Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold Review

TL;DR? (Too Long; Didn’t Read?)

Well here’s a spoiler alert… the Google Pixel series of mobile phones are AWESOME! I’ve used them since the first model and consistently they’ve been best phones I’ve ever used. In recent generations there are two (or three… or now four, with a FIFTH rumoured!) different models with a couple being quite close in spec (mainly changing the size) and one being more budget orientated. Now of course, otherwise this article wouldn’t exist, there is a foldable model.

I’ve, as with previous generations, gone with the higher end model when moving to the new range. I say higher end… that’s not quite straightforward. Price, yes. Size, absolutely… some other specs, well those vary quite a bit. The camera config for example is very varied across the four handsets but I trust Google’s excellent image processing/software to even that out a bit, regardless of the physical components. So, when I say higher end model this time round that means the Pixel 9 Pro Fold. Normally I’d list the key specs quickly here… this isn’t a tech blog. I like tech, I just care more about the results. However with this complex little foldable, let’s break things down into a handy table…

Ther are some of the key features of the various devices in the Pixel 9 range. (Thanks GSMArena for the handy layout of camera specs. You can do a cool detailed comparison of the models over here on their site.)

Elsewhere the specs are fairly similar. For example, all have front 120hz screens with HDR and Corning Gorilla Glass Victus 2. All have some form of water resistance (with the Fold being rated not quite as high). You can tweak the storage to your needs from 128GB on the lower models to 512 on the Fold and the Pro/XLs offering 1TB. The three high end handsets have 16GB as standard, the entry level “9” has 12GB. All the expected specs are here too, and all high end, from Octa-core Google Tensor CPU (and Mali-G715 MC7 GPU) to USB-C 3.2, NFC, Wireless 7 and Bluetooth 5.3. Charge speed does vary a little across the range too with the Pro/XL leading the way on paper and the Fold/9 using slower speeds although I wouldn’t say I’ve felt they are slow in real world use. Lots of the usual features make an appearance too from HDR and pano photo modes to 4K recording across all devices with 60fps and OIS as standard too. Wireless charging is also present on all models. The retail price, at time of writing, is about – $1500 for the most expensive (Fold) and the 9 being around $600 .

Important note: I have no agreement with Google to write this article. This is not some smarmy product-placement review.

Things I love about the Pixel 9 Pro Fold

There’s so much to love, but I’ll try to keep things fun and simple. Where do I start? I’m a photographer so let’s start with the camera.

Best Camera *System* of all Mobile Phones

I don’t follow scores from DxOMark but if that’s your sort of thing, you’ll see here that the Pixel phones are right up near the top regularly. But I can tell just by using it in a variety of conditions and comparing it to photos from friends using the latest iPhone or Samsung. They’re always blown away at the quality of the photos. A lot of this is down to what Google do on the software side of things. So, while looking at raw numbers on a page the specs can vary a lot, in practice Pixel images, regardless of the model, tend to look exceptional in terms of phone camera results.

Let’s get started with a quick landscape on the Pixel 9 Pro Fold…as you can see here the quality is rather great with plenty of detail and dynamic range.

Where this review will be different…

I’m not someone who goes super in-depth with specs and features for kit. I much prefer a real-world experience approach so you’re going to get loads of image examples in this review and a bunch of my opinions/findings. On top of that, I’m going to really mix things up and include not just Pixel 9 images, but images from the 7, 5, 4, 3, 2 and original Pixel here too. Scan to the end of the review for a whole load of those. They all use the Google camera software and if you can take an image on the Pixel you can capture one just as good, if not better, on a Pixel 9 Pro Fold. Good enough to save you carting around your DSLR or Mirrorless camera? Well…yes. Certainly in some scenarios…
Oh, and one other thing, for this early version of the review some of the images were captured by my right hand man, Stu, while I’m dealing with some family stuff in the real world. All were processed by me.

First example, is the Pixel a Big Camera Replacement?

If you’re looking for images from a holiday, or your daily life for sharing online or printing at “normal” sizes then the Pixel 9 series will do nicely for you. We’re long past the stage where anyone questions what I’m sharing online as being from a camera or phone, so you’ll be fine too.

Portrait Mode

In Portrait mode Google’s software figures out how to make a beautiful bokeh (meaning the areas around the main subject are soft and blurry). Simply click on the part of the image you want in focus and take the shot.

