I’ve been pretty vocal on folding tablets. I’m conflicted on the segment, and I believe that (even with a few years in the market) we’re still looking at a public BETA test for this concept.

I was (and still am) a big fan of the Surface Duo, but folks seem to forget that I gave a “niche of a niche” verdict for the Duo 2. I prefer Dual Display, but there was a SMALL segment of consumers who I believed would be a good fit for that device.

There’s a specific philosophy that needs to be addressed comparing something like a Pixel Fold with a Duo. They both have a hinge that folds the device in half, but they represent VERY different solutions.

The Pixel Fold is a traditional tablet, offering a larger unbroken canvas to work with. The Duo is a multi-tasking monster, delivering a more direct path to using two apps at once.

Getting my bias out of the way, after three months, two flights, and a road trip, how has the Fold treated me?

Pretty well. There’s a lot of potential here.

Disclosure

This coverage brought to you in part thanks to the folks at #TeamPixel and a #GiftFromGoogle, who supplied a Pixel Fold for me to test drive and share my earnest thoughts. No influence directly from Google or associated PR was offered or accepted in writing this review.

Design

One of the major aspects of shopping a folding tablet, the hinge is critical. I do not like the shape of the Galaxy Z Fold. I like the wider “outer screen” style of the Duo, and the Pixel Fold slims the whole affair down for a more reasonable “phone mode”.

It’s chunky, and a bit heavy, but it’s impressive to see Google deliver their first folding tablet at nearly the same weight as the Duo 2. It’s a far better communicator “phone” than the compromises I lived with on the Duo.

Opening the hinge, we’re greeted by a square-ish rectangle, nearly 4:3 aspect ratio, and with the plastic screen crease running right through the center of the screen vertically. For someone who enjoys split-screening apps, this is the orientation I want. The crease acts as the boundary between two apps in a vertical orientation.

If the hinge were the other direction, that crease would be running horizontally through both apps. I like that less.

4:3 is an interesting shape. It’s versatile, and it’s nice using this canvas for writing and spreadsheets. However, it’s not always great for media. Classic TV looks great. I love watching Brisco County Jr FULL screen.

The landscape view for a movie though, is roughly the same amount of screen space as a larger slate phone.

We might have better experiences with gaming. I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the Android games that seem to understand the screen they’re played on. The view takes a moment to get used to (especially if you’re more familiar with widescreen monitors), but there is more space to work with. Controls don’t have to be cramped or block the view of your game play.

Before we leave the design, it’s been interesting to hear some of the complaints about build quality and durability.

I, like many, were concerned about the accounts of inside screens dying if grit ended up inbetween the screen protector and the bezel. I took a long time getting a feel for the Pixel Fold before really taking it out into the field.

I never want to be cavalier with people’s concerns, especially with such an expensive gadget, but I also feel we techies have done a MISERABLE job of examining marketing claims, and comparing ads against real world use.

I wrote a separate article about the problems with folding phone marketing, but the main point of that article is represented well here. I don’t believe Google has done a good job using their ads to help set consumer expectations on how someone should use a folding tablet.

We should be frank about the use of a $1800+ foldable, and define what that use looks like. It will not resemble the kind of use we take for granted on traditional slate smartphones. I feel it’s critical to expose consumers to that idea more directly. We know the vast majority of consumers aren’t watching tech videos, so we have to hope commercials will tell a reasonable story and help us educate.

I appreciate the folks who have been using foldables for a while, and “my phone never had no issue”, but singular examples of phones surviving specific handling isn’t instructive as we look towards trends for consumers. Daily lifestyle abuse at scale will look a LOT different than one tech reviewer recounting the aftermath of a single drop. We’ll probably never get that kind of broad data from manufacturers.

The norm we see today, of people using phones on contracts with cracked screens, is not a future you can replicate with the inner display on a foldable.

