Designing a phone and then a foldable
One insight that steered the team toward the phone’s new design was how people interacted with the original Pixel Fold, says director of industrial design Claude Zellweger: “We saw that people were often using it closed.” Even though people are interested in the new form factor and want the added bonus of the tablet-like experience, people also want to use their foldable like a regular smartphone. “That’s what led us to say, ‘Hey, we need to make this a phone first in terms of design,’” Claude explains. “Our mantra became ‘phone first.’”
The goal was to make a foldable that felt, looked and acted primarily like any smartphone — and offered additional functionality on top of that. “You have to make a great phone, and then you can make a great foldable,” says Jon Prowse, a Pixel product manager.
But what does it mean to be “phone first”? A lot of things — for example, the Pixel 9 Pro Fold’s display has an aspect ratio of 20:9, the same as the Pixel 9 Pro. And it boasts the same premium finishes and smaller bezels. All of these things combine to more closely mimic the rest of the 9 series Pixels in a way that makes them ultimately more familiar to the eye and the hand: Things like web browsing or messaging with the device closed are more similar to the latest generation of Pixels than to the prior Fold.
And, of course, the fact that it’s thinner and thus closer to the size of the Pixel 9 is a crucial part of this experience. Especially noteworthy is that despite the new “thinness,” the team found a way to fit in the phone’s upgraded centerpiece: a massive, 8-inch tablet-like display.