My good friend Brandin Cooks (of Dallas Cowboys fame and @thearcher on Insta) channeling his inner photographer. To get this effect, just put the camera in Portrait mode, and the machine learning will automatically blur the background to make you look like a pro.

HOT TIP: Get to know two Pixel tools for editing your photos. The first one is just the default photo editor. It’s very simple and does the job ok. You can further adjust the light, color, and pop of an image to your satisfaction, for example. On top of that, grab the mobile version of Lightroom from Adobe. It gives you more control but also has handy options for taking things to the next level. More on that later…

Zoomy Zoomy

With three different lenses on the Pixel 9 Pro Fold it gives us a bunch of creative options. Weirdly the camera app gives 4 zoom levels. 0.5x which uses the wide lens, 1x which uses the “main” lens and 5x which is the telephoto. 2x is also there but seems to use the main lens with some sort of crop. Not sure. Anyway, stick to the 3 others for the best results and you can crop yourself if needed.
So how is the zoom? Well, overall I was rather impressed. Here are three versions of the same scene. First with the 0.5/wide lens. Then main/1x and finally the 5x/telephoto

Night Shots…

Dynamic Range

Long Exposure

Other Nice Things…

Before we look at a few more images… in my Pixel 4 review I had a little moan about the lack of fingerprint scanner which had been present on previous models. Well, it seems I am more powerful than I thought and based entirely on my opinion alone (I assume) the fingerprint scanner was back on the Pixel 5 series and it is retained here. Yay! As a bonus we now get face unlock too, which works well.

Since this is a Google device you will always get the latest Android version, and get it first. Currently that is Android 15. Google also guarantee 7 Android updates which means that as we started on Android 14, we’ll get Android 21 in 2031 or something like that. That’s industry leading support!

Unlimited Storage: Google is constantly backing up your photos and videos to the Cloud and then freeing up space on your phone if you need it. I’ve never, ever, run out of space. That said, there are now some limitations to that unlimitedness… So maybe you’ll want to get a proper data storage plan with them if you don’t have one already.

FREE STUFF: Google can be quite generous with their offers when buying Pixels. For example some regions get the cool Pixel Buds Pro 2 ($200rrp) completely free at the moment. Crazy! All (i think) regions get Google Gemini Advanced free for a year at the moment too. That’s like $200 in value right there too. Also you tend to get a bit of free YouTube Premium as well and discounts on other Pixel gear. So pay attention to the welcome emails they send after you set up the phone.

Get your Pixel photos into Lightroom or Luminar on your Laptop

I sometimes like to take the photo with my phone and then, later, edit the best ones in Lightroom/Luminar on my laptop. The built-in photo editing is great, but I get a bit more power out of using desktop software or with my presets (filters).

Here’s how you do it:

• Get all your syncing enabled on your laptop version of LR. You’ll have to be an Adobe Cloud member, but most Adobe users are now.
• Install LR mobile on your Pixel.
• Create a new album on your Laptop version and make a new Album. Right-click it and choose Sync with Lightroom CC.
• After it appears on your Pixel, go into the album and click the option at the bottom to Add Photos.

You can now go through your mobile photos and choose the ones to sync! Note, they will only sync when you are connected to WiFi.

A few Minor Complaints

I know I sound like a Google Pixel fanboy, well it’s because I am! However, I do have a couple of minor complaints.

I wish it supported dual SIM cards so I could have a local New Zealand SIM (and NZ phone number) AND the global data services at the same time. You can sort of get round it as the phone has sim and eSim but 2 physical slots would provide ultimate flexibility when travelling.

As far as the tech specs go, if I’m being really picky, Google are a tiny bit out of sync with Qualcomm who make the competing Snapdragon processor. It’s not a huge performance gap but if you are a big fan of mobile gaming (especially some emulators) then the Snapdragons do offer some benefit.

Oh, and one other thing… Samsung have this cool tech on their handsets where the selfie camera magially hides behind the screen. Like you can barely tell it is there. Google are still using that fairly standard circle cut-out. It would be great if they’d move to the hidden lens design.

A few Pixel camera tips!

• ⁠Quickly pressing the power button twice will open the camera app even if your phone is locked. This is the fastest and easiest way to launch it.
• ⁠When in camera mode, press the up or down volume buttons to take the photo. I always use this method, it results in a more stable / sharper image.
• Set the flash to always off. You really never need a flash but, on the rare occasion you do, you can manually turn it on (but don’t forget to turn it back off!).
• For the most stable zoom, hold your finger down on the zoom numbers on the bottom and slide back and forth to get the exact zoom you want. Double-tapping the screen also works, but you get more control with the slide.
• Have fun experimenting with all the other options along the bottom like Night Sight, Panorama, Portrait, and many others. They are all very easy to use.

