Google’s Pixel phones are chock-full of helpful, smart features, and they capture some of the best-looking photographs on a mobile device. It’s why they’re among our favorite Android smartphones. But like several of its peers, Google doesn’t have many of its best features turned on by default. For example, Call Screening blocks unwanted phone calls on your behalf, and you need to turn it on yourself.

That’s what I’m here for. I test smartphones for a living, and I’m constantly switching to a new device every week or two. I’m an expert at running through the settings of every phone I test and toggling on the features I want. To get the most out of your new Pixel, follow these steps, some of which may even help you turn off things you don’t care for, like a few of the generative AI features on the Pixel 10.

Enable Google’s AI Call Features

Photograph: Julian Chokkattu

The best features on Google’s Pixel phones revolve around the Phone app. No one wants endless robocalls and scams from telemarketers. That’s why the first thing I do when setting up a new Pixel is open the Phone app and tap the three-lined icon on the top left (also called a hamburger menu). Tap Settings > Call Screen and toggle on Automatically screen calls. You can choose Basic, Medium, or Maximum protection, and each mode ramps up the screening, with the latter screening unknown numbers.

Within the Phone app’s Settings menu, there are several other call features I recommend you turn on. Scam Detection is in beta, but it’ll run in the background and will alert you on a call if it thinks you’re being scammed. It doesn’t run for calls from your contacts; calls aren’t recorded, and all of this works locally on the device. Hold for Me is another excellent feature that lets you skip the annoying hold music—turn it on while on a call, and your phone will listen on your behalf and ring when the person you’re speaking with returns and ends the hold.

Direct My Call is useful if you’re calling a business and they have a complicated phone menu. Once toggled on, it’ll show a live transcription on your phone screen during the call, with buttons you can tap (i.e., Press 0 to talk to an agent). Call Notes, once toggled on, will ask if you want to activate it at the beginning of each call. It’ll transcribe and summarize calls, so if you’re particularly forgetful, you’ll be able to see a summary of your calls (you can choose to make it automatically start for calls from non-contacts). The data is stored on the device, and you can have it delete the notes after a set period.

Available on the latest Pixel 10 series at the moment, Voice Translate will translate phone calls in real time, and it’ll even use generative artificial intelligence to approximate the voices of the people on the call, so that it feels like you’re actually talking to each other and not a robot. You’ll need to toggle this on in the middle of a call. And finally, Take a Message is sort of a revamped version of voicemail. When you don’t answer, it’ll ask callers to leave a message, which you’ll be able to see transcribed in real time. It’ll even generate insights or tasks based on the transcript, so if your wife called and reminded you to grab milk on the way home, it should show up as a recommendation to add to Google Keep.

Find Ambient Music With Now Playing

Photograph: Julian Chokkattu

One of the best features that originally debuted in the Pixel 2, Now Playing listens for ambient music in your environment and will display the song information straight on your lock screen—no need to guess who the artist is or run a manual sound search. (You can still do that if the music is loud enough by tapping the mic icon on the Google Search widget on the home screen.)