The Pixel 10's new display filter is fantastic, except for two big flaws

It’s been a few weeks since Google released the Pixel March Drop with a bunch of exciting new features, such as the improved At a Glance, SpongeBob themes, and new Desktop Mode. One feature, however, has probably flown under the radar, and it has a much bigger impact on how you use your phone all day long: the new display comfort filter.

I’ve kept the new filter enabled all day and all night to see how well it works in different situations, and after a few weeks, I can say that I’m never going back to the usual display setting again. Well, except in two very specific settings.

Comfort view adapts the Pixel 10’s display to any environment

The Pixel 10 series has replaced the old Night Light filter setting with a new Comfort Filters screen where both Night Light and a new Comfort View setting live. You can find them under Settings > Display & touch > Comfort filters, in addition to the existing Adaptive tone and Colors settings.

The idea behind the new Comfort View is that it applies all the time, not just at night. It softens the entire display, removes a lot of the color saturation, and switches everything to a more pastel look. This doesn’t just apply to images, but it affects everything from the menus to the notifications and all your apps. You can even choose it to switch automatically with a “Dynamic” toggle that adjusts according to your environment, or simply manually select the intensity of the effect.

I prefer the Dynamic setting since it doesn’t cause any visible difference during the day, whether outdoors or in well-lit environments. Then, in darker or moodier environments, it kicks in and makes sure my Pixel 10 Pro XL’s display look much calmer and more in tune with my current surroundings. I find myself always smiling when I look down at my phone in the evening and see it has suddenly adopted this calming, more pleasant, and more “retro” look.

Dynamic switching has worked very well, in my experience. I barely notice that I’ve kept Comfort View on most of the time until I go somewhere darker and my phone switches to adapt. It helped me keep my display’s saturation under control on a couple of flights, in dark pubs and restaurants, inside cathedrals, on dim night trains and metros, and so on.

But manual mode works, too, especially if you’d rather tone down your phone at all times. There’s definitely something more serene with Comfort View. Checking out Instagram Reels or YouTube Shorts is definitely less appealing or saturating for the senses when Comfort View is enabled.

Google has missed the mark with Comfort View in two ways

Along with the change in Display Settings, Google has switched the Night Light Quick Settings toggle to adopt these new settings. There’s now a new umbrella Comfort Filters toggle that triggers a pop-up with both Comfort View and Night Light. You can turn on either of these or tap the Settings button to adjust them.

My issue with this is that Night Light is schedulable while Comfort View isn’t. Even though the Dynamic setting adjusts well to different times of the day, I’d have liked to see a way to control this further. Maybe you want to ensure that nothing changes during the day, or maybe you want to manually control the filter but only during certain hours of the day. A schedule option would fix this.

But my biggest gripe with the way the new Comfort View filter is implemented lies in the lack of an allow/block list of apps. That sucks. I would’ve kept Instagram and YouTube in the allow list at all times, but blocked the filter from working in the Camera app.

Right now, if I’m taking a photo at night or in a dark setting, I don’t see the real colors. I see the filtered, pastel, unsaturated colors. I have no idea what I’m shooting or if the real colors are properly adjusted for the pic, so I have to disable Comfort View to snap the photo with the proper colors and keep it disabled as I check my photos. Otherwise, I can’t know if I shot a good pic or not, or cull the less interesting photos before I back them up.

I’m a bit tired of having to enable/disable Comfort View each time I want to use it. It’s been especially annoying while on vacation in Italy. Every church or cathedral, I had to turn it off, then back on when I walked out, and eventually I forgot to turn it back on for a few days until I was back home.

Google should’ve really thought about this. It makes no sense to have the display showing a permanent filter when you’re doing something as color-sensitive as taking a photo or browsing your photos. Or at least make it an option for users to decide if they want an always-on filter or they’d rather see a more realistic version of their photos. I hope an upcoming software version fixes this.