Google Pixel Fold Review: A Looker with Limitations 

Price When Reviewed

$1799 (256GB), $1919 (512GB)

Best Prices Today: Google Pixel Fold

Google’s folding phone has been a long time coming. Rumours that the company was developing one began several years back and in a surprise revelation during a recent Made by Google podcast episode, the world found out that the Pixel Fold wasn’t the first.

A previous design hadn’t made the grade and was cancelled because it wasn’t good enough. The Pixel Fold, then, must have passed muster and it’s taking the fight to various rivals but mainly Samsung. The South Korean company has a big lead on Google, having released its first Galaxy Fold in 2019 and is on track to launch its fifth-generation foldable phone soon.

The history lesson is relevant here because the Pixel Fold doesn’t exist in a vacuum. And while there’s a lot to like about the phone, there’s some frustration too – some of which might be fixed in software updates. Then there’s also the price, which isn’t a million miles away from $2,000/£2,000.

Design & build

• No gap when folded
• Slim, relatively speaking
• IPX8 water resistance

Quite obviously, the Pixel Fold is the type of folding phone which aims to be a tablet replacement rather than the ‘flip’ style which takes a normal phone and folds it in half.

And this makes the Pixel Fold a big, heavy phone. It’s 12.1mm thick (not including the camera bump) and 80mm wide. At 140mm tall, it’s shorter than many phones but at 284g, quite a lot heavier – 20g heavier than the Galaxy Z Fold 4.

And everyone I handed the Pixel Fold to commented on the weight first. But, as with any folding phone, it also has a huge wow factor. Pictured here is the Obsidan colour but you can also get it in Porcelain.

Opening it up to reveal the 7.6in internal screen will usually elicit a “wow” or a gasp because, even now in 2023, not that many people have seen a phone that folds in half.

The crease doesn’t ever go away, but a lot of the time the brightness of the screen hides it. It’s even more hidden if you’re running one app on each side of the screen.

Where the Fold differs from its rivals – notably the Samsung Galaxy Fold 4 – is that it has a 6:5 aspect ratio. That means it is more landscape than portrait which is more significant than you might imagine as it affects how apps behave.

When folded, there’s no gap between the screens. The gap is one of the things you notice first about the Galaxy Fold 4, but which Samsung is likely to address in the Fold 5 that launches in just a few weeks’ time.

It isn’t the first folding phone to close flat: Honor’s Magic Vs does too.

Jim Martin / Foundry

On the top edge is one speaker with a second on the bottom edge along with the nano-SIM tray and a USB-C port.

On the right-hand side, on the rear part of the phone (when folded), is the volume rocker and power button, which doubles as a fingerprint scanner.

The edges are rounded, polished alloy and the hinge is essentially a thicker version: its smoothness feels wonderful on your fingers. As soon as you touch it, your fingerprints will be all over it but finish is worth the regular cleaning required.

Jim Martin / Foundry

One area that doesn’t pick up fingerprints is the Gorilla Glass Victus on the back of the phone, as it has a matt finish. A huge camera section juts out about 3mm.

This, and the fact the Pixel Fold doesn’t open to exactly 180° means it doesn’t lie flat against a surface. That’s annoying if you want to type, swipe or do something that involves touching the screen as it rocks in all directions.

Jim Martin / Foundry

You can apply a bit of pressure to force the screen that final five degrees or so to be absolutely flat, but it doesn’t feel good to do that on such an expensive device.

In fact, prominent warnings in the box tell you that flexible screens are softer than on traditional phones and you should “avoid contact with sand, crumbs, fingernails or sharp objects”. You’re also instructed not to remove the factory-installed screen protector and not to apply a third-party one.

The overwhelming feeling, then, is that this is an especially delicate phone that needs a lot of care. There’s also the disappointment that, despite the price, Google doesn’t include a case in the box. It will sell you one, of course: the official case costs $59.99/£64.99.

With an IPX8 rating, the Pixel Fold can “take a splash”, according to Google. In fact, that’s an understatement: it can withstand immersion in water up to 1m deep for 30 minutes. Not that you’d want to test that, mind.

One benefit of the stiff hinge is being able to adjust the screen to a certain angle and it’ll stay there. That’s useful if you want to watch a video hands-free on the outer screen in ‘tent’ mode, but it also means you can do the same sort of thing with the internal screen in a kind of ‘laptop mode’.

Jim Martin / Foundry

See also  Best Printer Deals - Tech Advisor

That could be useful for video calls as there’s a camera on the inside bezel as well as one embedded into the outer screen. When Android 14 launches, there will also be an update to YouTube which displays the video in the top part of the screen and puts playback controls on the part laying flat.