About that Screen…

So, you’ll have picked up earlier in the review that Google have created quite a monster screen on the Pixel 9 Pro Fold. 8inches of internal glory. It’s the no.1 feature of this phone and while it’s impressive there must have been quite a few design based discussions that have gone on at Google in the creation of this handset. I think that’s why we’ve ended up with a camera bump/hardware which is quite different to the Pro/XL models. Clearly Google were looking to balance the size/thickness and specifications to make a well balanced device. And to be fair to them, they have succeeded. Above you’ll see the Fold in its unfolded mode along with the side, folded view. It’s pretty slim and unlike older Foldables it folds flat which really does make a difference in the hand.

It’s foldable but it allows for great flexibililty in use. Pretty much any content that you are likely to consume online is better with the internal screen than any other “standard” phone. Longer form web pages for example are especially nice to read on the Fold, much less cramped feeling and the 120hz display makes for good, smooth scrolling. Productivity apps work really well in the larger format and grab a bluetooth keyboard/touchpad and the Fold can act very much like a small laptop/screen. Of course image editing is super easy on a larger less cramped screen. Social media is also improved, images being larger for example and typing longer messages is easier with the larger on screen keyboard and two hands. Video content is of course significantly better. Either fully unfolded to get maximum size OR you can do things like half fold the phone (shown above) so that it can sit on a desk with half the screen vertical playing a video. Finally, the almost square ratio (similar to older TVs) is ideal for retro gaming. Chuck a controller into the mix and the Fold becomes a complete entertainment device.

The one down side of the screen? Probably battery life. Running such a large, high refresh screen takes a decent chunk of power. That means I find that the Fold doesn’t go as long as my Pixel 7 Pro (as one example). BUT I do get through a full day on a charge without any problems and that’s plenty enough for anyone really. So, in summary, that great big screen is awesome… internet browsing, social media viewing, video watching, gaming… productivity. All are enhanced by having that massive display to use when you need it. It really does remove the requirement to travel with an ebook reader, tablet and often laptop. Additionally, at 6.3 inches the cover display is a decent size for everyday/quick use. That wasn’t always the case on previous generation foldable phones!

The big screen also has one other really useful feature and that is spit screen mode where half can be one app, half can be another. Horizontally or vertically. Some may use that for productivity. Maybe a webpage with research on one side with a document on the other. Some may chose to go social/media nuts and have something like half being a YT video and half being a social media feed to scroll throug while watching.

Oh! One more thing. If you’ve got a drone and it’s not one with a built in screen on the controller then the fold is also great for that too. Just 3dprint (or buy for about $5) a bracket extension and the full 8″ screen becomes the display from your quadcopter. Excellent for flying with.

NOTE: There are two ways of skinning the foldable/dual screen cat it seems. Samsung take the approach that the cover display and internal display are somewhat different. So you can have different wallpapers, icon selections/layouts and so on. Google treat them as more of a single display. It’s more that when you unfold the internal display is an expanded version of the cover display. I’m not sure what way is best and certainly the Google method is seamless which is good. Interesting difference nonetheless.

Final Analysis

Get it! I peer-pressured several people into getting previous Pixels. some were iPhone weirdos and worried about leaving that ecosystem. A great example is my previous assistant Tane, it was a lot of money for him because we pay him with one-dollar bills into his waistband. But, he went ahead and did it anyway, and he LOVES it. He’s a happy camper and doesn’t know why he didn’t switch earlier. Ripping off the iBandaid was not nearly as bad as he thought, and, within 24 hours, he was up and running better than ever. You can too!

Other Sample Photos

How about a BUNCH of sample photos from my Pixels over the years? I’ll start with a couple more from the Pixel 9 Pro Fold… Enjoy!

Oh, one more thing before we finish up…Check out this impossible library in Tianjin, China. Remember we talked about replacing a DSLR above? Well, I was not allowed to take my big Sony camera, but I don’t think I could have gotten a better shot even if I had. In fact, this image is part of my Fine Art Series which has sold for $15,000 printed at 1.5m across. The buyers have been more than happy to add it to their collections.