Back to the screen protector trench, I hate being “that guy”, but it will really be up to the user to assess every situation, and judge whether they can safely use the inner display. It took me a while to get a feel for the Pixel Fold, where that concern is different than other hinged dual-display devices. Sure, a Duo or an LG were fragile, but they still had glass screens, and users could apply bezel-to-bezel plastic screen guards for extra protection.

I appreciate Samsung’s current marketing efforts, as they highlight a specific user “flow”. Out and about, you have a skinny phone with a glass screen. When it’s safe to sit down and focus on something, you can pop open the larger display. I feel that’s the only correct recommendation for folding tablets.

I do not use the inner display much when I’m out and about. When I do open it outside, I am CRITICALLY careful about how I use the plastic screen. With every interaction, I find I’m taking care to clean the screen before shutting it.

As such, the design of a foldable requires more consideration than a traditional phone. It requires entirely new habits for handling the device. There’s a LOT less tolerance for an owner making a mistake in handling the phone.

The other issue I’m torn on, I’ve had several friends complain about the angle of the hinge when open. The Pixel Fold seems to naturally open “not quite flat”. I lack the tools to measure exactly, but instead of a 180-degree alignment of panels, mine looks like 178-degrees-ish, unless I give the hinge an extra little push.

It seems like it could be a machining compromise. It might make this tablet feel like Google hasn’t put in the QA care and attention in shipping the Fold, so I understand the folks who “can’t unsee” that angle. It’s another situation that will be influenced by the user’s style though. I tend to hold my foldables like little books. I was VERY vocal about how much I loved the original Duo for being a little digital moleskine notebook. My opinion hasn’t changed on the Pixel Fold.

I can’t “unsee” a horizontal crease on the Galaxy Z Fold, but I’m able to look past a two-degree deficit on the Pixel’s hinge. I’d be more concerned about that angle if the Pixel Fold were symmetrical like the Duo 1. The Duo 1 is the only version of this idea that has laid perfectly flat on both sides. You need a hinge that perfectly flattens when there is no camera bulge to tip one side of the tablet.

Everyone’s tolerance for design will be different.

Displays

High resolution and high refresh rates, with very good max brightness. Table stakes for a premium phone, and the Pixel Fold delivers well. The screens are pretty, colorful, and fluid. Showing other folks the phone, every reaction has been positive.

Reinforcing the idea of how this phone should be used, the outer display is rated at a higher peak brightness than the inner display. Almost as if there is an expectation that the outer display is a better solution for on-the-go phone needs, and the inner display is better used in a more controlled setting.

The screens are great, but I do believe some folks will be concerned about performance in bright conditions and in warmer climates. The Pixel Fold runs warm when all parts of the phone are being used. SOC plus radios plus screen while pulling power from the battery. All these parts add heat, and if the ambient temperature is already high, you will have brief interactions with the peak brightness modes.

While driving through Arizona over the summer, I clocked one brightness boost at roughly twenty seconds. The screen popped. It was easy to read, and then nearly immediately started dimming. We shouldn’t be terribly surprised, the air temperature was around 115 degrees Fahrenheit, but it is a disappointingly short window to see something on your screen.

None of these high brightness modes are intended to be used for long periods of time, and all phones will eventually dim, but we usually hope for more time than the Pixel Fold can sustain. In my limited testing at home, the Pixel 7 Pro is consistently able to outpace the Fold in bright ambient light.

Performance

I’m reviewing the 256GB storage model. Both storage options for the Pixel Fold come with 12GB of RAM.

I won’t be breaking any crazy news talking about Tensor 2 performance in the second half of 2023. By the time you read this, we’ll be starting conversations about the Tensor 3.

Still, this Tensor line of silicon brings up an interesting conversation about timing and product releases. I don’t have confirmation from anyone at Google, this is my own speculation, but I think Google still might be nearly a year off their original plans for Pixel phones and custom chips.

