Have you been tempted by a folding phone? The former oddity in the smartphone market appears to be hitting its stride, with more phone manufacturers taking the leap. Samsung has not one but two folding phones and a flip model, with the passport-style Galaxy Z Fold 8 joining the Flip 8 and the newly monikered Fold 8 Ultra. There is the Motorola Razr Fold, the Honor Magic V6, the Oppo Find N6. And Apple is expected to unveil its own folding phone in a few weeks’ time, a sign that the once-niche product may be about to hit the mainstream.
But they aren’t cheap, by any definition of the word. And going for a folding phone inevitably means making a sacrifice somewhere, whether it is a slightly less capable camera, the durability of the phone or a screen that develops a crease over time. So why do people want them?
Quite simply, the space. When folded, the better models feel like they are a regular smartphone, with a high quality outer display; when opened out, you get a large inner display that you can use for watching video, editing photos and videos, creating documents, reading emails or maybe doing a mix of several of these activities in a sort of multitasking whirl.
This is where Google is pitching its Pixel 11 Pro Fold. As far as upgrades go, there are only minor differences between last year’s Pixel Fold Pro 10 and the new version; an upgrade on the peak screen brightness here, a new chip there. The outer display on the new phone is marginally bigger, but the inner display stays the same at 8 inches. And there is the increased cost to take into account too, with Google hit by the same woes that have seen Apple and Samsung raise prices for their products.
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So what exactly is new? The Fold runs on Google’s Tensor G6, which is faster and more efficient at AI tasks. That is a good thing, because Google has trimmed the size of the battery. You still get more than a day of use, though, thanks to the power efficiency of the new Tensor.
Camera specs are largely the same when it comes to the resolution, pixel count and lens quality. You might get a slightly wider field of view – literally a few degrees in the case of the wide-angle lens – but there is very little else upgraded. You get the same triple rear camera system, with a 48 megapixel wide lens, a 10.5 megapixel ultrawide lens with macro focus and a 10.8 megapixel 5x telephoto lens. That means you will still get great photos from all lenses, and night photography has been improved a little. Where Google has made the changes is in its zoom capabilities – you get optical quality zoom at a wider range – and the AI-powered Super Zoom has been bumped up to 30x instead of last year’s 20x.
There is a bit of AI in here too. The Magic Capture mode automatically captures photos and videos for you so you can just point your phone at the scene and forget about it. The idea is that you stay in the moment, rather than living it through the screen, and, to be fair, it does a decent job.
It saves the video to your phone, and pulls out what it decides are the most significant moments from the clip, automatically cropping and unblurring them so you can share them instantly.
One of Google’s more interesting features is the Camera Looks, which allow you to tweak the camera settings to add grain, tint the image, adjust the contrast, warmth, vibrance and so on. You can customise them to your own liking, and you can have it as your default look. It sounds like a filter, but rather than software that alters the image after it is taken, Camera Looks are affecting how the images are captured at the sensor level.
[ Samsung doubles down on folding phones and AI ahead of smart glasses launchOpens in new window ]
There are other features that are aimed at content creators, with the ability to organise your images and videos neatly into folders for easier editing and sharing, a teleprompter that will keep you on track and a social-media grid for video that ensures your video stays inside the visual limits of your chosen platform.
It all looks good on the big inner display. Google has been talking up the durability of its phone, with its IP68 dust and water rating that means it will survive a beach trip and a hinge that doesn’t feel flimsy. The trade-off there is the crease is more obvious than the Fold 8’s. If that will bother you, this phone isn’t for you.
More bad news if you loved the temperature sensor in the Pixel 10 Pro phones: the Pixel 11 has ditched the feature in favour of a small indicator light that will alert you when a favourite contact is calling or Gemini is active.
It feels a little half formed. Google has hamstrung the feature from the outset by limiting it to calls and Gemini. If it was a programmable to work with messages or emails, it would be more useful.
Good:
A decent camera and a durable design make the Pixel 11 Pro Fold a good multitasking device. Add in the new camera features – Camera Looks, Magic Capture, projects for content creation – and you have a phone that is not just for banging out documents and emails.
Not so good:
Increased costs have hit the Pixel line, making this Fold more expensive than last year’s. And with little improvement between the specs, save for the new chip, the 11 Pro Fold may not be as compelling an upgrade.
Everything else:
There are two colours, olive and obsidian, and storage starts at 256GB with 16GB of RAM.
You get six months of Google’s AI Pro plan with the phone, which is a downgrade from the 12 months offered with last year’s Pixel Pro phones.
Verdict:
It all comes back to the question: do you need a folding phone? If you need – or want – the extra screen space, the folding Pixel is a good option. If you don’t, the sensible option would be to go for the Pixel 11 Pro or Pro XL, which aren’t cheap as such but are significantly less expensive than the Fold, with its €2,000-plus price tag.
