An impressive 2024 foldable in 2025
Words: Abhishek Baxi
The foldable market has reached a crucial inflection point. The initial novelty has worn off, replaced by a fierce battle over what a foldable should be. Is it a delicate piece of tech, impossibly thin and light? Or is it a robust, practical tool designed for the rigors of daily life? With the Pixel 10 Pro Fold, Google has emphatically chosen the latter. Instead of chasing the thinnest hinge or the loudest specs list, Google has refocused on reliability, daily usability, and the Pixel platform’s best asset — software that makes the hardware sing. The Pixel 10 Pro Fold presents a compelling, if polarizing, vision for the future of foldables. It champions industry-first durability, class-leading battery life, and a uniquely intelligent software experience, all while making significant compromises in design elegance, camera hardware, and raw processing power.
The Pixel 10 Pro Fold keeps the design of the previous generation — you’d really struggle to tell the two apart. The satin matte finish and sturdily machined frame give the phone a reassuring heft and grip. That also means that at 258 grams and 10.8mm thickness when folded, it is a substantial device that makes its presence known in a pocket or hand.
Compare that to Samsung Galaxy Z Fold7 or vivo X Fold5 that offer a startlingly slim chassis with significantly less weight (over 40 grams!). The Pixel 10 Pro Fold is chunky, to say the least. Google’s new gearless hinge is the headline change: it opens smoothly, reduces wobble and lets the phone achieve full ingress protection — an industry milestone for a foldable — which means genuine IP68 water and dust resistance. The ‘6’ in that rating signifies complete protection against fine particles like sand and dust, a vulnerability that has remained a major source of anxiety for foldable owners.
The focus on durability is also felt in everyday handling. The weight distribution and rounded edges make it comfortable to hold folded or open. Google has traded svelteness for robustness. With the latest Pixel 10 series, Google has introduced Pixel snap, the company’s built-in Qi2 magnetic charging system bringing Apple’s MagSafe-like convenience to the Android world. It’s a significant quality-of-life improvement that allows you to explore a wide range of accessories for mounting, everyday carry, and charging. Display engineering is the Pixel’s strongest suit. The outer 6.4-inch OLED offers a very high 3000-nits peak brightness making it excellent to use outdoors even in harsh sunlight. The one notable compromise is the panel’s 60- 120Hz variable refresh rate, which is less power-efficient for static content than a 1-120Hz LTPO panel.
Google has clearly focused on perfecting the standard “phone” experience. The slimmer bezels allow for a wider conventional aspect ratio that makes typing and single-handed use feel far more natural… like a candybar flagship phone. Unfolded, the 8-inch LTPO AMOLED inner display presents a near-square canvas that’s excellent for reading, productivity,and multimedia. Google’s colour tuning, adaptive refresh logic, and motion handling keep the UI feeling fluid and cohesive across both panels.
It shares the same 3,000-nit peak brightness, making it one of the most vibrant and sunlight-readable folding screens available. The true 1-120Hz variable refresh rate ensures buttery- smooth scrolling while conserving power when viewing static images or text. The only major blemish on this otherwise excellent canvas is that the inner display’s crease remains quite pronounced, but it often gets masked by the screen’s brightness.
At the heart of the Pixel 10 Pro Fold is the Tensor G5, Google’s first chip manufactured by TSMC on a modern 3nm process. This move brings welcome gains in efficiency and thermal performance over previous generations. Paired with a generous 16GB of RAM, the chip is highly responsive for daily tasks and powers the phone’s suite of on-device AI features.
Everyday usage is smooth: app switching, split-screen multitasking, and media playback are seamless. However, the paradox of Tensor remains. In raw performance, it lags far behind the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite — and this isn’t just a benchmark curiosity. In side-by-side comparisons, the latest Samsung devices feel snappier and more fluid under heavy load.
Battery capacity (5,015mAh) has seen a sensible uptick, and the Pixel’s optimisations yield a full day of mixed use with room to spare for light second- day stretches. But under a sustained graphical load while gaming, the Tensor G5’s inefficient GPU causes battery life to plummet catastrophically. Charging is faster this time around — but not the fastest in the industry.
The “Pro” in the Pixel 10 Pro Fold’s name does not extend to its camera hardware. The triple-lens setup — a 48MP main, 10.5MP ultrawide, and a 10.8MP 5X telephoto — is largely recycled from the previous generation and is significantly outclassed by the sensors found on the Pixel 10 Pro XL.
Despite the middling hardware, Google’s computational photography and the image signal processing on Tensor G5 enables detailed images with excellent dynamic range and dependable autofocus behaviour. Google’s image processing leans into a natural, realistic look with restrained sharpening — images look like they were shot with care rather than processed into a high-contrast caricature. Night and portrait modes have matured; computational tricks such as multi-frame synthesis and subject-aware sharpening pay off in real-world shots. But software alone cannot overcome every hardware limitation — vivo and Samsung, on the other hand, show how a foldable smartphone can offer flagship camera experience.
There’s an interesting new AI-powered feature – Camera Coach – that offers real- time guidance on composition, helping novice photographers frame better shots. You might not invoke it every time you are clicking something, but it might come handy when you want to tackle a tricky subject or are looking for a creative landscape shot.
The software experience is the phone’s differentiator: it turns the Pixel from “interesting hardware” into a device that works for you all day long. On top of that, additional exclusive features that Google bakes into Pixel devices are a great addition. Powered by a clean, bloat-free Android 16, the Pixel 10 Pro Fold is an absolute joy to use. Google has invested in Android-level foldable optimisations that smooth transitions between cover and inner displays, enable more predictable multi-window behaviour and make the extra screen real estate genuinely useful rather than a gimmick. Native apps scale well, and split-view implementations are mature.
Google positions the Pixel 10 Pro Fold as an AI smartphone, powered by Google Gemini. AI enhancements — from on-device transcription to contextual assistance and smarter photo editing — are deeply integrated. Google offers a guarantee of seven years of OS and security updates. Pixel phones get the newest Android version on day one, and security patches land each month like clockwork.
The Google Pixel 10 Pro Fold is a device of deliberate contrasts. Its durability and practicality comes at the cost of elegance and power. It is one of the heaviest and thickest foldables on the market, its camera system is a clear compromise, and its Tensor G5 processor is simply not equipped for the demands of power users or high-end mobile gamers. That said, if you value all-day battery life, the peace of mind of a phone that just works, and the Google’s AI shenanigans above all else, it’s a fine foldable smartphone to pocket — if price isn’t a consideration for you.
Verdict: A pragmatic choice for those who value real-world usage over elegance, but power users will find its compromises too heavy to bear.
Pricing and Availability:
- 1,72,999/
- store.google.com
In the Box
- Device
- 1-meter USB-C to USB-C cable
- Digitized quick start packet
- SIM ejector tool
| PLUS |
| A dependable foldable Durability Software is the star |
| MINUS |
| The bulky design feels dated “Pro” camera system is quite a compromise |
