Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold Review: A Giant Leap Forward

Price When Reviewed

$1799

Best Prices Today: Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold

Google’s original Pixel Fold was a bit of an outlier, launching separately to the brand’s other devices, in between the Pixel 7 series and Pixel 8 series. It was Google’s most premium and expensive handset ever, yet only a few months after its launch, it already felt outdated. It was rocking the Tensor G2, while the Pixel 8 devices had the Tensor G3.

Then there was the design, which was unlike any other foldable on the market, with a wide, squat cover screen that was almost passport-shaped. Not to mention some massive bezels on the inside screen. Some loved it, but many weren’t so convinced.

With the introduction of the Pixel 9 Pro Fold, everything has changed. It’s now part of the mainline Pixel 9 family, which means the specs are bang up to date, and it has a much more traditional shape, almost feeling like a regular candybar handset when folded down.

On first impressions, it seems Google is doing everything right this time around, and it feels like a truly premium flagship foldable. However, the competition is more fierce than ever. Honor’s Magic V3 feels impossibly thin and light, while Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 6 is the brand’s most refined folding handset to date.

Does the Pixel 9 Pro Fold have what it takes to compete? I was determined to find out, and after using it as my main device for the past week, here’s everything I learned.

Design & Build

• 155.2 x 150.2 x 5.1 mm unfolded
• 162.5 x 75.8 x 8.9 mm folded
• IPX8 rated, 257g

The first thing that struck me about the Pixel 9 Pro Fold is how sturdy and well-made it feels. I’ve tried just about every large format foldable in 2024, and something about the Pixel makes it feel more expensive and premium than the rest.

It’s not the slimmest handset around, measuring just under 9mm thick when folded down, and it’s not the lightest either, at 257g. It’s still slimmer than the Z Fold 6, Samsung’s slimmest to date, but I moved into this phone directly after the Honor Magic V3, and it felt very chunky by comparison.

Part of this is due to the boxy, iPhone-like shape. It matches the rest of the Pixel 9 lineup, with flat side rails and flat displays, and I think it looks great. It’s almost exactly the same size as the regular Pixel 9 Pro when folded, just thicker, with a squared-off side for the hinge.

It’s almost exactly the same size as the regular Pixel 9 Pro when folded, just thicker, with a squared-off side for the hinge

This means that using the cover display feels extremely natural. You don’t lose any height like you did on the previous Pixel Fold, and you don’t have a cramped keyboard like you do with the more narrow Z Fold 6.

Unlike the other Pixel 9 models, the Fold has a matt finish on its side rails, and I much prefer it. It’s much less fingerprint-prone and still very grippy. However, the hinge still has that high-gloss smudge magnet finish as you’ll find on the other phones.

Speaking of the hinge, it’s one of the most impressive that I’ve come across, only rivalled by Samsung. It can be adjusted to almost any angle without snapping open or shut. It’s great for when you’re trying to frame a photo in tripod mode, or watching YouTube in flex mode.

Around the back, you get a flat frosted matt rear panel in either Porcelain (off-white) or Obsidian (dark grey/black). The camera island is positioned at the top left, very similar to the older Pixel Fold, and it’s not an oblong bar shape like the rest of the Pixel family. It’s not as iconic, but I think it still looks rather fetching, and it’s wide enough not to introduce wobble when it’s placed on a desk.

One thing I just couldn’t get used to on this phone is the positioning of the volume rocker. It’s really low down, so turning the volume down requires some serious thumb gymnastics when using the phone one-handed. Those with smaller hands may not have as much trouble, but I found it very annoying.

The haptics on this phone are fantastic, and among the best you’ll find on a foldable. The precise strong vibrations feel great when you’re typing quickly, and there’s a satisfying thunk when you toggle a setting on and off.

Screen & Speakers

• Cover: 6.3-inch, 1080 x 2424, 120Hz OLED, 2700 nits
• Main: 8-inch, 2076 x 2152, LTPO OLED, 1800 nits
• Stereo speakers

I’ve already touched on the cover display dimensions, but it’s worth repeating that this phone is almost identically sized to the Pixel 9 Pro. Unlike Samsung’s narrow cover display, using this one doesn’t feel like a compromised experience, and there are only a few tells that you aren’t dealing with a regular slab phone.

Obviously, it’s a thicker and heavier phone, but the bezels on the cover display are also much chunkier. It’s not something that really bothered me in use, but it looks a little dated compared to the competition. It’s also not an LTPO panel, so the refresh rate only shifts between 60- and 120Hz. Again, it didn’t really bother me, but it’s an odd omission on the screen likely to get the most use.

Elsewhere, the cover display left me with no complaints. The 2700 nit peak brightness was more than enough to contend with direct sunlight, and a fully flat panel meant no phantom touches or weird reflections to deal with.

On the inside, there’s a massive 8-inch foldable display, and this one is an LTPO panel. It’s not quite as bright, peaking at 1800 nits, but I never had trouble seeing it in a wide variety of lighting conditions.

