more akin to the size of the Pixel 10 Pro XL or Galaxy S25 Ultra.
Where the Pixel 10 Pro camera gets it so right
The Pixel 10 Pro camera is phenomenal. It features the same hardware as last year’s Pixel 9 Pro, but one key addition is the new 100x zoom. Although this is less useful for product photography, I’ve seen improvements across the entire zoom range, which proves far more useful, especially at 2x.
Like most smartphone cameras, the Pixel 10 Pro uses in-sensor cropping to achieve a 2x ‘optical-quality’ zoom. One thing I’ve found while searching for the best phone camera for work is that 2x, not 1x, is the best mode for shooting product photos. This is largely because the narrower focal length provides a tight crop, but this also offers a shallower depth of field, enabling the product to stand out.
The Pixel 10 Pro also has one additional feature that makes it truly fantastic for work photos: RAW photography. The Oppo Find X8 Ultra and others can also capture RAW images, but Google lets you set the camera to record each photo in RAW and JPEG by default, meaning you don’t need to switch modes like with other phones.
I often edit images before uploading to articles, and Lightroom also houses a Google Pixel color profile that makes editing far easier.
Why the Pixel 10 Pro will remain my camera for work
Having spent considerable time taking product photos with the Pixel 10 Pro last week in a variety of lighting conditions, I’ve discovered there’s one flaw that makes a big difference: the exposure levels.
By default, the Pixel 10 Pro overexposes photos in darker lighting conditions, which is especially problematic during press conferences and keynotes that have darker lighting conditions and brighter scenes. The Pixel 10 Pro isn’t the only phone to do this, but by default, Google has disabled the on-screen sliders to adjust this.
I thought Google had inexplicably removed this feature, until someone pointed out to me that it was turned off by default on all three of my new Pixel 10 phones. However, when I enabled it (Camera > Photo settings > (…) > Quick access controls), I found the best implementation of exposure control among smartphone cameras.
With most phones, you can tap the focal point and then easily set the exposure by adjusting the on-screen setting. This makes it easy to both change the exposure for that photo and temporarily put a lower exposure for future images.
On other phones, you have to switch modes, toggle menus, or tap in different areas — or even some combination of the three — to access these controls.
However, this simpler approach also means that you don’t often have to dig through menus to adjust more advanced controls such as shadows and white balance. The latter is key, especially when capturing photos in a wide variety of lighting conditions, and Google is the only phone maker to offer easy access to this in the viewfinder.
I understand white balance and how to effectively deploy it, especially to highlight certain features on a phone, but I usually edit this after capturing the photo. This on-screen toggle allows me to do it while capturing the image, and provides far more creative license to capture unique and visually interesting product photos.
Overall, the Pixel 10 Pro doesn’t have the biggest camera sensor, but it does have the best all-around professional smartphone camera. I’m shocked by just how good it is.
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