Review: Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold, first time here and well worth the trip

90%

Awesome

Two phones in one! incredibly useful, multitasking experience that fits comfortably in your pocket. Oh and it's a Pixel.

The Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold is making its long-awaited appearance in Australia this year and after using it for the last week I can easily say that they have hit the ground running with a phone that can rival even the mainstays of our foldable device market.

Starting at $2,699 RRP, the Pixel 9 Pro Fold sits atop the pricing pile of the Google smartphone lineup and when you get two phones in one it is easy to see why.  Available in Obsidian and Porcelain the phone is a great looking foldable, mostly following the design language Google has switched to this year.  

Design and hardware are outstanding

The Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold is a smartphone that looks incredibly similar to the Pixel 9 and the Pixel 9 Pro released just a few weeks ago.

The front of the Fold looks a lot like the Pixel 9 and that is because it has the exact same 6.3-inch display on the front as the Pixel 9, albeit with bigger bezels.  The left hand side of the Pixel 9 Pro Fold houses the hinge which is why that side of the phone sticks out more — see below images.

The Fold, when folded over, has the dimensions 155.2mm height, 77.1mm width and 10.5mm depth whereas the Pixel 9 is 152.8mm height x 72.0mm width x 8.5mm depth.  The differences are not massive and when they are in your pocket you do not notice the difference but when holding in your hands the difference is very distinct.

The Pixel 9 Pro Fold may have an extra display and a hinge mechanism, so it is amazing that it only weighs 59 grams more than the Pixel 9.  The Pixel 9 Pro Fold is a heavy phone though, weighing 257 grams.  That 6.3-inch outer display is the same as it is in the Pixel 9 — bright, vibrant, responsive and smooth, although it is only 1080P.  It is capable of refresh rates of 60-120Hz making for a smooth experience. There is a selfie camera in this outer display, a 10MP camera, which works reasonably well, but is there really that much call for better selfie cameras anymore?  Luckily this camera has a better selfie camera anyway — read on.

The power button and volume rocker on the Pixel 9 Pro Fold are in the exact same location as they are on the Pixel 9, and they look identical.  Google has done a great job keeping the design language consistent from one device to another.  The only difference is the rear of the phone. Instead of the new rear camera pill that we saw on the other Pixel 9 smartphones the Pixel 9 Pro Fold has a more traditional smartphone camera island — I dare say because of space constraints.  The phone is so incredibly thin I dare say there wasn’t much in the way of ways they could make everything fit.

 

  The rear surface of the Fold is a matte glass finish, the same as that on the Pixel 9 Pro XL and I love it.  Fingerprint proof (if you decide not to wrap it in a case) and stylish it screams premium, as does the matte metal rails along the side of it.

Inside the phone is a big 8-inch Super Actua Flex OLED display (LTPO) with a resolution of 2067 x 2152 pixels at 373 PPI.  It is smooth to use, partly because the refresh rate will change from 1 to 120Hz as required and partly due to Google’s Pixel Experience. The display is really good to use and although you can feel it is not the same as a standard display it looks amazing, considering it wasn’t that long ago when foldables were something out of a sci-fi movie.

As with all foldables, there is a crease present on the display and while it is there and you may try and look closely at it for the first few times you use the device, it is so minimal that not only does it not affect how you use the phone but you also barely or even rarely notice it at all after a day or two.

The inner display once again has a selfie camera, the third such one on this phone.  I used this for Zoom calls and while it is good enough for that it is much better to use the rear camera system for selfies instead.

As for durability, the cover screen is covered by scratch-resistant Corning Gorilla Glass Victus 2 with the same covering on the rear silky matte back.  The Pixel Pro 9 Fold is IPX8 water resistant which is decent considering the hinge is the obvious weak point with foldables.

Connectivity-wise, Google has included a load of connectivity features in the Pixel 9 Pro XL including Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth v5.3, the full suite of GPS, GLONASS, BAIDU etc. support, and there’s also a new Ultra-wide band chip inside for proximity reliant features like unlocking your phone with your Pixel Watch 3, finding lost devices and more.  

Buttery-smooth performance

The Pixel 9 Pro Fold sports Google’s new Tensor G4 processor giving it all the power, performance and AI chops that appeared on the Pixel 9 and Pixel 9 Pro.  Check out thos ereviews for more information but in my use, some of the new Gemini AI features are gimmicks and some are great.  It’s hit and miss and I suggest you try them all out and see what works best for you. I loved the integration with the Pixel Screenshots app but I don’t need Gemini AI to write a text message for me. Day to day performance was as you would expect from Google — smooth, flowing and consistent.  A Pixel Experience needs to be seen to be believed.  If you haven’t experienced it you don’t know just what it is and will most likely underestimate it.  

Google has advertised that some games will be coming with support for dual screen mode where the game is split into two and the bottom screen is the controller for the game but at this stage their beta testing links were not working so I was unable to test them out.  The current games listed are:

• Asphalt Legends Unite
• Disney Speedstorm
• Dungeon Hunter 5
• Modern Combat 5

Some apps don’t play well with the larger dual screen but a simple solution is to display the app in a split screen mode — drag and drop a different app icon to the other side — and the app will then display in a more traditional way.  

 

Camera

The Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold sports a triple rear camera but each camera in the setup is inferior to that in the Pixel 9.  This is disappointing given the price point the Pixel 9 Pro Fold is set at.  At that price I’d want and expect the best camera possible.