I believe the original intention was to launch a Tensor powered phone with the Pixel 5. The Pixel 5 we actually received feels a lot like what a Pixel 5A might have resembled, and the Pixel 5A 5G that actually shipped looks like a good candidate for what would have been a Pixel 5A Plus.

When we look at Tensor and Tensor 2 as “computers”, the design and technology employed looks like a direct competitor for Qualcomm and Mediatek chips released a year prior. Tensor 3 looks like it will fall behind the trend of what Qualcomm will show in the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3. We should expect each generation of Tensor to make small steps in catching up to the premium chips available broadly for other Android phones.

As a traditional CPU + GPU, the Tensor 2 loses significantly in synthetic tests like Geekbench and Antutu. Yet, there are specific instances where Google’s flavor of a phone chip is capable of surprisingly competitive results. Google has always demonstrated an aptitude for editing photo and video data, and the Tensor 2 is able to hang with significantly more powerful phones in apps like LumaFusion.

The Pixel 7 Pro remains the fastest phone of its generation at rendering UHD video, even outpacing the iPhone 14 Pro, which is surprising given how well optimized LumaFusion is for iOS.

The issue with a foldable though, we actually have LESS surface area to help with heat than on a traditional phone. In any given task longer than reading a text message, we can consistently count on the Pixel 7 Pro performing better than the Fold. The Fold stays close, but the 7 Pro handles heat better.

The heat from the SOC and the radio concentrates near the camera bar. Those components aren’t able to “vent” heat out of the display when the phone is closed. It’s easier to heat soak a Pixel Fold using it when closed, which is primarily how you’ll use it out and about.

Yet, for the numerous issues weighing against the Fold, this Pixel is a robust performer, and we have to get specific about where another phone will outperform it. With some eye on the limitations of the Samsung produced chip and radios, I’ve encountered only a handful of situations where I really felt held back by the Tensor 2.

One immediate example would be recording long video clips. It’s one of the primary weaknesses of this Pixel era. If you can’t shoot shorter clips, and let the phone recover between shots, it’s not particularly difficult to get the phone’s camera to lock the shutter button on you.

Generationally, I don’t think it controversial to say that Qualcomm and Mediatek chips will also be better for gaming. The Pixel Fold is capable, and I still had numerous fun experience playing arcade-y titles. Though, the Fold gets bogged down easier on games like Bloons TD6 than I experienced on the Pixel Tablet.

That we often see synthetic bench-marking scores nearly TWICE as high comparing Tensor 2 against a Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, we rarely see exactly that kind of performance deficit when playing actual games. For example, a great PC port like Alien Isolation plays great on most recent phones, but can’t quite sustain consistent 30FPS on the Fold. The actual difference in game play though is more like 5FPS, not 15. This will also be felt more by folks who are interested in game emulation.

This isn’t to say that performance shouldn’t influence someone’s purchasing decision. I just happen to viscerally disagree with the notion that we need to over-buy compute power today, to handle the app and OS bloat of tomorrow. I doubt very much that this phone’s SOC will struggle four years from now with the tasks we perform today.

I find it far more likely, for the person who might try to live out of a folding phone for five years, that other issues will degrade the experience before the SOC starts to fail us. I think battery degradation will be a bigger issue for long term performance.

If Tensor 2 can cover your needs today, I find little issue recommending a Tensor 2 powered phone to someone today.

If you would like some of those more granular examinations on phone performance, I publish my testing results and charts on Patreon.com/somegadgetguy.

In terms of real-world use though, foldables are fun for getting a little more space when editing content. Road tripping through the southwest, and editing a podcast with TK Bay, audio editing software looks REAL good on that larger canvas. It’s absolutely an area where I can agree with Fold fans about the limitation of a dual display device.

Similarly, expanding the canvas for video editing is just a joy. LumaFusion already handles tablet form factors well. There’s a nice synergy here, as the cameras are pretty good. It’s fun to shoot some family clips, and then finish a video directly from the same device. We can always do that from regular phones too, but more space for editing certainly helps.

