Google promises Pixel 10 performance upgrade, but don’t get too excited

Google appears to be preparing steps to improve the GPU performance of the Pixel 10 smartphone series.

The Google Pixel 10 series was warmly received when it rolled out in late August, but one of the persistent criticisms has been its underwhelming performance compared to rival flagships – especially in the GPU department.

Now Google has confirmed to Android Authority that the Pixel 10 will receive GPU driver updates in the future.

“We are continuing to improve driver quality in our monthly and quarterly system updates. For example, the most recent September and October patch releases included driver improvements. In future releases we are planning further GPU driver updates,” said the firm.

Google Pixel 10 performance is still a worry

As statements go, it’s all very boilerplate. We don’t feel massively reassured that our Google Pixel 10 Pro is going to close the performance gap to the Samsung Galaxy S25, nor add a bunch of frames when blasting through a Destiny: Rising run.

In moving from the Tensor G4 of the Pixel 9 to the Tensor G5, Google shifted from using a Mali to a PowerVR GPU. Support for the latter simply isn’t as strong from game developers, with the likes of Genshin Impact not even citing support for PowerVR GPUs (with some users having problems with the game on the regular Pixel 10).

Initial tests also suggested that the Pixel 10 wasn’t running on the latest Vulkan API, meaning that the GPU wasn’t running optimally. That evidently went some way to explaining the distinctly underwhelming GPU benchmarks we’ve been getting.

What would appear to be required here is a major driver overhaul rather than steady refinement. As such, Google’s statement is arguably a little too mild. Count us unconvinced that things are going to get better, but hopefully we’re wrong.