Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold Review in Progress

View at Best Buy

Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold Review: Design

Still the thinnest and heaviest foldable

I love ostentatious tech. And when it comes to smartphones right now, there’s almost nothing more ostentatious than unfurling your device. Because you don’t open the Pro Fold, you don’t unfold it; you unfurl it. And when you do, you’re met by a flexible, ultra-thin glossy piece of glass for the display. Like its predecessor, there’s a slight crease in the middle of the panel, demarcating where the hinge meets. It’s a little jarring at first, but crease-blindness quickly sets in.

The phone’s frame is made of aluminum, while the hinge is of “multi-alloy steel with an Aerospace-grade, high-strength aluminum alloy” cover. The exterior display has a Corning Gorilla Glass Victus 2 cover. The rear panel is also Gorilla Glass; however, it’s matte instead of glossy. The rear-mounted camera sensors jut out in a rectangular module with rounded corners. The only other thing on the back is the shiny G, designating this as a Google device.

Regarding buttons and ports, you have the power and volume buttons on the right and the USB-C port and nano SIM slot at the bottom. Unlike the other phones in this lineup, the Pro Fold is devoid of fun colors as it’s only available in Obsidian and Porcelain. This is a major problem I have with a lot of OEMs. Does the fact that I’m paying damn near $2,000 for a smartphone mean that I suddenly don’t like color? Does premium automatically mean that the color must be business casual? Yes, it’s a stately and elegant device, but I demand a Rose Quartz foldable!

Moving on, the Pro Fold has a durability rating of IP8 for water resistance. As with most foldables, the Pro Fold lacks a dust ingress rating due to the hinge. Speaking of the hinge, it runs the length of the phone’s seam and protrudes ever so slightly. Due to its glossy finish, it’s an absolute fingerprint magnet.

While I appreciate the hinge’s sturdiness, letting the device open and close with a soft snap, I wish there was a divot somewhere along the sides to make the device easier to open. As it stands, I almost need two hands—one to hold it in place and the other to open it. Sure, I can jam my thumb in between and force it open one-handed, but by the time I’m finished, the screen will have unsightly smudges.

At 9.1 ounces, the 6.1 x 5.9 x 0.2 inches unfolded, the Pro Fold maintains Google’s claim to be the thinnest foldable in the land. It’s lighter and slimmer than last year’s model (9.9 ounces, 5.5 x 6.25 x 0.23 inches). When compared to its contemporaries, the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 (8.4 ounces, 6 x 5.2 x 0.22 inches unfolded) and the OnePlus Open (8.4 ounces, 6.04 x 5.63 x 0.23 inches unfolded), the Pro Fold still has a chonk factor.

Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold Review: Display

Three times the fun

What’s better than one screen? Three. I’m never going to turn down a bigger screen; that’s part of the reason I fell in love with phablets in the first place. The 8-inch, 2076 x 2152 OLED Super Actua display has a lot to like. It’s slightly bigger than last year’s model (7.8 inches) and has an adaptive refresh rate, or as Google calls it, Smooth Display. Depending on the activity, the phone will adjust the refresh rate to between 1-120Hz because you don’t need 120Hz when you’re just reading an article or comic.

To the naked eye, the panel is an explosion of color. I watched a 4K Dolby Demo video, and it was stunning. From iridescent blue peacock feathers to crisp winter whites and deep emerald greens, the screen was a joy to look at. My only gripes are the bezels, which are a bit too thick for my tastes, and the letterboxing when watching a video or looking at pictures. Of course, you can expand whatever you’re looking at, but you’d often lose big parts of the picture.

Gaming, however, is another story. No matter what I played, whether it was Honkai: Star Rail or Diablo Immortal, the game took up the entirety of the screen. While I expected Star Rail to be bright and beautiful with plenty of neon-hued effects, I was really impressed with how well the phone dealt with Diablo Immortal’s dark atmosphere. Although the atmosphere was gloomy, I could see every disgusting crevice of a monster as it unhinged its bloody maw to spew brackish material my way. It was a grisly, beautiful sight.

I used the phone to read a few comics and the early a few chapters of “Children of Virtue and Vengeance.” I also read through some of my favorite news sites and watched more than a few game theory videos. Multitasking was a blast with two big screens to work on instead of the half screen I’m relegated to with my Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra.

