Google Pixel Fold (2023): A slick, stylish debut

The Pixel Fold is Google’s first foldable smartphone. And mine too. 

That’s no slight on Samsung, Huawei, Motorola or Royole – which released the world’s first folding phone in 2018 – but the fact is, I’m a dropper.

Yes, you can get covers for them, but the phones are still mainly north of £1,500 (for book fold, clamshells are cheaper), and I simply cannot be trusted not to try sending a message while out on a run. Along cobbles.

That’s not to say I wasn’t impressed with the Fold. First impressions are of a clean, light, stylish and intuitive device.

Offering a 5.8” external display made of Corning Gorilla Glass (more droppable) with up to 1,550 nits on a 17.4:9 aspect ratio, when folded the device is a good size, just slightly shorter and wider than an iPhone 12/13.

Unfolded, it transforms into a 7.6” display and a 6:5 aspect ratio, with up 1,450 nits at peak brightness. The phone itself opens to a perfect 180 degrees, but the camera bar renders it wobbly when lying flat on a surface – but it’s asking a lot to avoid that given the three outrageously good cameras the bar contains. 

The main 48MP camera has an aperture of f/1.7, optical image stabilisation and an 82-degree field of view. It records in 4K, with 1080p footage at 30 and 60FPS.

The 10.8MP ultra-wide camera has an aperture of f/2.2 and 121.1-degree field of vision. 

Finally, the 10.8MP 5x optical zoom and 20x Super Res Zoom telephoto lens has an aperture of f/3.05 and 21.9-degree field of vision.

Well, not finally, because there’s also a 9.5MP front selfie camera and 8MP inner selfie camera. 

While sadly unable to test out Pixel’s famed Night Sight mode for a spot of astrophotography on account of London’s appalling light pollution (and this week the International Space Station passed over head, the perfect subject), there is no shortage of other features to play with, including long exposure, time lapse and panoramas – plus of course Google’s brilliant Lens function, which continues to wow.

While the cameras can’t be faulted, the app itself wasn’t completely infallible, occasionally getting stuck in a crash cycle when trying to switch between the front, inside and back cameras.

Likewise, the inside screen could occasionally grey out at the upwards swipe to bring up apps, but overall navigation is simple – and as with all Google devices, it’s a breeze to set up if linking to your main account (which isn’t unique to the Silicon Valley giant).

There have already been reports of the screen breaking, including by a reviewer, but perhaps one of the best features of the fold is that it can be fixed at home, which is huge.

According to Google, via 9to5Google, Pixel Fold owners will be able to access ‘repair guides, and order replacement parts including the batteries, displays, and camera’. Together, Google and iFixit will also offer kits including the tools needed to crack your way into the Fold and get to work.

We’re living in both a cost of living crisis and an age of egregious electronic waste, so this is good news all around – although of course users shouldn’t be expecting to have to fix a £1,700 phone themselves in the first week.

Back to the specs.

The Pixel Fold runs on Google’s Tensor G2 chip and Titan M2 security chip.

It offers hours of power on minutes of charging with a separately purchased 30W charger, and reports a beyond 24-hour battery life, with up to 72 hours on Extreme Battery Saver. 

Memory and storage comes in the form of 12 LPDDR5 RAM and 256 and 512 GB UFS 3.1 storage, and it’s water resistant (IPX8).

I’ll be honest, in the time I had available to test the Fold the battery wasn’t really put under severe testing – I was in the office most of the time, so sadly no chance for extended streaming. However, while attending a panel I did eke out a full hour’s voice recording on low power mode (at which point it was still pledging a further five hours), but that wasn’t the impressive part.

Arriving back to the office and having the entire transcript at my fingertips was a game changer for someone still slavishly devoted to their dictaphone. 

The transcription wasn’t perfect, but I was sitting near the back in a packed room. A second test close-up offered almost 100% accuracy – although humorous mix-ups like mistaking medical and magical could get a writer in trouble. The AI behind it though is undoubtedly incredibly powerful, and it’s fascinating to watch it retroactively changing words as it receives further context. AI might put journos out of a job one day, but for now it’s really making life easier.

But to the main event, the inside screen. It’s big, but not too big – as in comfortable to hold, and easy to type on once you get used to the split keyboard. I’d argue offensively split given the repetition of g and v to even out the keys, but that isn’t something that would bother most people, and it is well ergonomically designed.

It works well for work, and for play, the tabletop design means no more finding random things to help prop up your phone while watching videos, and functions well as a split screen. The design is also a big one for selfie lovers, of which I am not.

Overall, the Pixel Fold is a more than solid first effort by Google. There are bits to be tweaked here and there, but the device itself looks and feels good quality, it’s well designed, and is a pleasure to use.

Apart from having to hit enter after inputting your passcode, which will never cease to annoy me. 

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