The Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold Is a Big Step Forward for Foldables
Date: 2024-10-24The Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold makes a strong claim to being the best foldable phone on the planet right now, and at the same time is also arguably the best phone Google has ever made—perhaps better than the Pixel 9 Pro, even. Whether it's the best phone for you, though, depends on what you're going to use it for, and how deep your pockets are.
With Samsung now up to its sixth foldable series, and alternatives like the OnePlus Open impressing reviewers as well, the Pixel 9 Pro Fold arrives as the successor to the 2023 Google Pixel Fold, and as part of the Pixel 9 series (hence the rather awkward name).
I've been testing the handset for four weeks now, and there's a lot to talk about here. If you just want the headlines: It's a foldable that works great as a standard phone when closed, and opens out to a square-ish 8-inch tablet-style display that really shines for certain apps. Oh, and you're going to need to have at least $1,799 spare to buy one.
The Pixel 9 Pro Fold closed shut.
Credit: Lifehacker
What's new for 2024
One of the trickier aspects of writing a review like this is trying to cater to all kinds of readers: those who already have a foldable and those who don't; those who are familiar with Pixel phones and those who aren't; those who are using an iPhone and think they might not want to wait until Apple gets around to making a foldable... the list goes on. Depending on where you're coming from, you'll have different questions about the Pixel 9 Pro Fold.
If you're in the small bracket of people who own a Google Pixel Fold and are wondering if this is a substantial upgrade, the answer is an unequivocal yes. It's faster, thinner, and lighter, with a bigger and brighter main screen. The cameras are largely unchanged, but otherwise, it's a much better phone, and that's before you get to the Pixel 9 software exclusives like Pixel Screenshots.
There are some significant design changes from the Pixel Fold.
Credit: Lifehacker
It also offers a much better experience as a standard phone when it's closed than its predecessor did. That's thanks both to the thinner and lighter form factor, but also to the switch to the more standard 20:9 aspect ratio for the outer 6.3-inch display. Most of the time I was using the Pixel 9 Pro Fold it was folded shut and masquerading as just another smartphone, and you're able to do that in public without drawing attention to yourself (something I was pleased about).
The redesign continues with the rear camera module shrinking down into the corner of the back casing, which I'm not against, and I liked the overall finish and feel of the phone (even if it's not ideal for lying flat): It feels like a premium device. As with the original Pixel Fold, your color choices are obsidian (black) or porcelain (a pale cream shade), though at the time of writing the latter option doesn't seem to be widely available.
Camera, performance, and battery life
You get a 48 MP wide + 10.8 MP telephoto + 10.5 MP ultrawide rear camera here, with 5x optical zoom, plus 10 MP selfie cameras on both the cover screen and main screen—that beats the Pixel 9, but isn't quite up to the standard of the Pixel 9 Pro. Comparisons aside, it's capable of capturing some excellent photos and videos, with well-defined details and natural-looking colors across the board.
As is now expected from the Pixels, low light performance is great too (courtesy of the Night Sight feature), and the same goes for zoom and macro photography as well. There's certainly no compromise here in terms of images and videos, and that's before I get on to all the AI enhancement features included as well (of which more in a moment).
There's a Tensor G4 CPU fitted inside the Pixel 9 Pro Fold.
Credit: Lifehacker
The combination of a Google Tensor G4 and 16GB isn't going to break any GeekBench 6 records: 1,939 for single-core and 4,307 for multi-core by the way, in my testing. However, the phone deals with just about every task very speedily indeed, with no noticeable lag or slowing down. Even demanding games such as Genshin Impact didn't cause any problems, so I'm safe to say this is more than enough power for most people.
When it comes to battery life, the Pixel 9 Pro Fold matches pretty much every phone out there (or at least that's how it feels): A good full day of use and probably a bit more, depending on how you use it, but you're going to want to charge it overnight. It's perfectly ordinary in that regard, based on what I've seen, though if you're going to be gaming on that big screen a lot of the time, your results may of course vary. (our sister site PCMag calls its battery life "only average.")
Camera samples
Almost all the photos and videos captured by the Pixel 9 Pro Fold impress.
Credit: Lifehacker
The same shot with the ultrawide camera deployed.
Credit: Lifehacker
Macro photography is no problem for the Pixel 9 Pro Fold.
Credit: Lifehacker
A shot taken using the 5x optical zoom on the rear camera.
Credit: Lifehacker
Brightness and colors are usually well balanced.
Credit: Lifehacker
The same shot using the Pixel's excellent Night Sight capabilities in near total darkness.
Credit: Lifehacker
Another impressive night shot from the Pixel 9 Pro Fold.
Credit: Lifehacker
Two screens for (double) the price of one
Assuming all the basics and key specs are fine—and they are more than fine, really—we get to the question of whether or not the Pixel 9 Pro Fold justifies the high price of entry for a foldable phone. While the phone costs a similar amount to a Galaxy Z Fold 6, it costs a lot more than a Pixel 9 Pro (or an iPhone 16 Pro Max), so you need to be very sure you'll make full use of that form factor before spending your hard-earned dollars.
