The New Pixel Camera’s ‘100x Zoom’ Is Basically Genealogical AI
During the Made by Google event yesterday, Android and the search giant briefly hinted that their new Pixel 10 Pro and Pixel 10 Pro XL phones will be able to zoom in up to 100x. That’s a significant improvement over the Pixel 9 Pro’s 30x zoom, but the company didn’t explain how it works. It turns out that “100x zoom” isn’t exactly accurate: If you hadn’t guessed, Pro Res Zoom relies heavily on generative AI. Here’s what you need to know, including what Pro Res Zoom does to your photos and how to turn it off.
How does zoom work on smartphones?
Until now, zoom on smartphones has come in two flavors: hardware and software. Hardware zoom is the simplest and most realistic. It uses the built-in telephoto lens to physically zoom in on a photo, but its range is quite limited. All the details in the image captured by zoom are indeed true to life, but on the Pixel 9 Pro and Pixel 10 Pro, it only reaches 5x zoom.
That’s where software zoom comes in. In its simplest form, software zoom actually crops photos to simulate the effect of zooming in, but this has the downside of reducing resolution. If you crop too much, you’ll start to see severe pixelation—phones have historically been unable to reproduce detail where there wasn’t any. That’s what Pro Res Zoom is trying to fix, but it’s not Google’s first attempt at improving software zoom. Since the previous software zoom technology isn’t going anywhere, let’s briefly explain the differences between it and Pro Res Zoom.
What is Super Res Zoom?
Pro Res Zoom doesn’t replace Super Res Zoom entirely, but since they seem virtually identical to all but the most dedicated Google fans, they’re worth considering, especially since you can still use them if you want. Debuting with the Pixel 3 back in 2018, Super Res Zoom essentially takes multiple photos while zooming in on an image, then uses details from different distances and exposure levels to produce a better final shot. There’s machine learning involved, but it’s not generative AI as most people think of it, since the only data the phone uses to do this is the data captured by your camera. It doesn’t try to create an entirely new image based on training data.
As a result, though, Super Res Zoom still faces many of the same limitations as standard crop zoom, which you’ve probably noticed if you’ve owned a Pixel in the last seven years. Google still uses Super Res Zoom for 20x software zoom on the base Pixel 10, but the Pixel 10 Pro and Pro XL default to Pro Res Zoom, even if there are still ways to use the old method.
How does Pro Res Zoom work?
When Pro Res Zoom is enabled, photos taken beyond optical zoom will now use generative AI to enhance detail using a local on-device diffusion model “optimized specifically for Tensor G5.” This means not only will your photos be used to fill in the gaps, unlike Super Res Zoom, but pixelation will also be reduced.
The results, at least for now, have left my team with mixed reactions. Google demonstrated Pro Res Zoom by showing a landscape shot where a Pixel 10 Pro zooms in on a heavily pixelated truck in the distance, then uses AI to try to make it look more realistic. “That car looked AI,” my editor immediately responded, while another colleague chimed in, “Yeah, really.” Honestly, that’s probably the best you can expect from a “zoom in and enhance” feature, since the camera only sees a limited portion of the original car, and no software will give it a higher resolution to work with. It’s no surprise that an AI tool looks like AI, but the question is whether the artificial quality, which doesn’t quite match real life and might seem cartoonish to some, is worth the lack of pixelation. Is it “fake” enough if it’s visible to the naked eye?
In fact, calling it a zoom might be a bit of a misnomer — the diffusion model essentially uses the available resolution as a hint, creating a truck similar to the one it saw in your original photo, and then inserting it into your shot. Google says it tuned the model to avoid hallucinations, but if the image still looks noticeably unrealistic, I can see why people would want to avoid it. Can you still say “I saw this cool truck on vacation” if the truck is actually almost entirely imaginary?
Essentially, as my editor put it, “you can get as close to the algorithm as you think a car looks.” Take that as you will, but if you’re as skeptical as we are, you’re out of luck.
Pro Res Zoom will still show you photos without AI
When you take a photo on the Pixel 10 Pro or Pro XL using software zoom, you won’t have to settle for just the AI-generated shot. Instead, the phone will show you two photos: one with Pro Res Zoom and one that a Google spokesperson explained to me was “the old way,” which is Super Res Zoom.
I haven’t had a chance to use the Pixel 10 Pro’s camera yet, but I got to see it first-hand at a demo after yesterday’s Made by Google event. A Google representative zoomed in on a distant object, then showed me the results of Pro Res Zoom and Super Res Zoom. She said she hasn’t seen a situation where she likes the old method better, but here are the two shots for comparison.
Personally, I think both options have their merits, depending on your lighting preferences and your tolerance for AI noise or smoothing, but honestly, it’s too early to judge the reliability of Pro Res Zoom. I only managed to capture a screenshot of her phone, so I’ll give a more detailed report after I spend some time with the Pixel 10 Pro. At least the new option doesn’t make the old one irrelevant.
On that note, it’s worth noting that Pro Res Zoom, which bumps the zoom limit to 100 but still allows non-AI-powered photos, means you can now use Super Res Zoom beyond 30x (simply by choosing that option instead of the AI-powered option), although you’ll likely get diminishing returns in that case.
You can turn off Pro Res Zoom.
While I haven’t had a chance to try out the new Pixel 10 camera app yet, Google told me that you’ll be able to turn off Pro Res Zoom in the settings if you don’t want to bother. That’s a big plus for those who don’t want to waste extra clicks disabling the AI feature when shooting with software zoom, but it does come with a downside: like the Pixel 9 Pro, zoom will be capped at 30x. Since leaving Pro Res Zoom on will still allow you to select non-AI photos at higher zoom levels, you’re technically losing some functionality. But it does ensure that Super Res Zoom is used for every zoom shot.
What is photography?
While Pro Res Zoom certainly adds an element of surrealism to your shots, it’s worth remembering that it’s far from the first Google Camera feature that’s made people question what photography is these days. Inserting an AI-generated image into a photo and pretending it’s just a zoomed-in shot certainly feels like a bit of a stretch to some of us here at Lifehacker, but in an age of filters, automatic lighting adjustments, and even Super Res Zoom merging, it’s worth remembering that few photos we see these days actually reflect what the photographer saw with their own eyes. That said, if your gut reaction is “that looks like AI,” the idea may still need a few years to mature before you can actually say it looks like a real “100x zoom.”