Software

I’ve been using the Pixel Fold to test the Android 14 Beta builds. I’m not sure that’s an entirely “fair” way to review the phone, but it’s been an interesting way to watch Google’s process in launching a new OS. More a look at trends than a completely consumer focused experience.

There’s a lot on the Pixel Fold that feels familiar from using Samsung Z Folds. There’s a slightly more phone focused experience from the outer cover display, and a slightly more tablet influenced UI on the inner display.

The transition from Phone to Tablet is reassuringly smooth. Open an app from the cover display, and it re-forms on the inner display. Numerous Google apps handle this transition well. It’s funny that the more technical apps like LumaFusion also handle the transition well, but many of our social media apps reformat to an uglier use of space on the inner display.

I was excited to see in Android 14, a specific tool to change aspect ratio for different apps that aren’t aware of tablet sized screens. To varying degrees, it works well. Flickr, for example, will shift to a two panel view that looks a LOT better for a photo sharing app than Instagram’s horrible single-image view.

 

I really don’t understand how Instagram maintains such a stranglehold on photo sharing. It really is a garbage experience, but I digress.

The Phone-to-Tablet transition is great, but I wish there was a Tablet-to-Phone transition too. Closing the Fold just turns the screens off.

I’m happy to see more conveyance for tools in the multitasking view, but I feel we can take this farther. We get options for screenshots and split-screen, but users still need to know they can long press on an app icon for additional options.

The Pixel Fold plays to Google’s recent strengths in software and services. Favorites like call screening and Magic Eraser are expected. Face un-blurring is super handy.

Android 14’s task bar helps make better use of a larger screen, though I still feel like multi-tasking is backwards from other solutions. I know I was familiar with the Duo, but I liked the “half screen first” way of opening apps, and the gestures for moving apps on the Duo was more PC-like.

It’s going to take me a while to make split-screen on other foldables muscle memory. When I know I want two apps side by side, I’m used to just opening two apps. The Pixel’s gestures help, but Android’s native solution is a unique process users need to learn. It’s not a familiar swipe we’ve encountered from other touchscreen solutions.

The main hurdle is the inconsistency with how 3rd party apps and games handle the side-by-side split screen on this canvas. Unlike dual display phones, that more seamlessly treat each “half screen” like a separate phone, it seems like every app reacts differently to Android 14 on foldables. I wanted to show a screen shot of me streaming TMNT Mutant Mayhem while playing TMNT Shredder’s Revenge, but that failed pretty hard.

The apps wouldn’t orient properly, and Shredder’s Revenge would force quite after the initial start up screen. I eventually got Plex and Implosion to work, but the aspect ratio on the split screen is all wrong, making the game almost unplayable.

We’ll of course EVENTUALLY figure this out, but this was a style of use that LG and Surface devices handled far more consistently. For now, users will just have to trial-and-error their way through which apps work and which don’t.

Cameras

Which brings us to one of the crown jewel features on a Pixel, and the cameras are a joy to use for those point and shoot situations. Google continues to offer the most practical and streamlined experience for “take phone from pocket, touch shutter, put phone back in pocket” photography.

It’s still a critical part of the conversation though that we properly categorize phones. Techies could be describing this stuff better to their audiences. The Pixel Fold is one of the most expensive devices on the market today, but that doesn’t mean it compares against the best camera-focused phones of the year. The dollar amount does not equate to “everything on the device is the best”. These clarifications are important, and it’s fair to draw those lines in the sand.

The Pixel Fold has very good cameras, FOR A FOLDING MINI TABLET.

What folks will appreciate though, is how much this experience FEELS like the Pixel 7 Pro. The 7 Pro will absolutely outperform the Fold when you’re pushing the cameras harder, in more challenging or mixed lighting, or shooting at night or in dim indoor conditions. The 7 Pro just has more space to include better camera sensors.