Google claims the 9 Pro Fold has the biggest display on a foldable, and that might be true in the US market, but it’s not the case for those of us with access to handsets from Chinese manufacturers. It’s certainly larger than the Z Fold 6, but I found that the Honor Magic V3 and Vivo X Fold 3 Pro both have larger usable display space, due to the curvy corners and thicker bezels on the Pixel.

That said, it’s still a wonderfully spacious display that’s great for multitasking and watching full-screen content. I like that the selfie camera cut-out is tucked away in the corner, too, as it means it rarely interrupts full-screen videos. It’s a much more modern-looking solution than its chunky bezel-ed predecessor, and personally, I find it less distracting than Samsung’s low-res patch that covers the under-display selfie camera.

There’s still a pretty sizable crease and it’s more noticeable than some of its rivals due to a high-gloss screen protector

The Pixel 9 Pro Fold actually folds flat, which is an upgrade compared to the previous model, which liked to sit a slight V-shape. There’s still a pretty sizable crease and it’s more noticeable than some of its rivals due to a high-gloss screen protector. I do think it’s better than Samsung’s crease, but next to the Honor Magic V3, it’s not the most impressive.

The positioning of the speakers makes it feel like the phone is designed to be held in portrait orientation, with the fold running down the centre, whereas a lot of my other foldables encourage you to flip the phone into landscape mode. I say this because one speaker is almost always muffled by my palm in landscape mode, and the almost-square aspect ratio means that 16:9 content doesn’t get much larger when you rotate it. That’s fine by me, it’s much more convenient than spinning it around. 

The speakers can get extremely loud and they sound superb, with more low-end response than your typical phone. They trade blows with the Z Fold 6 speakers, although Samsung often pulls ahead slightly with the bass frequencies.

Specs & Performance

• Google Tensor G4
• 16GB RAM
• 256GB / 512GB storage

The Pixel 9 Pro Fold runs on Google’s fourth-generation Tensor G4 chip, just like the rest of the Pixel 9 series. It’s well-documented at this point that this processor isn’t a massive upgrade over the last generation Tensor G3, at least outside of some very specific AI-based workloads.

It’s paired with a respectable 16GB of RAM and either 256GB or 512GB of storage. Thankfully, Google chose to forego the 128GB option on this model.

Going in with this knowledge, I wasn’t expecting too much in the performance department, but I was pleasantly surprised. In day-to-day use, scrolling social media, messaging and consuming content, the Pixel 9 Pro Fold feels lightning-quick.

In day-to-day use, scrolling social media, messaging and consuming content, the Pixel 9 Pro Fold feels lightning-quick

Whatever Google is doing to squeeze the most out of this chip is clearly working, and whether it’s a trick of the animation style or some clever optimisation, navigating the OS feels snappier and more responsive than the experience with most rival devices.

In benchmarks, however, we can clearly see that Google is a few steps behind flagships with Qualcomm and its Snapdragon 8 Gen 3. For that reason, the Pixel 9 Pro Fold is unlikely to be the top choice for keen gamers.

That said, the device can still play games well, even graphically challenging ones. I found that Zenless Zone Zero would run fairly smoothly at 30fps with max graphic settings, however when I tried pushing it to 60fps there were plenty of frame drops and stutters to sour the experience.

I was also impressed by the thermal performance. It does get warm when playing GPU-heavy games, of course, but it never got too hot or uncomfortable to hold, which is all you can really ask for.

Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold benchmarks

Cameras

• 48Mp main camera
• 10.5Mp ultrawide
• 10.8Mp 5x periscope telephoto
• 10Mp selfie camera

Pixel phones are well known for their photographic capabilities, but in contrast to some other brands, most of the prowess comes from image processing, rather than cutting-edge hardware. In the case of the Pixel 9 Pro Fold, there are no hardware upgrades for the camera system, but that might not matter so much.

Still, it means you have some very low-resolution sensors in the lineup. Only the main camera sports a 48Mp resolution, while the others all hover around the 10Mp mark. They’re all quite small sensors, too, especially when compared to Chinese brands like Honor and Vivo. This means the Pixel has to rely on night mode and noise reduction more heavily when shooting in low-light conditions.

In the day, images from the Pixel 9 Pro Fold have the signature Pixel charm – they look bright, sharp and detailed, with excellent dynamic range. It’s a slight step down in quality compared to the mainline Pixel snappers, but results are similar enough, and it’s just as reliable as a point-and-shoot camera for social media posts.

Images from the Pixel 9 Pro Fold have the signature Pixel charm – they look bright, sharp and detailed, with excellent dynamic range

When it gets darker, the main camera is the way to go. It produces the sharpest images with the most detail, meanwhile, the telephoto and ultrawide cameras look a little soft and are very prone to motion blur. I suspect the muddiness comes from over-active noise reduction, as in video mode, these sensors look quite grainy, but in photos, it all disappears.

There are two selfie cameras with identical specs, they’re both 10Mp punch-hole units and neither…