When I recently turned on Google’s new Pixel Fold smartphone and unfolded it like a book, it turned into a miniature tablet, similar to an iPad Mini or an Amazon Fire. Then something unexpected happened.
For the next few hours, I found it hard to put the device down, as if I was being sucked into a great novel. The phone’s performance was smooth and fast, and the larger screen made reading emails, watching videos, and reading comic books more fun than on a normal phone screen.
I was surprised because I was wary of foldable phones. The earliest models released by Samsung, Motorola, and Huawei about four years ago had glaring flaws. They were thick and heavy, had durability issues, and lacked software to take advantage of their new hardware. But I knew right away that the Pixel Fold – Google’s first foldable phone – was different.
When I folded the device back up, a second 5.8-inch outer screen lit up, transforming it into a regular smartphone that could be used with one hand. Importantly, it wasn’t too thick — it’s about an inch thick when folded, which is slightly larger than my iPhone — so it was comfortable to carry in my pockets.
The Pixel Fold, unveiled last month and arriving on Wednesday, is proof that when cutting-edge tech shows up, it’s wiser to wait before putting your hard-earned dollars into it. In just four years, Google has managed to eliminate most of the problems with foldable phones and transform a gimmicky concept into a product with compelling reasons to exist.
What Google hasn’t managed to do is make foldable phone technology cheaper. The Pixel Fold costs $1,800, about $400 more than comparable phones released a few years ago. Google said the cost of the device stemmed in part from the technical challenge of cramming high-end components, including a camera on par with other Pixel phones, into such a thin device. (Unfolded, the Pixel Fold is thinner than a normal smartphone.)
That’s too bad. Most people won’t spend that much on a phone when there are many great options out there that are less expensive. But I can recommend it for its target audience: people with a lot of disposable income who rely heavily on their devices.
Still, the advancement in foldable technology is good news. A few years ago, the devices of companies such as Apple and Samsung seemed to have reached their peak. Their flagship phones were already incredibly fast, their screens were big and bright, and their cameras took amazing pictures. The smartphone industry as a whole became a pile of almost indistinguishable black rectangles.
What was left to do? In 2019, Samsung was one of the first to release a foldable phone, but it poisoned the well by rushing the gadget to market. The screens on early review samples of its Galaxy Fold failed, forcing the South Korean manufacturer to delay the product. Samsung and others have released a few more foldable phones since then, but none I found convincing.
Google’s entry into the market is significant. Following Apple’s tight control over the design of the iPhone, Google designed both the hardware (including the computer processor) and software that power the Pixel Fold. That means the device’s software is tuned to work with it, and it has long battery life and very fast performance.
In addition to the larger screen, Google has come up with clever reasons for how and why you might use a foldable phone.
First, the Pixel Fold is a great video player to take anywhere because of the way it folds at an angle like a laptop.
When cooking in the kitchen, I would play a YouTube video with a recipe and fold the appliance at a 90-degree angle. The top half of the screen showed the video and the bottom half the description with the ingredients. In some ways, this was even better than a tablet, which you’d have to prop up on the counter with a stand to see at the right angle.
What else could you do with a foldable? With the device unfolded, I ran two apps side-by-side, which was useful for reading a web page while typing an email.
Google also showed how its translation app could take advantage of the two screens. Consider a situation where you, an English speaker, are trying to communicate with someone who speaks Chinese. If you keep the phone unfolded, you can speak English into the microphone and have the outer screen of the phone translate the text into Chinese for the other person. When the Chinese speaker responds, you can read the translated text on the inner screen.
This feature won’t be released until the fall, so I haven’t been able to test it. But it’s an intriguing use case.
In the end, the device is expensive because it is packed with advanced technology without major compromises. In my tests, the camera produced sharp and vibrant images comparable to photos taken with Apple’s latest iPhone and the Pixel 7 Pro, Google’s $900 smartphone, which has an excellent camera.
While the high price of the Pixel Fold will make it inaccessible to most people, it was an exciting look at the next step for smartphones. In the last five years as phone screens got bigger, we’ve voted with our wallets showing that we prefer bigger screens as long as they come on devices that are easy to carry around. The Pixel Fold delivers that.
My guess is that foldable phones will probably come down in price in a few years to replace current phones with the “pro” moniker and become the new high-end of the market. When that happens, I see myself and many others making the transition to a foldable tablet – and a future where the tablet becomes less relevant.
