What you need to know
- Pixel 10 phones in the US are eSIM-only with no physical SIM card slot option.
- Some Pixel 10 users in the U.S. requesting replacements are receiving global Pixel 10 models with SIM slots.
- Global Pixel 10 models lack mmWave 5G support, offering only sub-6GHz 5G in the U.S.
While the Pixel 10 series brings a number of upgrades over the Pixel 9, one of the major omissions from the new smartphone series, at least in the U.S., is the SIM card slot. The Pixel 10 series is eSIM-only in the U.S. However, it turns out there is at least one way to get a Pixel 10 device in the U.S. with a physical SIM card slot.
As spotted by 9to5Google, users requesting replacement Pixel 10 devices are receiving the global version, which has the SIM card slot at the top. The publication cited a Reddit post where a user requested a replacement Pixel 10 Pro XL due to a "screen issue."
Apparently, the unit shipped to them was not the U.S. version but a global model complete with a SIM slot. The device was identical to the Pixel 10 Pro XL they had, just with the SIM slot on top.
Physical SIM Pixel 10 units lack mmWave 5G
And it hasn't happened with only one user. Another Redditor in the same thread reported the same, though they didn't specify their Pixel 10 model. The original poster said they had reached out to Google about why they had received a physical SIM version, but hadn't yet received a reply.
As it turns out, however, there is one drawback for U.S. users getting a physical SIM version of the Pixel 10. The U.S. eSIM-only units support mmWave 5G networks, while global SIM models do not. So if you get that version in the US, you'll miss out on the fastest speeds and must rely on sub-6GHz 5G only.
That said, it appears there's still no way to directly get a physical SIM Pixel 10 from Google. It looks like the company is only providing replacement units, and we expect even those will soon be swapped out for the eSIM variant in the U.S.