Speaking of which, as nice as the Pro Fold’s massive screen, it’s missing something – a pen. As a huge S-Pen user, the Pixel 9 Pro Fold is begging for a stylus. All I wanted to do was to launch one of my coloring book apps and let loose. And while I could use my finger, this type of activity would be better served with a stylus with 4,092 levels of pressure sensitivity. It seems only natural as foldables tend to target heavy productivity uses.

But enough about the massive interior screen. There’s a gorgeous screen on the front of the Pro Fold that’s begging for some attention. At 6.3 inches, the front Actua display is only slightly less massive than its interior counterpart. But that doesn’t mean it’s less pretty with its 1080 x 2424 OLED panel and 20:9 aspect ratio. And just like the larger interior screen, the front screen is plenty bright. Google claims all three displays support up to a maximum of 1,800 nits for HDR content with a peak brightness of 2,700 nits for everything else.

View at Best Buy

Walking around the neighborhood, the front display was my main driver. And what I can say is that it worked just like a regular phone touchscreen because, well, it is a regular screen. Sure, it has some fancy features it can employ, including Made You Look, a camera feature that summons an interactive picture designed to make a grumpy kid or adult break out into a smile for that perfect shot.

Next up you have Dual Screen Preview and Rear Cam Selfie. The former allows the subjects of your next shot to see how they look before you snap the shot, while the latter will enable you to use the rear-facing camera for a higher-res selfie. It can also be used during Google Meet Calls. And finally, there’s a dual screen Live Translation mode so both parties can have an unstilted conversation.

Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold Review: UI and AI

Kind of like the iPhone

I’ve always been a faithful Android owner; before that, I was all about Palm. Needless to say, I’m pretty well versed in Android and all its ins and outs. And then came the Pro Fold with its iPhone-esque gesture controls instead of my beloved home, recent, and back buttons. For a few minutes, up was down, left was right, and I was straight-up discombobulated. But even this old dog can learn some new tricks.

It only took a moment to acclimate myself to the new world order. Soon, I was swiping up to dismiss apps to the best of my abilities. And as seamless as the gesture controls are, I was relieved to see my good old buttons hiding out in the Display settings menu. What I didn’t see, and won’t until October, is Android 15. Although this is a new Pixel phone, I can access the beta version of the operating system. For this review, I am stuck with Android 14.

Since it’s a Google Phone, the company has promised seven years of OS and security updates. That’s much longer than OnePlus, which only gives the Open, the company’s foldable, which only gets four years of Android updates and five years of security updates.

AI this, AI that. Google has one of the more robust offerings out of all the current phones pushing AI. Yes, there are photo-editing apps aplenty, but what Google’s doing with Magic Editor is wild. We’ll start tame with Auto Frame which uses generative AI to reframe your shot. Have you ever thought you took the perfect shot, only to discover you were zoomed too far? If you have any new Pixels, you can use Zoom Enhance to bring those far-away details with up to 15x zoom.

But the star of the show has to be Reimagine. Using one of your photos, Generative AI, and a couple of well-thought-out words, Reimagine can swap out the background to just about whatever you want. And for the folks that are always taking the picture but never in it, try the Add Me feature, which lets you take the picture, switch places with someone in the original pic, and have them snap another pic with you in it. From there, Add Me stitches the two images into one group shot.

I used Pixel Studio to create some prospective logos for an upcoming project and was impressed by the results. They’ll be a good reference point for a graphic designer.

Google is also using Pixels to continue making the case for Gemini Advanced. Although free, Google plans to charge $20/month to access its AI. So, what will $240/year get you? A chattier digital assistant. After you pick your preferred voice, you can gab it up with Gemini in real time.

Gemini can help you organize screenshots and calls by recording and summarizing them via the Pixel Screenshots and Call Notes features. And while that’s all well and good, there’s the issue of privacy. For Gemini to work its magic. You have to consent to Google keeping a record of your calls, screenshots, and other user-generated content. It’s going to be something to consider in the coming months.

Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold Review: Performance

I expect more from such a premium product

Another of my ongoing issues with foldable phones is that OEMs aren’t differentiating us from their higher-tier devices. It’s even worse with Google, as even the entry-level Pixel 9 has the same processor as the Pro XL and the Pro Fold. I mean, come on, guys, work with me here. For a $1,800 phone, give me the most powerful chipset you can and at least adjust the clock speed, especially since the processor has to support three screens—Le sigh.

