The Pixel 9 Pro Fold nails the not-so-basics

A huge improvement, with room to grow

The Pixel 9 Pro Fold is one of the best second attempts I’ve ever seen.

The first Pixel Fold had its charms — how could a folding Pixel not — but it felt rushed. The inner screen didn’t get very bright, and you had to get past its big bezels and distracting crease. The phone came out at an awkward time, leaving it with an outdated chip just a few months later when the Pixel 8 series launched. And it was hard to ignore the bulk, weighing in at 283g and measuring 12.1mm thick when folded.

The 9 Pro Fold fixes almost everything that was wrong with the Pixel Fold. It’s a surprisingly sleek device from Google and slots in just fine alongside the rest of the Pixel 9 range. In fact, it’s my favourite of the bunch.

The 9 Pro Fold’s fit and finish is a mishmash of the other Pixel 9 devices. Like the 9 Pro, it has a frosted glass back panel; like the non-Pro 9, it has matte aluminium sides. I actually think this is the best of both worlds, although Google still catered to fans of shiny surfaces with the hinge cover.

One notable break from the rest of the Pixel range is the camera system, which is now housed in a vaguely iPhone-esque squircle instead of a horizontal bar. Google’s director of design Claude Zellweger addressed this change in an interview with Michael “MrMobile” Fisher; essentially he thinks the bar doesn’t work quite as well when it doesn’t symmetrically stretch across the whole device, which I think I agree with given that this is a foldable. This camera bump feels more cohesive with the unfolded dimensions.

Google says that the 9 Pro Fold is twice as durable as its predecessor, without really explaining what that means. I’ll just say that since I’m an idiot, I’ve already accidentally dropped mine onto hard surfaces twice, and it’s fine beyond some dings on one corner. You should be extra careful with folding phones, obviously, but this one doesn’t feel particularly fragile.

That’s reassuring, because the case situation on this phone might be rough. Google has done a great job with holistic case design for its recent Pixel phones, to the point where I honestly often prefer the way they look and feel when in an official case. That is not the case (…) with the 9 Pro Fold — Google’s offering is flimsy to the point of often coming loose at the edges when I fold the phone shut. Designing cases for folding phones is complicated, I get it, but this one is a miss.

I’ll be keeping my eyes open for a better MagSafe-compatible case because of my other big design complaint with this phone: it doesn’t work on any vertical wireless charging stand I’ve tried, including Google’s own recently discontinued Pixel Stand. I’m glad the 9 Pro Fold has wireless charging at all, but it does mean I need to rethink my desk and nightstand setup if I want to keep it topped up as my main device. It’s a shame I can’t use the 9 Pro Fold with the Pixel Stand’s photo frame feature, which is the main reason I use that charger in the first place.

Even the wired charging situation is pretty bad on this phone. The 4,650mAh battery only charges at up to 21W, taking over an hour and a half to go from 1% to 100%. This is honestly glacial by flagship Android standards, although it’s in the same ballpark as Samsung’s Z Fold 6. The consolation on this front is that I’ve been seeing surprisingly good battery life, with easily more than six hours of active usage no matter which screen I’m using.

The 9 Pro Fold runs on the same Tensor G4 processor as the rest of the Pixel 9 range, so you’re not going to be breaking any benchmark records but you shouldn’t have to worry about it handling regular phone tasks. I haven’t noticed a real difference in the 9 Pro Fold’s performance versus the 9 Pro XL, even when multitasking.

The original Pixel Fold had a compact 5.8” 17.4:9 outer screen, which meant its 7.6” inner panel unfolded into a widescreen layout. The 9 Pro Fold ditches that design altogether; the taller cover screen is the same 6.3” 120Hz 20:9 1080p OLED panel from the Pixel 9, so the 8” inner display has an almost-square portrait orientation when you open it up. It’s a similar approach to the Oppo Find N3, known in the West as the OnePlus Open.

The 9 Pro Fold is a viable phone even if you never unfold it. The bezels are a little thicker than on the Pixel 9, and the screen’s curved corners make the hinge on the edge stick out, but the 10.5mm thickness and 257g weight are very manageable. I’m not going to say it's a beautiful device in its folded state, but these are at least acceptable figures if you remember you can unfold it. I’d rather use a folded 9 Pro Fold than the perfectly fine 8A, which feels like a reasonable target.

Google isn’t pushing the limits of design here. Xiaomi, Honor, and Vivo have all put out thinner devices in China with better specs on paper. But the 9 Pro Fold does pass the crucial test of feeling more or less like a regular phone when it’s folded. It blows away Samsung’s hardware and is a reasonable match for OnePlus, which is enough to make it credible in Google’s key markets.

Both screens have received Google’s “Actua” designation, which as far as I can tell means “they’re bright”, and indeed they are. They get up to 2,700 nits peak and 1,600 nits in the more realistic high-brightness mode, matching the Pixel 9’s specs (if not the slightly brighter 9 Pro’s). I’ve found the 9 Pro Fold to be great for outdoor use, which is perhaps even more meaningful on a foldable given how good they can be for reading and productivity.

The crease on the inner screen is more visible in direct sunlight, of course, but it’s generally not a problem. It’s a little narrower and harder to spot than on Oppo’s Find N3 or Xiaomi’s Mix Fold 4, but it’s easier to feel when swiping across the hinge. No-one’s managed to eliminate the crease on folding screens yet, but I think Google has done about as good a job of mitigating it as anyone, which was not true of the prior generation.