However, the way a Pixel chews up image data, results are much closer than I was expecting for daily “lifestyle” photography.

This is reinforced by the camera choices included. Ultra-Wide and Wide cameras are familiar, but I was very happy to see a 5X telephoto camera using a periscope lens. Considering the design restrictions of making a foldable (where we expect panels to be thinner than traditional phones), using that depth to give us more “zoom” was the correct choice. The Pixel Fold uses a smaller telephoto sensor to save on space, but the extra optical reach is a great feature in this market segment.

We might consider the Pixel Fold’s telephoto a “compromise” compared against the Pixel 7 Pro, but it happens to be a TINY bit larger sensor than the medium telephoto on the Galaxy S23 Ultra. Comparable performance in dim conditions, I tend to prefer the look of Pixel photos.

Unfortunately, Google seems to be copying one of the more frustrating decisions from Samsung. The telephoto on the Pixel is really a 10MP sensor, and often seems to be cropped to 8MP to reach the full 5X zoom, but then photos are up-scaled to 12MP.

This “made up” resolution really isn’t necessary, results in slightly larger file sizes, and contributes little extra detail. There’s nothing wrong with saving a 10MP image. This move to make it look like all the cameras are the same resolution, is obfuscating a concern I’m not sure many consumers would really have. It seems almost cynical, like:

“iPhone cameras are all 12MP, so we should make it LOOK like all OUR cameras are 12MP too!”

When really, the vast majority of consumers would never notice. But, showing them the mismatch, makes them “trust” their camera a little less.

One last point of appreciation though, even for the thermal limits, and the camera sensor concerns, the Pixel Fold has been a fantastic test bed for Google’s new camera app. The new layout is not a significant departure from the Android 13 camera app. The major change seems to be moving the last “top bezel” controls down to a space near the shutter. Also, there is no separate menu for “video”. Instead, we have a toggle for photos and videos, then each applicable menu mode changes depending on whether we want to shoot a still or a movie.

Everything else that I like remains. The layout moves controls to the right third of your screen, and blocks VERY little of your viewfinder. It’s one of the few Androids that allows you to focus on the far right edge of your screen while shooting video for example.

The Pixel auto-focus is also one of my favorites for being so “sticky”. Tapping once on a person delivers some of the best subject tracking available on any phone, and it’s the native focus users use. It’s not a setting buried in menus. Freeing the user up to slightly re-compose their frame, without thinking about changing the focus on their subject, is a wonderful adaptation.

And lastly, the Pixel Fold joins a preciously small list of phones that can handle the extreme task of switching camera lenses while shooting 4K60 video. At present, I’m not aware of any other phone brands that can handle that transition across all three rear camera sensors without stopping the clip to switch sensors.

Road Trip

As a short chat, taking this phone on a road trip through rural New Mexico was kind of terrifying.

Early into my ownership, while I was still building some expectations on how to use it, this is not a phone I feel comfortable recommending for sandy, rocky, mountain conditions. My Pixel Fold survived fine, which should contribute to many of the folks saying “I’ve never had a problem with MY foldable”, but I certainly CONSIDERED the use of my phone a lot more than I would have using a non-hinged phone.

I was anxious about grit getting in the main display or in the hinge, so it almost exclusively stayed closed.

I’ve been on location shoots for films and TV, where we often employ tablets to get our work done, sync cameras, check scripts, and this WOULD be a great use case for a foldable. However, a static tablet won’t have the same concerns of bending, and it’ll have a glass display to be a little more resistant to scratches and damage.

I have to THINK about the Fold: “Is it ok to use here?”

Maybe my other tech reviewer pals have trained their expectations over successive generations of Galaxy Z Folds, and they’re familiar enough with these products to “feel” where this is appropriate, but I know I’m not there yet. I know the vast majority of consumers will not be that familiar with this hardware if they decide to take the plunge on a foldable.

