Smartphones are useful tools every single time we leave the house, but there are certain situations where they become indispensable. 

A music festival is undoubtedly one of them. Whether you’re checking the lineup, trying to find friends you’ve inevitably lost or figuring out where on earth your tent is, being without your phone would be a nightmare. That’s before we even get to the cameras, which can make or break your festival experience. 

Reading Festival is one of the UK’s biggest music festivals, and it just happened to fall in the middle of my testing time with the Pixel 10 Pro XL (my full review is now live). It gave me the ideal opportunity to put the phone through its paces in a real-world environment. 

In total, there were 7 main Pixel 10 features that I tested extensively at the festival. So, was the Pixel 10 Pro XL a killer addition to my festival kit, or did it fall flat on its face? Here’s how the new handset fared. 

Brightening my day

My first potential obstacle was actually seeing the damn screen. The day I arrived at the festival was bright and sunny, which can cause visibility issues on some phones.  

But not the Pixel 10 Pro XL. Google has upgraded the peak brightness to 3300 nits, while even the 948 nits I recorded at home is well above average.  

The result? Excellent visibility in all environments, from a blinding sunset to the erratic lighting of an up-tempo set. With a stunning 6.8-inch OLED and silky-smooth 120Hz refresh rate, it set the tone for a great experience. 

A festival-proof design

Camping at a music festival places a unique set of demands on a phone. The most obvious one is durability, as a handset is often thrown around with little regard for the fragile components inside. 

For me, it alternated between my sweaty palm, the inside of a dirty pocket and the floor of a tent, none of which are great options. I also deliberately tried not to be too gentle – I’m making a judgement about the long-term suitability of a phone from just a week of use, after all. 

Luckily, I had nothing to worry about with the Pixel 10 Pro XL. The combination of a durable aluminium build, tough Gorilla Glass Victus 2 and a robust case made it feel almost indestructible.

Mattias Inghe

The dry ground led to lots of dust being kicked up, but the 10 Pro XL’s IP68 rating means it’s fully protected against these small particles. It’s also resistant to submersion in freshwater, but I still didn’t dare take it into the shower with me. 

While the Pixel 10 Pro XL can’t quite compete with dedicated rugged phones, it’s plenty durable enough to handle less-than-ideal conditions such as these. 

All-day (and night) battery life

The Pixel 10 Pro XL’s battery percentage was a regular source of anxiety for me, but that doesn’t tell the full story. 

I left the house on Friday morning with a full battery and portable power bank in tow, confident that I’d have plenty of charge to last the weekend. However, after setting up the tents and plugging my phone in (it was at 80 percent at the time), disaster struck. 

My power bank, which I didn’t think to check before leaving, had no charge left! It meant I needed to go almost two full days with limited access to a power source. 

I say limited, because I did make use of a charging point at the festival, but that only got me around 10 percent back. With my train ticket home stored on my phone, I needed it to last. 

However, it was fine. Aside from turning the phone off for a couple of hours on the morning of our departure, I was able to use the Pixel 10 Pro XL just as I normally would. 

Anyron Copeman / Foundry

That meant consistently high brightness, constant mobile data usage, 120Hz refresh rate enabled, regular photo and video taking, and GPS on the whole time. In other words, lots of actions and settings that I knew would deplete the battery more quickly. 

In the end, I caught the train (where there were power outlets) with around 10 percent battery remaining. Phew! 

Remember, this is an extreme example. If, like most people, you charge your phone around once a day, you’ll have no problem getting to bedtime before it runs out. With lighter usage, it can even stretch to two days. 

Amateur turned expert

Cameras were undoubtedly what I was most excited to test, with Google adding several new features to the Pixel 10 series. 

Among the highlights is Camera Coach, which analyses a scene and then uses generative AI to offer suggestions on how to improve your picture. As an amateur photographer, I was keen to see if it could actually improve my photography, so I gave it the task of a portrait photo (something Pixels have been good at for a while). 

The standard shot I took was fine, if a little unremarkable, but it wasn’t immediately clear how it could be improved. Yet, within a few seconds, Camera Coach advised me to change the angle, move closer to my subject and make sure only the top half of his body was in frame. 

The result, as I’m sure you’ll agree, was a much more professional image. I’d like to test this more thoroughly, but the early signs are promising. 