Still, the foldable endured my abuse and emerged relatively unscathed. I launched nearly every app on the phone and opened 30 tabs on Google Chrome, and I didn’t notice any real slowdown. I played about an hour of Honkai: Star Rail, and while I didn’t get any stutter, the phone’s rear panel only took 10 minutes to heat up.

Cameras

An incremental bump

The Pixel line has made a name for itself in the smartphone camera arena. So much so the company felt comfortable keeping the 48-megapixel main camera (ƒ/1.7 aperture) and 10.8MP 5x telephoto (ƒ/3.1 aperture) rear cameras. However, the ultrawide camera got a bump to 10.5MP (ƒ/2.2 aperture) from last year’s 10.8MP sensor. It’s nice, but it’s kind of a letdown seeing that Google outfitted the other Pixel 9s with 48MP ultrawide cameras. On another note, the front and interior cameras were upgraded from 8MP to 10MP.

For my photo testing with the Pro Fold, I walked around my neighborhood, catching some of the artwork. The Pro Fold takes great pics without using Google’s prodigious editing tools. The Pro Fold’s images looked more natural than those of other cameras, such as the iPhone 15 Pro Max. They didn’t have that lurid glow from an oversaturated HDR shot.

I took a few close-up shots of my puppies napping on a lazy Sunday afternoon. Once you get over their sheer cuteness, you’ll notice the finer details, such as their whiskers and individual brindle patterns. In an awake shot of Natasha, you can see her light gray eyes.

I used the wide and ultrawide cameras to capture some street art around the neighborhood; as expected, the ultrawide captured more scenery than a regular wide shot. However, no matter the lens, I got rich color and crisp details. In one of my favorite shots, you can see the jagged edges of the peeling paint. In a shot of a door with designs sculpted around the arch, you can see pockmarks and small fissures throughout the structure. You can see plenty of detail in most of my plant life shots, such as leaf veins and spines.

Although I would have loved a more powerful telephoto sensor, the Pro Fold can snap pretty good shots in the right condition. The shot of the train passing by was taken two city blocks away. Once the train passed, I took another few shots of the artwork on the side of the building and was impressed with the level of detail the camera captured. The camera didn’t do as well from farther distances or at night, as my shot of the Manhattan skyline was blurry in places. The individual building lights looked like shiny blobs.

I captured three selfies: one with the rear camera, one with the external front shooter, and one with the interior camera. The rear selfie shot was the best, as my skin and hoodie looked the best. You can even see one of the rubber bands holding one of my locs in a twist sticking out.

Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold Review: Battery

Will it fold on battery life?

Google’s promising all-day battery life from the Pro Fold and its 4,650mAh battery (we’ll see about that). It’s worth noting that the other Pixels in this generation have larger batteries. The Pro XL has a 5,060mAh battery, while the Pro and Pixel 9 have 4,700mAh. While I’m currently running the battery test, what I can tell you is that I got about 10 hours out of the phone before I had to put it on the charger. However, keep in mind that I was pushing the phone on some heavy-duty tasks, including taking a lot of photos and videos and gaming for over an hour.

Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold Review: Verdict

The Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold is a great foldable that improves and builds on the foundation set by its predecessor. It’s thinner and lighter, but it’s still one of the heaviest foldables on the market. The AI features for photo and video editing are impressive, as are the ones designed for productivity and organization. I’m unsure if people will pay $20/month for the pleasure.

Each of the displays is vibrant and dazzlingly bright. And although the Tensor G4 processor can’t hang with the iPhone 15 Pro Max, it can still handle your work and play load. Just be mindful of that rear panel’s potential to get noticeably warm. As usual, the cameras are one of the best things about the Pixel device. I wish we could have gotten a more substantial upgrade on the telephoto camera. And as a selfish want, foldable makers need to start seriously thinking about adding pens to the mix.

The Pixel 9 Pro Fold is a great choice for anyone looking for a great camera, compelling AI, and multiple beautiful screens capable of so much multitasking. But I’m not ready to make the $1,800 investment. Maybe next year.

View at Best Buy