The 9 Pro Fold works pretty well as an entertainment tablet. The screen is not hugely bigger in practice than a large conventional smartphone if you’re watching widescreen video, but you do get notably better speakers. Pro tip: rotate the phone 90 degrees to boost the stereo separation and (very) slightly increase the video size.

The camera hardware is, to be blunt, not very good. It’s just about the only thing about the 9 Pro Fold that hasn’t changed from last year, so you get a half-inch 48-megapixel main sensor accompanied by 10-megapixel-ish 1/3.4” ultrawide and 1/1.32” 5x telephoto cameras. It’s a much less impressive setup than what Xiaomi or Oppo are offering, and while the 9 Pro Fold does have a smaller camera bump, it doesn’t have the advantage on thinness.

That said, Pixel cameras have never been all about the hardware, and the 9 Pro Fold does a reasonable job at matching the look of its more powerful siblings. It’s not a look I’m particularly into, but it’s fair to say that the 9 Pro Fold turns out consistent results that would make the average person think “oh, that’s a pretty good phone camera”. The characteristic cool, contrasty colours are here as always, and Google’s HDR chops remain more than competitive — one real point in the 9 Pro Fold’s favour is that photos you take with it look awesome on the inner screen.

Just don’t zoom in too far. Results from the telephoto and ultrawide can best be described as crunchy, which is unsurprising given the tiny sensors and low resolutions, while the main camera is fine but technically pedestrian. This is not the phone to buy if you’re after deep dynamic range or natural bokeh falloff.

Unedited photos from the Pixel 9 Pro Fold.

Google is increasingly opting to differentiate the Pixel camera with software features rather than competing on pure image quality. There’s a difference between the 9 Pro and 9 Pro Fold, sure, particularly in low light, but the Fold does meet the bar of looking and feeling like a Pixel. It also has the same “pro” camera controls included on the 9 Pro, as well as the excellent new Panorama design, although for some reason it misses out on the Action Pan mode that’s on the non-Pro 9.

The 9 Pro Fold does get some exclusive features of its own. The outer screen preview is useful the same way it is on most folding phones, letting your subject see how you’re framing them and pose accordingly. “Made You Look” is a little more offbeat, catching the attention of kids and pets by displaying animated characters on the outer screen. It did do a pretty good job of piquing my normally uncooperative dog’s interest, but the results aren’t great, since it uses the outer screen’s selfie camera rather than the main camera system.

Camera features aside, there isn’t much to talk about with the Pixel 9 Pro Fold’s software. The one caveat is that it ships with Android 14; version 15 is imminent, though it doesn’t look to change the experience significantly.

Google doesn’t overstretch with its take on foldable software. The experience is somewhat similar to using an iPad pre-Stage Manager. You get a taskbar at the bottom of the screen, it’s very easy to run two apps side-by-side, there’s picture-in-picture video in apps that support it, and that’s about it. Don’t expect resizable floating windows or anything like that.

Oppo’s multitasking system, which lets you zip between full-screen versions of a few apps at a time, can be a useful solution for power users; there’s nothing really like that here. At the same time, I appreciate the way you don’t have to think about how to use the Pixel 9 Pro Fold. You’re using one phone-sized app on the outside, or one big app on the inside, or two phone-sized apps on the inside. You can adjust the width of each app on the inner screen, but that’s the basic paradigm. If I’m using two apps and want to see something from a third, I drag it out from the taskbar and replace one of the other two.

Limiting? Maybe, but there’s something to be said for simplicity. While there’s definitely space for Google to do more with this form factor, I can see how it would be a tough sell to introduce something that doesn’t make sense for larger Android devices like the Pixel Tablet. For now, the Pixel 9 Pro Fold’s software offers straightforward ways to be more productive than you would be on a non-folding phone, and I’ve found it to be seamless in use over the past couple of weeks.

I do think Google could do a better job adapting some of its own apps to the inner screen. Gmail, for example, only shows a tablet-style interface when you rotate the phone 90 degrees, which gives you an inbox column that takes up 50% of the display. On the other hand, the new Pixel Weather app is fantastic on the 9 Pro Fold, giving you a ton of panels and information at once.

Also, this is a Pixel. That means you get trademark features like live captioning and translation, the world-beating Recorder app, built-in call screening, Circle to Search, and so on. It’s built for Google’s latest AI features like Gemini and Magic Editor, if those are things you’re into. I’m a big fan of the Pixel software experience, and I love having a more capable version of it in my pocket.

In case it isn't clear, I really dig the Pixel 9 Pro Fold. It might be my favourite phone of the year so far. Google has pulled off a transformative first-to-second-generation leap, and the result is incredibly enjoyable to use.

There are clear drawbacks versus competitors, none of which bother me in practice. The camera hardware is not great, but it still delivers Pixel-style results. The software is not particularly ambitious, but it’s smooth as butter with Pixel sprinkles on top. The charging situation is bad, but the battery life is good.

I tend not to talk about price on Multicore too often, because I have no idea what a dollar is worth to you. In the Pixel 9 Pro Fold’s case, I should allow that $1,800 is a whole lot of dollars by market standards. Probably more than you or I would want to spend on a phone.

But heck if this isn’t the sleekest, most coherent pitch for foldable phones I’ve seen to date. It might not be the best in any specific category, but the overall package is honestly tremendous.