Screen & speakers

• 5.8in outer 17.4:9 screen
• 7.6in inner 6:5 screen

It isn’t supposed to be the main attraction, but the Pixel Fold’s outside screen is unusual for a folding phone because it’s very similar in proportions to a normal phone. Or, at least, a normal phone from a few years ago.

Jim Martin / Foundry

The 17.4:9 aspect ratio is much more usable than the Galaxy Z Fold 4’s 23.1:9 outer screen. It’s a really bright OLED panel, peaking at 1550 nits and a real joy to use even in bright outdoor conditions. Resolution is great, colours are great and – no surprise – viewing angles are, too.

Some may dislike Google’s choice to go with a punch-hole selfie camera but it really doesn’t get in the way.

Jim Martin / Foundry

Prise open the Fold – something that needs two hands and a fingernail because there’s no gap at all – and it becomes a small tablet. The screen has the same 7.6in diagonal as the Galaxy Z Fold 4 and although this makes both phones square-ish, the Pixel Fold has a 6:5 aspect ratio against the Z Fold 4’s 21.6:18.

Human brains can’t easily compare those numbers, but what it boils down to is that the Galaxy Z Fold 4 (and pretty much every other competitor) has a taller, narrower screen while the Pixel Fold is wider and shorter.

Is this a benefit? The answer is complicated, and one best answered when I talk about the Pixel Fold’s software later.

Both screens support a variable refresh rate up to 120Hz, but the internal screen isn’t quite as bright at 1000 nits, with peak brightness of 1200 nits.

The other thing to note is the bezel around the internal screen. It’s thicker at the top and bottom than the sides but it’s not something you notice in normal use. If anything, it’s too thin at the sides and means it’s hard to grip the phone without accidentally touching something on the screen.

Jim Martin / Foundry

However, a more important observation, especially for first-time foldable buyers, is that the screen isn’t perfectly flat. We’re all so used to the thick glass on traditional phones that a flexible screen – which is what it is – looks wavy and, well, cheap.

As mentioned already, the fold remains even when the hinge is fully open, just like the crease when you fold a piece of paper in half and then unfold it.

Overall, quality is great but you do notice a band either side of that crease showing slightly different brightness and colours as you move the phone around in your hands. It’s not a dealbreaker: it’s just what flexible screens are like at the moment.

The ultra-thin glass is covered by a plastic protector that doesn’t quite reach the outer bezel. There’s a gap of 1-2mm around the edge which collects dust and dirt like you wouldn’t believe. The same thing happens in the tiny gaps between the top and bottom of the screen and the hinge.

Jim Martin / Foundry

At least one (vocal) reviewer’s Pixel Fold screen has been damaged by crumbs getting caught in the screen protector gap and seemingly causing the screen to fail. I’ve had no such issues, but have also been careful to give the screen a wipe, even just with a finger, before closing it each time.

A final detail that’s easy to miss is the camera in the top-right section of the bezel. It’s there so no matter how you use the Fold, there’s always a way to have a video call or take a selfie.

Speakers, to change the subject, are surprisingly good. They don’t put out much volume until you ramp the slider up to the max, but they are capable of decent audio for watching videos, listening to podcasts and even the odd bit of music.

Software & apps

• Android 13
• Optimised Google apps
• 5 years of Pixel updates

Software is critical with any folding phone because apps need to appear differently when you use it in tablet mode and take advantage of the extra space and resolution. Where others, such as Honor with the Magic Vs, haven’t done an amazing job, Google is in the fortunate position that Apple is with the iPhone and can control both hardware and software.

To this end, it has optimised all its apps for the Fold’s oddly-shaped screen. Gmail, Calendar, Weather, Drive, Photos – they all look beautiful and show a lot more than you see on the outer screen.

Jim Martin / Foundry

That’s great, but not all apps work well on the Fold. Those that aren’t optimised display with black bars at the edges – Facebook is a notable one – and the only way to make them fill the screen is to rotate the Fold by 90° and use it in ‘portrait’ mode.

Jim Martin / Foundry

The trouble is, in many cases, apps are simply scaled up so everything is larger instead of showing more information.

Even some of Google’s apps aren’t fully optimised. Maps sometimes reverted to the Facebook style of filling the centre of the screen but with black bars at the edges.

Jim Martin / Foundry

See also  Baldur's Gate 3 will get 1,000+ fixes in its first patch

The aspect ratio isn’t great for video either: if you want to see all of a 16:9 video, it’s displayed at a size that’s barely larger than the outer screen. And it’s worse if you’re watching a movie that uses an even thinner, wider aspect ratio.

YouTube is optimised, of course, so you can zoom in and make the video fill the screen. But it’s like going back to the days before widescreen TVs.