The folding screen does at least feel well constructed and durable—as far as I can tell from four weeks of use—though the crease in the middle remains very much visible (no phone maker has really solved this problem yet). In terms of brightness, color, and clarity, the main 8-inch display is a real star, if you can forgive the little inverse bump in the middle.
The phone can function as a normal handset when closed.
Credit: Lifehacker
That big screen works really well for running apps side by side, using messaging apps (as long as they include a dual-pane mode), and playing games optimized for a larger display (full marks to Alto's Adventure and SimCity BuildIt, for example). I've also found it preferable for reading webpages, documents, and e-books, and once you get used to it, the split keyboard can actually be easier to type with.
It's not all great, though. As the screen aspect ratio is so square (almost exactly 1:1), videos in apps like Netflix leave huge letterbox bars at the top and bottom—in this case it's actually a better experience using the outer display. In YouTube at least, you get playback controls on the bottom if you half-fold the device, but again, the actual video itself isn't any bigger than it would be normally on a traditional phone.
Only a selected number of apps are optimized for a bigger screen.
Credit: Lifehacker
There are also a significant number of apps and games that simply aren't built for a square 8-inch display: They run fine, and look okay, but they're either stretched out, or smaller than they should be. Also, I'm not a huge fan of having to have my fingers all over the outer display while I'm holding the phone fully open in two hands, but it's hard to avoid that with a foldable like this.
The form factor does come with some other benefits: Using the superior rear camera for selfies, for example, because you can see yourself in the cover display. Google has actually developed a feature along these lines called Made You Look, which displays a cute animation on the outer display while you're trying to take snaps of your little ones—the idea being they'll look towards you, and the camera.
Android and all that AI
Google phones no longer run stock Android but rather Pixel Android, which means the usual slew of exclusive benefits—from the at-a-glance home screen widget to the audio-to-text Recorder app. There's also a brand new and very well-done Weather app for the Pixel 9 series, featuring radar maps and precipitation warnings, and satellite SOS connectivity arrives with the Pixel 9 series too—a feature that can legitimately be described as potentially life-saving.
If you've been keeping an eye on Google's announcements lately, you'll also know there's a ton of AI here: Some of it exclusive to the Pixel 9s, and some (like the Gemini capabilities) available on older Pixels as well. We've previously tested a lot of these features out in our Pixel 9 review and Pixel 9 Pro review, with mixed results. Personally, it's the aforementioned Pixel Screenshots app I find most helpful, offering automatic sorting and deep search for your screenshots, so you can bring half-forgotten receipts, shopping ideas, social media posts and more quickly back to the surface.
The Pixel 9 series features numerous exclusives—some of which are useful.
Credit: Lifehacker
I do also like the Audio Magic Eraser that can wipe out background noise (like cars or wind) from video clips, and the Zoom Enhance feature in the Camera app that uses AI to fill in more detail at higher zoom levels. These features, like Night Sight for low light photography, are genuinely useful applications of AI that bring benefits without getting into territory that feels a little weird or simply pointless.
On the other hand, I don't particularly want Gemini writing my emails or messages for me, and I don't really have any use for the AI image generation tools in the Pixel Studio app either, beyond a few minutes of playing around with them—your mileage may vary. The Magic Editor and Add Me tools, meanwhile, for manipulating photos and adding new people into them, seem to be a bit hit and miss in their results, and honestly I'd rather just keep my photos as they were captured.
Should you buy the Pixel 9 Pro Fold?
Here's the case for the Pixel 9 Pro Fold: You get a phone that's very nearly as good as the Pixel 9 Pro, but which also has a second 8-inch screen you can open out and use for games, messaging, and multitasking. And here's the case against it: You're paying almost twice as much money for it. That's the simple calculation you're making with this phone.
For me personally right now, that bigger screen doesn't offer enough to make me want to part with $1,799 (or more, if you need 512GB of storage rather than 256GB). It's worth noting that the reaction I got from family members and friends I showed the phone to was almost always the same: very impressed by the folding screen and the two displays, but very much put off by the price. Once they got past the wow factor, they weren't convinced they'd use the 8-inch screen all that much.
The Pixel 9 Pro Fold has a certain wow factor.
Credit: Lifehacker
Also, while foldable phones are well past the stage where we need to worry about them cracking in half after six months, this is still a more delicate bit of gadgetry than your average handset. Covers are available for the phone, but they don't wrap around the hinge, and with this as my day-to-day phone I would be a little worried about getting it out and carrying it around. If you buy this, you might want to purchase phone insurance, too.
And yet, despite the reservations I've got, this is a fantastic phone. Well built, solidly constructed, with super-smart software features on board, stacks of AI, and the tools to capture great photos and videos. I can definitely see a future where every phone is like this, as these foldables get thinner and (eventually) cheaper: a standard phone most of the time, and a tablet screen if you need it. With the Pixel 9 Pro Fold, Google has brought that future a big step closer.
