Faisal Ghaffar 
Google’s folding phone has been in the works for quite some time. The company had first started developed one a few years ago, but it had cancelled a previous design that was not good enough. Now Pixel Fold has been released, but it has a lot of catching up to do, especially when competing against Samsung that first introduced its foldable phone in 2019.
Design and build
The Pixel Fold is not the ‘flip’ style, where a normal phone is folded into half. Instead, it is a kind of folding phone that has been designed to replace tablets. Therefore, it is heavy and big. The device is 140mm tall, 80mm wide and 12.1mm thick, which does not include the camera bump. It weighs 284g, which makes it at least 20g heavier than the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4.
It does have a wow factor and you can find it in Porcelain and Obsidian. The internal screen is 7.6-inch and has a crease that does not go away, but the brightness does not let you feel it much. Its 6:5 aspect ratio makes it quite different from its rivals. It is less portrait and more landscape and this is significant because it affects the behavior of apps.
When you fold the phone, the screens will have no gap. But, it is not the first one to close flat, as Honor’s Magic Vs does the same. There is one speaker on the top edge and another on the bottom edge, along with a USB-C port and nano-SIM tray. The power button and volume rocker are on the right side of the phone and the former also functions as a fingerprint scanner.
Polished alloy is used for the rounded edges and it feels very smooth. The back has a matt finish and is covered with Gorilla Glass Victus. The camera section is huge and extends 3mm.
Screen and speakers
The outside screen of the Pixel Fold is unusual because its dimensions are the same as a normal phone. The OLED panel has a 17.4:9 aspect ratio and has excellent resolution. Google has opted for a punch-hole selfie camera, but it somehow works. When you open up the Fold, you will have a 7.6-inch diagonal screen. The two of them support a refresh rate of 120Hz, but the internal screen is not as bright as the external one.
The internal screen’s bezel is a bit thicker around the top and bottom and thinner on the sides. A plastic protector covers the ultra-thin glass, but it does not reach the outer bezel completely, so some dirt and dust will gather. The speakers are actually quite good and once you turn up the volume, they can give you decent sound to watch videos, listen to music and also podcasts.
Specs and performance
The Fold uses the Tensor G2 chipset, 12GB of RAM and comes with 256GB UFS 3.1 storage and this is plenty of power that keeps the phone responsive and smooth. You will be able to launch apps quickly, particularly with the high refresh rate. Games can also run quite smoothly, but the aspect ratio makes it a bit difficult. The phone also heats up when you turn on the camera app for a while. Nonetheless, its haptics are premium and they feel very natural and subtle.
The Verdict
Priced at $1,719 for the 256GB model, the Pixel Fold is very expensive, even if it has decent cameras. The battery life is not that impressive and there are phones from Samsung available at the same price.