Jim Martin / Foundry

Perhaps the main benefit isn’t running a single app, though, it’s having two open at the same time. This works well, especially because Google has added a taskbar that appears when you slowly swipe up from the bottom of the screen. If you’re already running an app, you can drag another one to the left or right and it will fill whichever half you’ve dragged it two.

Jim Martin / Foundry

You can then drag the divider bar left or right to make one app wider (and the other thinner) and you can rotate the phone to portrait if the apps work better in that orientation, such as when you want to watch a video and have a web page open at the same time.

Jim Martin / Foundry

Certain apps let you drag and drop between them, but I never found this to be particularly game changing. Yes, you can select a bunch of photos from Google Photos and drop them into an email or a WhatsApp chat, but it’s just as easy to attach photos from within those apps.

Copying and pasting text between apps feels more convenient when both are on screen, but even after a week, I didn’t discover the killer app pair that made the Fold an indispensable tool.

A problem that may well be addressed when Android 14 drops is the absence of a way to launch pairs of apps that you like to use together. Instead, you have to launch one full screen, bring up the taskbar and either use the Split icon or find the app and drag it to the one side.

Another issue is that apps don’t remain paired if you close the Fold. What happens when you re-open it is that one of the apps displays full screen, something that’s very irritating.

It can also get confusing because Google has chosen to make the Fold do different things when you close it depending upon what sort of app you were using in tablet mode. I asked Google about this and was told that it’s a feature developers call “wakelock”. Some apps tell the screen to stay on – even on non-folding phones – and ignore any idle timers. So if you’re watching a video, reading a book or playing a game and close the screen, it will appear on the outer screen instead of locking the phone and displaying the always-on info.

That’s fine once you understand it, but there’s no setting to change this behaviour if you don’t like it.

One other thing Google could change is to add the option to save different home screen layouts for the inner and outer screens. As it is, the Fold replicates your outer home screen on the left-hand side of the inner screen, and puts the apps from the second page on the right.

Unlike the Galaxy Z Fold 4, there’s no way to run three apps at once, nor have a floating window. The Pixel Fold doesn’t have stylus support either, which might disappoint some people.

There are benefits of buying a Pixel phone, though. Google promises five years of updates, and there’s Google’s VPN that you can use for free. A feature coming soon is the ability to show translated speed on the outer screen – useful in situations where you don’t speak someone’s language. The inside screen will show what they’re saying in your language.

Specs & performance

• Tensor G2
• 12GB RAM
• 256GB UFS 3.1 storage

The Fold’s chipset, RAM and storage are the same as the Pixel 7 Pro’s. There’s plenty of grunt, even if benchmarks show it’s not the fastest out there and it makes the Pixel Fold feel smooth and responsive in daily use.

Apps launch quickly and, in combination with the high-refresh-rate screens, they run exceptionally well.

Jim Martin / Foundry

Games also run pretty well, but performance is somewhat moot because so few games have been optimised to use the Fold’s unusual resolution and aspect ratio. Optimised games are highlighted in the Play Store and include Minecraft, Asphalt 9, League of Legends, Genshin Impact, Clash of Clans, Candy Crush and Call of Duty Mobile.

Asphalt 9 ran smoothly and provided a decent experience. However, just because a game fills the whole screen doesn’t mean it’s any easier or better to play than on a standard ‘candy bar’ screen. Non-optimised games might adjust to the aspect ratio but show less than they do on a taller screen.

Besides this, the Pixel Fold gets noticeably warm even when running less-demanding tasks. Use the camera app for a while, perhaps to record video or a long-exposure night sky photo and it quickly heats up.

That never caused other issues, such as any perceptible throttling, but it’s not what you’d expect from such a premium device.

Talking of being a premium device, it has premium haptics. They’re subtle and feel very natural. You can adjust the strength for different things such as incoming calls, notifications, alarms and general touch feedback.

I found the Fold was great for phone calls, being able to clearly hear the caller using both the earpiece and speakers.

As you’d expect, it has capable Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth, ultra-wideband and NFC. There’s a single nano-SIM tray but you can use the eSIM for a second number. It supports 5G mmWave and Sub 6GHz.

Cameras

• 48Mp f/1.7 wide
• 10.8Mp f/2.2 ultrawide
• 10.8Mp f/3.05 5x telephoto
• 9.5Mp f/2.2 front camera
• 8Mp f/2.0 front camera

You’d assume that Google would have copied and pasted the cameras from the Pixel 7 Pro, but no. All three sensors on the rear have different resolutions (all lower, surprisingly) and the front camera has an unusual 9.5Mp count.