Like my affinity for the Duo though, the Pixel Fold is a joy to use for travel. It can help simplify your tech bag. With some modest compromises, I find it entirely capable of replacing a laptop for a significant amount of work. It delivers entertainment well. It’s good for gaming.

It’s flexible and versatile, which makes it easier to use on small surfaces like hotel room desks or airplane trays. It’s often faster than a good mid-spec laptop at tasks like video editing. Pairing it with a couple universal accessories, like a keyboard, mouse, and laptop hub, makes for an eminently capable portable computer.

The main omission for me is the same “rock in my shoe” shared with previous Pixel launches. This phone is too powerful to omit video output from the USB-C port. It’s a constant blemish on the Pixel experience, where we COULD push the utility of a phone farther by connecting portable monitors or TVs. I’ve become a huge fan of AR Glasses, and Pixel owners don’t get to play with those options. Even the non-Pro iPhone 15, with a USB2 port, is able to share its screen with another display.

Whatever reason Google has listed for not including this functionality, that decision has long outlived its usefulness and needs to be corrected.

Wrap It Up!

This is a critical aspect of the foldable conversation.

These phones are expensive.

The Pixel Fold is almost the same price as buying a Pixel Tablet, a Pixel Watch 2, and a base model Pixel 8 Pro.

We pay a LOT more for the “convenience” of having a phone and a mini-tablet in one device. We need to be extremely critical of how we realize that price premium. We need to be very specific about who will really get $1800 worth of joy out of a foldable.

It makes perfect sense in my brain, that the majority of foldable phones being sold are “flip phone” style devices that are a lot more familiar to the mainstream smartphone user. The mini-tablet form factor is still burdened with similar criticisms as traditional tablets.

“It’s a solution in search of a problem.”

I hear this a lot in reviews, but almost always as a way to end a conversation. Delivered with a shrug, it almost always seems to imply that the reviewer isn’t sure what problems a tablet CAN solve. Which is a shame.

Our phones have never been more capable of displacing laptop-grade computer use.

We can certainly feel SOMETHING in the air right now. A general desire for “the next thing”. Consumers might have been sated with 5G, but that’s largely felt like a bust for significant regions of the globe.

From foldables to AR glasses, we’re approaching a tipping point. It seems like manufacturers are starting to look at the market and are experimenting with different ways to interact with services and data.

I had hoped for this transition to start five years earlier, but we’re here now, and I’m here for it.

What’s difficult to overcome are the consumer expectations primed by science fiction. AR wont be “good enough” until we find a way to magically create the wire frame glasses Tony Stark wears, full of holographic interactions, as a completely separate computing device. Which is of course, completely impossible today.

For tech journalism, anything non-Apple is always a race to the bottom for pricing. Apple is allowed to sell expensive devices, and define their own markets. The Pixel Fold was saddled with expectations that the only way it could be “worth it” was to vastly undercut the Galaxy Z Fold’s price.

There are certainly some criticisms I agree with, especially related to the consistency of performance from the Samsung manufactured components in the Pixel Fold, but there’s also something to appreciate here in the “Google Flavored” version of this concept.

I like picking this device up. I like using it a lot better as I’ve gotten more comfortable with it. I still have to deliver a similar verdict here as I did for the Surface Duo 2. I feel the “mini tablet that turns into a phone” is still something of a public beta test.

I’m encouraged that Google’s first generation of this concept is better polished than I was expecting it to be, but we’re in the wild west for foldable design. These products have not sold at a large enough scale yet to determine what the market prefers for form factor, aspect ratios, functionality, and features.

It’s FAR too early in this market to start demanding fire-sale prices, and the more we lean into that conversation, the more this new style of gadget will seem “cheap” or “common” to consumers. It kills the experimentation before we get a chance to really experiment.

The Pixel Fold is a fun foldable. It’s so good, we should want to make sure we correctly identify who will be a good fit for this gadget.