Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold review: in great shape

I can’t overstate how nice it feels to use the Pixel 9 Pro Fold’s inner screen. I’ve never felt so smug using all my little apps at the coffee shop on a big screen, folding it in half, and putting it in my pocket. 

Google nailed the hardware this time around. The front screen looks like, well, a normal phone screen. I can’t say the same about the previous Pixel Fold’s front screen or six generations of Samsung’s Z Fold. The Pixel 9 Pro Fold is also light enough that I can forget I’m using a folding phone for whole stretches of time. Imagine!

Google solved a lot of the first Fold’s problems, but it hasn’t solved all of them. Thankfully, the ones that are left are just folding phone problems. The cameras aren’t as good as the cameras on the regular Pixel 9 series. It’s still thicker and heavier than even the biggest slab-style phones. It won’t be as easy to repair, and it’s twice the price of a garden-variety flagship phone. If you’re looking for reasons to talk yourself out of a $1,799 purchase, you’re welcome.

But for someone who’s feeling adventurous and isn’t concerned with the drawbacks of folding phone life, I’m sorry to say, you should probably spend $1,800 on this phone. It’s that good.

Google took exactly the right cues from OnePlus, splitting the difference between the previous Pixel Fold and the Open. The front screen feels like using a normal screen. It’s not much heavier than a normal phone. The inner screen is big. Everything is the way it should be. 

This Pixel Fold may be a “Pro” phone, but it shares screen specs with the standard Pixel 9 and not the Pixel 9 Pro. All three devices have a 6.3-inch OLED, but the regular 9 and the 9 Pro Fold have 1080p resolutions and top out at 1,800 nits in peak brightness mode. The 9 Pro’s screen is just a little sharper and brighter, so that’s a tradeoff you’ll need to make if you want the Pixel that folds in half.

The outer screen isn’t quite as “Pro” as it could be, but the inner screen is where the money’s at, and it’s much brighter this year. That’s an important improvement on a device that’s supposed to, you know, go outside with you all the time. What’s the fun in flexing that big display sitting outside of the coffee shop if you have to squint at it? The boosted peak brightness of 2,700 nits makes it much more comfortable to use outside than the previous generation’s screen.

There are some camera hardware tradeoffs. The regular Pixel 9 phones all have a nicer 50-megapixel main camera with a bigger sensor compared to the 9 Pro Fold’s 48-megapixel camera. There’s not a massive difference, but you can squeeze a little more detail in low-light shots out of the regular Pixel 9’s camera. The foldable Pixel’s telephoto lens isn’t quite as good, either, and low-light photos compared to the standard Pixel 9’s 5x zoom are noticeably softer. 

It’s a minor feature, but “Made You Look” — which uses the outer display to show an adorable animation to catch a kid’s attention — works exactly as advertised. Yet it uses the outer screen’s selfie camera, which isn’t great in low light. Don’t get me wrong, this is a good camera system overall. But it’s an area where basically all foldables lag behind slab phones, what with all the internal space needed for moving parts. We can’t have it all — at least not yet.

And sorry to keep being a bummer, but you’ll want to consider durability if you’re buying a folding phone versus a slab phone. Its IPX8 rating means the 9 Pro Fold can withstand water immersion, but you’re on your own if a grain of sand works its way into the hinge. Best to figure in the extra $279 for Google’s extended care plan with the purchase price of this already pricey phone.

Now, enough of the less fun stuff! Let’s talk about the best part of this phone: using the big screen. The phone’s new, taller format — along with improved rendering from some apps — makes for a much better inner screen experience. You can view two apps on the screen at once, which is great for cross-referencing Google Maps and Eater, but that’s the limit.

I get why Google does this, and you kind of have to be a weirdo like me to want to run three or four apps at once in little tiles. But Samsung’s foldable UI lets you do this, and I’m just a little sad that I can’t have a tiny Spotify player in the corner of the screen while I run two other apps like I can on the Galaxy Z Fold 6. 

Still! Using the big screen is a joy. I’m more inclined to use the 9 Pro Fold for complex tasks that would be annoying on a regular phone. Opening Chrome and seeing all my tabs in a row at the top of the screen fills my heart with joy. I can refer to a page on Icy Veins while I arrange my paragon points in Diablo IV, rather than squinting at a little screen. Those little things add up.

I’ve also been impressed with the 9 Pro Fold’s battery life. It’s not quite as robust as the standard Pixel 9 models, but it comfortably lasts through a moderate day with lots of GPS navigation, hotspot use, and time on the inner screen. Even on those days, I always had at least 40 percent left in the tank by bedtime.

The Pixel 9 Pro Fold makes folding phones make sense to me. It’s more like a normal phone than ever, but it’s also not completely like using a normal phone. By opting for a phone that folds, you’re still making tradeoffs, particularly in the camera hardware. The phone’s long-term durability is also an unknown — literally no one has owned a Pixel folding phone for more than a year at this point. Foldable ownership isn’t for the faint of heart.

But the Pixel 9 Pro Fold is the most rewarding folding phone I’ve ever used. Using the phone while it’s closed feels way less cumbersome and much more normal than the previous Pixel Fold or a Galaxy Z Fold. That makes using the big inner screen feel that much more rewarding; I don’t feel like I’m putting up with a bulky phone the rest of the time to get that experience.

This foldable comes with its tradeoffs: the downgraded camera hardware; durability concerns; and oh yeah, the eighteen hundred US dollars it costs. But I think Google made the right tradeoffs here to optimize the inner screen experience. It’s an experience that I’ll miss when I switch back to the next slab-style phone that I test — one that foldable fans and the foldable-curious will find very rewarding, too. Because god damn, this is a nice phone.

Photography by Allison Johnson / The Verge