Now do not think that the Pixel 9 Pro Fold does not take great pictures, because it does and thanks to Google’s computational photography the images are still excellent.  It could just be better, that is all.

The triple rear camera includes:

• Wide Camera – 48 MP Quad PD wide camera, ƒ/1.7 aperture
• Ultrawide Camera – 10.5 MP ultrawide camera with autofocus, 127° field of view and Macro Focus
• Telephoto Camera – 10.8 MP 5x telephoto camera, Super Res Zoom up to 20x

There is also a multi-zone LDAF (laser detect auto focus) sensor, a spectral and flicker sensor and optical and electronic image stabilisation on wide and telephoto.

With all these it should take good pictures, and it does.  As you can see below the images are bright and although not as natural as Google’s images have been in the past, they are still less processed and less saturated than some other manufacturers.

The selfies with the front camera are decent but the ones taken with the triple rear camera setup are far superior, as you would expect.  There is a quick shortcut whenever you open the camera app to take a selfie using the rear camera — and you should.  It is easy to do and the resultant image is much better quality than the single 10MP selfies cameras can produce.

 

Battery and charging

I was able to get a full day’s use out of the 4,650 mAh battery in the Pixel 9 Pro Fold and considering that was over an hour of Bluetooth music streaming at the gym, over two hours of wireless Android Auto and using the inner 8-inch display more than half the screen on time (6hrs, 15min) I was impressed.  In total that was about 12 hours in total and I use my phone a lot (too much).

There’s no charger included in the box but you do get a USB Type-C cable. The Pixel 9 Pro Fold does support a faster charging speed, as do the rest of the Pixel 9 series – if you purchase their new 45W USB Type-C charger for $49.99.  The fine print is that Google, in the specs, do not list in the specs they gave us just how long it takes to charge the Fold to 55% like they do the other Pixel smartphones.  Some spec sites list it as 21W wired charging which is a lot less than the 37W the Pixel 9 Pro XL charges at.

 

Of significance also is that they list the Fold as supporting “Wireless charging” whereas they list the other Pixel phones as “Fast Wireless charging.”  In my testing, the wireless charging does seem to be slower than the other Pixel phones but haven’t had the chance to get actual numbers yet.  The same spec sites list the wireless charging as 7.5W wireless compared to 23W with the Pixel stand and 12W on the Pixel 9 Pro XL.  The wireless charging difference is most likely due to the difference in thickness of the charging coil section of the phone.

I should mention here that if you have a Pixel Stand or Pixel Stand 2, the Fold won’t work out of the box with your Google wireless charger.  This is due to them locating the charging coils in a different location to every other Pixel phone that has wireless charging.  Strange decision but I dare say space was the contributing factor once again.  To make up for this I added a 1cm piece of gym flooring foam to the bottom on the phone rest on the charger and it charged just fine.

   

Software

Google is launching the Pixel 9 series with Android 14, an unusual occurrence given the latest version of Android is on-board. The Pixel 9 phones will receive Android 15 as soon as it’s released – likely in October based on recent leaks – and will continue to receive OS updates, and monthly Security updates and Pixel Feature drops for seven years.

Just as with the other Pixel 9 phones, Gemini is front and centre.  I’m still not a massive fan of it and no matter how much I play with it, it just doesn’t seem to be fully ready for prime time just yet.

Some of the photography AI enhancements work as they should but others are very hit and miss.  You can check out Dan’s review of the Pixel 9 Pro if you want a more in-depth analysis of Gemini and the AI on the Pixel 9 smartphones – he did such a good job of it, I’m not going to rehash his great work here.

Folding software

The only folding software that you can change is what happens to apps when you close/fold the phone.  You can choose whether you want the app to open automatically, not at all or only with a swipe interaction on the display.  I chose the swipe because I don’t want every app every time opening on the cover display when I close the phone.

 

  Google has optimised their own apps for the large screen foldable format and I love their new layouts.  Hopefully other app developers get on board – maybe we’ll see it in a few years when foldable pricing drops and we see more people buying them (fingers crossed).

 

Who buys the Pixel 9 Pro Fold?

The Pixel 9 Pro Fold is a great phone and has a good camera, two great displays, has all of Google’s Pixelly goodness, looks stylish and feels premium.  It would be perfect if it had the best Pixel camera possible and faster charging solutions. The large 8-inch display is magnificent to use while the outer display can be used all the time as it is a standard sized smartphone display.  When folded the Pixel 9 Pro Fold is still relatively thin and in the pocket feels the exact same thickness as the Pixel 9 Pro XL.  This is a big drawcard for it.  

If you want a phone that you can use to watch media in a large format, multitask on the single display like with a tablet, and runs smooth software with some of the best AI around then the Pixel 9 Pro Fold is for you.

The only real negative is the price. $2,699 is steep but unfortunately this is a standard price for a large screen foldable smartphone in 2024.  If you have the money then I can say the Pixel 9 Pro Fold is worth every penny.

The Pixel 9 Pro Fold is available now starting at $2,699 RRP for the 256GB version and $2,899 RRP for the 512GB version in Obsidian and Porcelain colours. Get it from the Google Store, JB HIFI, Telstra, Optus, Harvey Norman, Officeworks, and Vodafone.