Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold is here — everything you need to know
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Made by Google has come and gone, please check out our Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold hands-on if you want our first thoughts on the new foldable.
The Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold may sport a new name, but that's hardly the biggest change Google has made in its follow-up to last year's Pixel Fold. Google's second attempt at a foldable phone makes some noteworthy design changes to the Fold, giving it the largest screen of any handset available in the U.S. while addressing some of our complaints with the original model.
But these days, any major smartphone arriving on the market needs to bring AI-powered features with it. The Pixel 9 Pro Fold, drawing on Google's experience in this area, fills that brief, picking up the same capabilities found on other Pixel 9 Pro phones powered by the new Tensor G4 chipset.
You can read our Pixel 9 Pro Fold hands-on for more details about the new foldable from Google. Here's an overview of what you need to know about the Pixel 9 Pro Fold and how it compares to what's already out there.
Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold cheat sheet: The major changes
The Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold joins the Pixel 9 lineup, allowing it to be powered by the new Tensor G4 system-on-chip found in other phones announced by Google during the August 13 Made by Google event.
Google has reduced the bezels surrounding the main display of the Pixel 9 Pro Fold, leaving an 8-inch screen when the device is unfolded.
The cover display is also larger than the 5.8-inch panel on the Pixel Fold, expanding to 6.3 inches.
Changes to the hinge help make the Pixel 9 Pro Fold only 5.1mm thin when open, compared to 5.8mm for the Pixel Fold.
New AI features include Add Me for group shots, Call Notes for recording and summarizing phone calls and Pixel Screenshots for searching the contents of screenshots you've captured on your Pixel 9 Pro Fold.
Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold pricing and availability
The Pixel 9 Pro costs $1,799/￡1,749, the same starting price for the Pixel Fold. That news comes just after Samsung debuted the Galaxy Z Fold 6, which saw a $100 increase from its predecessor to an $1,899 starting price. The OnePlus Open continues to be the least expensive foldable phone with this book-style design, as it's available for $1,699.
You can pre-order the Pixel 9 Pro Fold now; the phone will ship on September 4.
Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold specs
Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold: What's new
Design tweaks lead the changes to the Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold. Google has switched up the hinge so that it's not only more durable — it's made of stainless steel with an aluminum alloy cover — but it also helps streamline the design of the new Fold. At 6.1 x 5.9 x 0.2 inches, the Pixel 9 Pro Fold is marginally thinner than the Pixel Fold when opened, and when we're talking foldable phones, every little bit helps.
A drop in weight — nearly a full ounce — should also help make the Pixel 9 Pro Fold easier to carry around.
There's a slight change to the look of Google's foldable with the horizontal camera bar running across one side of the Pixel Fold's back giving way to a rectangular camera array on the Pixel 9 Pro Fold. Cameras are stacked on top of each other in that array.
The biggest flaw on the Pixel Fold was some fairly thick bezels around the interior display. Those have been shrunken down to a more acceptable size on the Pixel 9 Pro Fold, which makes that screen 8 inches instead of 7.6 inches. Similarly, Google has changed the aspect ration on the cover display, so that it's more narrow than before. However, that also means a bigger screen — 6.3 inches on the Pixel 9 Pro Fold compared to 5.8 inches on the Pixel Fold.
Both displays are brighter than before, with Google claiming the interior and cover screens can reach a maximum brightness of 2,700 nits.
Apart from design and display additions, the other noteworthy change to this version of Google's foldable involves the Tensor chip powering the device. Google is using a Tensor G4, and by delaying the Pixel Fold follow-up so that it could be part of the Pixel 9 release, that means Google's foldable can jump all the way from a Tensor G2 in the original Fold.
The Tensor G4 isn't expected to be a performance powerhouse, but it does deliver new AI features to the Pixel 9 Pro Fold. These include the ability to search for screenshots by their content and recording and transcribing phone calls. Google includes Gemini onboard the Pixel 9 Pro Fold, and as with the other Pixel 9 Pro models, you'll get a year's subscription to Gemini Advanced for access to the more powerful version of Google's chatbot.
Camera improvements are pretty much non-existent with one change from the Pixel Fold being a downgrade of a sort — the ultrawide lens now uses a 10.5MP sensor instead of a 10.8MP one. The front camera gets a small boost to a 10MP sensor.
Instead of hardware changes, Google has put its efforts into photo-processing features, leaning heavily on AI. Add Me lets you insert yourself into the group shots you capture by combining two photos into one. And Reimagine lets you tweak the photos you've taken with text prompts. A Made You Look feature takes advantage of the Pixel 9 Pro Fold's cover display by showing animations to get recalcitrant kids to look at the camera when you're photographing them.
Like the Pixel Fold, the Pixel 9 Pro Fold will run Android 14 when it launches, though it will get the Android 15 update when that becomes available. Google now offers seven years of software and security support for phones like the Pixel 9 Pro Fold, an improvement over the three years of software updates and five years of security coverage for the Pixel Fold.
The Pixel 9 Pro Fold is, unfortunately, missing some of the key video features that we expected to see. We have found that the Pixel 9 Pro Fold is missing some of the Video Boost with AI features. Additionally, it doesn't support Video Boost with 20x lossless video with Super Res Zoom. For reference, The Video Boost with AI feature allows Pixel 9 Pro to take 4K video and use AI to bump it up to 8K resolution.
Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold: How it compares to other phones
The Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold will invite comparisons to the Galaxy Z Fold 6 and the OnePlus Open — the first phone came out a month before Google's device and the latter currently ranks as the best foldable phone in our estimation.
For a while, the Galaxy Z Fold 6 could claim that it was the thinnest foldable at 5.6mm when opened, but the Pixel 9 Pro Fold now has it beat. At least, Samsung can still say it offers a lighter foldable, as the Galaxy Z Fold 6 weighs in at 8.4 ounces.
The Pixel 9 Pro Fold has the largest interior display among this trio of foldable phones, with the Galaxy Z Fold 6 offering a 7.6-inch panel and the OnePlus Open's main screen reaching 7.82 inches. The cover screens on all three phones are about the same size after Google extended the exterior panel on its new phone.
The Tensor G4 doesn't figure to keep up with the performance of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset powering the Galaxy Z Fold 6, but the real comparison we're looking forward to is matching up the AI features of the Google and Samsung foldables.
We like that the Galaxy Z Fold 6 introduces some AI capabilities that take advantage of its dual screens, like the way you can carry on a conversation with another person in Interpreter mode with transcripts appearing on both the cover and interior screens. But Google Translate offers a similar capability for the Pixel 9 Pro Fold. Similarly, we're going to have to test if the Tensor G4-powered photo features help the Pixel 9 Pro Fold outshine the Galaxy Z Fold 6 on the photo front.
We're also interested to see how multitasking will perform on the latest version of Google's foldable phone, especially when compared to the OnePlus Open. That latter phone's Open Canvas feature sets the standard for multitasking on a foldable device, so we'll see how the Pixel 9 Pro Fold's approach compares. As before, you can run apps side by side in Split Screen mode, and improvements to YouTube let you watch four videos concurrently on the Fold's main display.
Google Pixel 9 Pro: Outlook
Though we've spent a little time with the Pixel 9 Pro Fold, we'll still need to test its cameras, chipset, displays and AI features before reaching a comprehensive verdict. Our initial impression is that there are some clear improvements over the Pixel Fold, and that original foldable was pretty solid to begin with. AI features seem particularly impressive at first glance, and we like the new design for the phone.
Stay tuned for more as our Pixel 9 Pro Fold test results come in. But read the TG Pixel 9 Pro Fold hands-on to see what we make of it right now.
