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The highest compliment I can pay the Pixel 9 Pro F — oh forget it, let’s just call it the Pixel Fold — is that I forgot I was using a folding phone while I was using it.
Sounds like a weird compliment, right? Isn’t the whole point of the thing that it opens up so you can use the big inner screen? Well, kind of. The whole promise of the foldable phone is that it’s basically a small tablet when you need more screen real estate and a regular phone when you fold it back up. Every foldable I’ve used delivered on the first part of that promise. Big screen? We did it, Joe. It’s the small-screen experience that hasn’t been great.
I was using the phone’s outer screen before bed, drowsily answering the minimum amount of Duolingo questions required to keep my streak intact, and it dawned on me: it just felt like a regular-ass phone.
That’s not an experience I’ve had using Samsung’s Z Fold or the first-generation Pixel Fold. They remind you every second you’re using them that something is up. The Galaxy Z Fold 6 is still too long and skinny to feel like a normal phone, and the first Pixel Fold is so heavy, it feels like holding two phones at once.
This foldable is built different. It’s built like the OnePlus Open, in fact, which has been my favorite book-style foldable ever since I got my hands on it. The previous Pixel Fold was more passport-shaped, with a cover screen that was wider and shorter than a typical slab-style phone. The new Pixel 9 Pro Fold has a 6.3-inch outer screen that’s shaped like the one on the Pixel 9 Pro. Crucially, it’s also much thinner and lighter than the first Fold, so it doesn’t feel like holding a damn brick.
Even just holding the new Fold for the first time felt right. It doesn’t feel like a minor iteration of the first Pixel Fold; it feels like an entirely new phone. That impression hasn’t changed as I’ve used it over the past few days, though I wouldn’t go so far as to say it’s just like carrying a slab phone. It’s still a little bulky in the side pocket of my yoga pants or stuffed into a small outer pocket of my backpack. It’s just not absurdly bulky.
That said, the Pixel Fold still requires you to make some compromises. It’s still $1,799, which is expensive as hell. The cameras still aren’t as good as those of the Pixel 9 Pro or Pro XL. Long-term durability is still a question mark, and one does not simply get a folding phone repaired as easily as a slab-style phone. Foldables have come a long way, but they’re still not quite ready for the mainstream.
I have a lot more testing to do with the, sigh, Pixel 9 Pro Fold. But I’m certain of one thing already: hardware is hard, and this hardware is good.
Photography by Allison Johnson / IMR