Not that it matters: these are great cameras which deliver very pleasing photos – and videos – in the majority of situations. Photos from main rear camera are sharp, well exposed and have good dynamic range. Here’s a selection:

There’s a 2x mode in the camera app, but this is done in software so hit the ‘5’ for the telephoto lens. Both the ultrawide and telephoto lenses can produce good-looking photos, but the latter needs plenty of light to perform at its best.

Here’s some from the ultrawide:

And a selection from the 5x telephoto:

Low-light performance isn’t amazing: noise creeps into photos more than you’d want. Plus, the Fold’s macro capabilities are nothing special.

I’d say the same about the portrait mode on all cameras: it’s not the best around. Here are a variety of photos from the selfie camera:

Fortunately, Google’s software magic makes this a great phone for photography and most people won’t notice or care about the drawbacks. You can erase objects from photos, unblur them, pick the best shot from a burst series and all that other Pixel-y good stuff.

It’s a good phone for video, particularly because of the excellent stabilisation. You can shoot at up to 4K/60fps. Slo-mo is worth highlighting as well, being easily accessible within the main video mode and producing outstanding results.

The other bonus of a folding phone like this is that you can use the front screen as a viewfinder to take better-quality selfies using the rear cameras.

Jim Martin / Foundry

Battery life & charging

• 30W fast charging
• 7.5W wireless charging
• No adapter in box

The Pixel Fold uses a pair of batteries that add up to around 4800mAh so many regular phones have bigger cells. Google says that’s enough to last beyond 24 hours, which is true. But it’s not true every day.

I used the Fold for over a week before writing this review and while the clever Adaptive Battery may not have had enough time to properly kick in, my mileage varied a lot.

In my estimation I used the Fold for about the same amount of time each day – give or take – and did basically the same things, using a mix of the outer and inner screens to browse, play games, take photos, use social media: the usual.

Some of those days ended with comfortable levels – around 20-25% – but on others, it didn’t even make it to bedtime without needing a recharge. Conversely, another day, there was almost 40% left which lasted until after lunch the following day.

Weirdly, Google hasn’t caught up with the sort of fast charging other phone makers now offer and it’s hard to call the Fold a fast-charging phone. Google doesn’t include a charger in the box, but if you have one that can output 30W, the Fold will take it.

Using a 61W Ravpower charger I had to hand, the fold charged from empty to 14% in 15 minutes and was up to 28% at 30 minutes: nice and linear but also very slow.

Wireless charging is possible at the bog-standard 7.5W using any Qi-compatible charger. At least it’s there, unlike the Honor Magic Vs

Price & availability

The 256GB version costs $1,799 from Google in the US, and £1,749 in the UK. There’s also a 512GB model which costs $1,919/£1,869. If you pre-order one, you’ll get a free Pixel Watch.

You can get the black model shown here (Obsidian), or a while (Porcelain) version that’s exclusive to Google and is available only with 256GB of storage. If you get the Fold from anywhere else, it’ll be a black one.

These are exactly the same prices that Samsung charges for the Z Fold 4 in the US. In the UK, prices are cheaper: it was £1,649 for a 256GB Z Fold 4.

And if you’re in the US, those are really your only choices. Outside of the US there’s a much broader range: see our roundup of the best foldable phones for more alternatives.

Verdict

My opinion of the Pixel Fold has changed a lot over a week. I remain to be convinced that this type of folding phone is something the world needs. But even if it is, the Pixel Fold is so expensive it’s merely a curiosity for most people.

Software needs to improve, too. It’s the classic chicken-and-egg scenario where developers won’t optimise their apps for such a niche device until it becomes more popular, but punters will be wary about buying them until the apps work properly.

The other big drawback is the heft. It’s a marvel of engineering, but it’s still a chunky, heavy device that makes your hand ache after holding it for a while.

Ultimately, this is a first-generation device and if you can afford it and really want it, you’ll probably love it to bits. Everyone else should stick with a regular phone – perhaps a Pixel 7 Pro – and swap to an iPad, laptop or TV when you want a bigger screen.

Specs

• 5.8in FHD+ 120Hz LTPO OLED
• 7.6in 2208 x 1840 120Hz LTPO OLED
• Google Tensor G2 chipset
• 12GB RAM
• 128/256GB non-expandable UFS 3.1 storage
• 4800mAh battery
• 30W wired charging
• Wireless charging
• 48Mp f/1.7 main camera
• 10.8Mp f/2.2 ultrawide camera.
• 10.8Mp f/3.05 5x telephoto camera
• 9.5Mp f/2.2 front camera
• 8Mp f/2 inner camera
• 5G
• Wi-Fi 6E
• Bluetooth 5.2
• IPX8
• Gorilla Glass Victus (front and rear)
• 140mm x 79.5mm x 12.1mm (5.5 x 3.1 x 0.5in)
• 284g / 10oz