Night fever

Reading Festival provided a perfect opportunity to test the Pixel 10 Pro XL’s low-light abilities. Every time I stepped into the Chevron tent, the bright natural light was replaced with near-total darkness, with only occasional bolts of light and pyrotechnics emanating from the stage. 

Later in the day, the sun outside gave way to a dramatic sunset and eventually darkness. And throughout it all, the phone’s camera coped admirably. 

The 10 Pro XL is undoubtedly an excellent camera phone during the day, but it’s arguably even more impressive when all the natural light has gone. That’s when the ‘Night Sight’ works its magic across both photos and video, with consistently superb results. 

Google has managed to strike the perfect balance: adding some much-needed extra light, but not so much as to look artificial or over-processed. Noise is kept to a minimum, while everything on stage remains clear and crisp. I’m a big fan!

Night Sight Video was a little more hit-and-miss, struggling with exposure at times. Processing also requires an internet connection and can often take a few hours to complete, although the end result is usually a big step up from regular video. 

I was able to capture some great footage using Night Sight video, making for a much better viewing experience once I got back home. 

Taking the mic

Sadly, the Pixel 10 Pro XL is badly let down by the quality of its microphones. The handset has three mics in total, and they’re plenty good enough for calls and voice recordings. 

However, they’re severely lacking in any scenario where the sound is coming from a long distance away, which is pretty much exclusively the case at a music festival. 

In the videos I shot, the 10 Pro XL quickly locks onto the singer as the main source of sound, drowning out the people talking in the foreground. But it ends up sounding muddy and washed out, losing a lot of the atmosphere that was there in the moment.

Anyron Copeman / Foundry

When you take a video with the Pixel 10 Pro XL, you have to be okay with the fact that the audio quality is highly inferior to the visuals, and that’s a real shame.  

Distance? What distance?

Let’s face it: if you’re going to a music festival, you’re probably not going to be anywhere near the stage. Even if I wanted to do that (I quite like my hearing, thanks), my 6ft 3in frame wouldn’t be doing anyone behind me any favours. 

So, I preferred to stay a comfortable distance away from the stage throughout my time in Reading. Not on the edge of a mosh pit, not surrounded by shirtless teenage boys, just able to enjoy the music. 

However, if I wanted good-quality photos, I knew I’d be heavily reliant on the Pixel 10 Pro XL’s zoom capabilities. On paper, they sound like the real deal, with a 5x optical zoom supplemented by up to 100x digital zoom enhanced by AI. 

The 10 Pro XL is undoubtedly at its best with the shorter zoom lengths. At anything up to 5x, photos are excellent, with the 48Mp periscope telephoto showing no noticeable drop-off in quality compared to the superb 50Mp main lens. 

Anyron Copeman / Foundry

It allowed me to take photos that really captured the essence of a set, showing an artist in full flow. And with almost no shutter lag, the process from phone in pocket to photo taken was regularly less than five seconds. 

The 10 Pro XL begins to show its limitations once you move into digital zoom territory, though. The 5x to 10x range is fine, but anything closer to the previous 30x limit led to blurry images that were severely lacking in detail. 

Anyron Copeman / Foundry

But does Google have a solution? A new Pro feature for this year is Pro Res Zoom, which increases the range all the way to 100x, a feature Samsung has had on its flagships for a while. 

However, this is a zoom feature with a difference, as Google is using generative AI to upscale the photo and add detail that would otherwise be missing. An example shown to Tech Advisor in a media briefing before the Pixel 10 launch was mind-blowing, so I had high expectations. 

Sadly, it’s MUCH better suited to landscapes and architecture than people, which I found out the hard way. At anything over 30x, Pro Res Zoom tried and failed to add meaningful detail to the performers and band on stage. Sometimes, it made absolutely no difference. On others, the distorted figures were slightly terrifying. 

Anyron Copeman / Foundry

Either way, Pro Res Zoom isn’t a feature that you should be using for high-quality photos at gigs or festivals. Of course, you can turn this off, but it’s best to stick to 10x and under if you want usable results. 

Despite this obvious weakness and the subpar zoom quality, the Pixel 10 Pro XL was an excellent Reading Festival companion overall. The display and design are excellent, battery life is strong and the cameras are superb most of the time.  

As long as you’re not too ambitious with your photography or searching for studio-quality audio, you’ll be very happy with the 10 Pro XL, which is why we rank it as the best phone you can buy right now. 

My trip to Reading Festival was hosted by Three UK. There were no preconditions on what I write or how we evaluate any of the company’s offers or services now or in the future.