The Pixel 9 Pro Fold is the foldable we’ve been waiting for

The highest compliment I tin wage the Pixel 9 Pro F — ohio hide it, let’s conscionable telephone it the Pixel Fold — is that I forgot I was utilizing a folding telephone portion I was utilizing it.

Sounds similar a weird compliment, right? Isn’t the full constituent of the happening that it opens up truthful you tin usage the large interior screen? Well, benignant of. The full committedness of the foldable telephone is that it’s fundamentally a tiny tablet erstwhile you request much surface existent property and a regular telephone erstwhile you fold it backmost up. Every foldable I’ve utilized delivered connected the archetypal portion of that promise. Big screen? We did it, Joe. It’s the small-screen acquisition that hasn’t been great.

I was utilizing the phone’s outer surface earlier bed, drowsily answering the minimum magnitude of Duolingo questions required to support my streak intact, and it dawned connected me: it conscionable felt similar a regular-ass phone.

That’s not an acquisition I’ve had utilizing Samsung’s Z Fold oregon the first-generation Pixel Fold. They punctual you each 2nd you’re utilizing them that thing is up. The Galaxy Z Fold 6 is inactive excessively agelong and skinny to consciousness similar a mean phone, and the archetypal Pixel Fold is truthful heavy, it feels like holding 2 phones astatine once.

This foldable is built different. It’s built similar the OnePlus Open, successful fact, which has been my favourite book-style foldable ever since I got my hands connected it. The erstwhile Pixel Fold was much passport-shaped, with a screen surface that was wider and shorter than a emblematic slab-style phone. The caller Pixel 9 Pro Fold has a 6.3-inch outer screen that’s shaped similar the 1 connected the Pixel 9 Pro. Crucially, it’s besides overmuch thinner and lighter than the archetypal Fold, truthful it doesn’t consciousness similar holding a damn brick.

Even conscionable holding the caller Fold for the archetypal clip felt right. It doesn’t consciousness similar a minor iteration of the archetypal Pixel Fold; it feels similar an wholly caller phone. That content hasn’t changed arsenic I’ve utilized it implicit the past fewer days, though I wouldn’t spell truthful acold arsenic to accidental it’s conscionable similar carrying a slab phone. It’s inactive a small bulky successful the broadside pouch of my yoga pants oregon stuffed into a tiny outer pouch of my backpack. It’s conscionable not absurdly bulky.

That said, the Pixel Fold inactive requires you to marque immoderate compromises. It’s inactive $1,799, which is costly arsenic hell. The cameras inactive aren’t arsenic bully arsenic those of the Pixel 9 Pro oregon Pro XL. Long-term durability is inactive a question mark, and 1 does not simply get a folding telephone repaired arsenic easy arsenic a slab-style phone. Foldables person travel a agelong way, but they’re inactive not rather acceptable for the mainstream.

I person a batch much investigating to bash with the, sigh, Pixel 9 Pro Fold. But I’m definite of 1 happening already: hardware is hard, and this hardware is good.

Photography by Allison Johnson / The Verge