Google Pixel Fold: details, specifications, release date

It may seem like Twitter is slowly imploding, but the platform is still a good place to look for breaking news. Case in point: Thursday, Google mocked up your latest hardware device in a cheep. It’s a foldable Pixel phone.

The phone is called the Pixel Fold, and that’s all we know for sure. The company says it will reveal more details about the device during the keynote of Google IOits annual developer conference, which takes place in Mountain View, California on Wednesday, May 10.

There are a few things we can discern about the Pixel Fold just from the photo and short video that Google released. The same images appear in the Google Store in One page which will presumably become the product page where you can buy the phone when it goes on sale.

It folds like a book, like the Samsung Galaxy Z Foldablenot shell style like the flip Z or from Motorola razr redux. Also, surprisingly, the Pixel Fold seems to have a full-size screen on the front. Many folding phones that collapse like a book use a smaller screen on the front, but the Pixel Fold is bigger, with an edge-to-edge screen like those found on regular smartphones that don’t fold.

The Pixel Fold’s inner screen doesn’t appear to go edge-to-edge, instead it’s housed within a slim black bezel. On that folding screen, we can see some Android widgets and UI elements that appear to have been optimized for the larger folding screen. No doubt when the Pixel Fold is revealed, the adaptive elements of Android will be a big part of the demo.

There are some chrome accents around the edges that are reminiscent of pro-level Pixel models and some recent flagship-level Samsung Galaxy devices. There’s also a chrome finish applied to the camera bump on the back of the phone. (Chrome accents on a phone always remind me of the Ford Crown Victoria, and I wish companies would stop doing this, because who wants to be reminded of a Crown Vic eight dozen times a day? But I digress.) These accents indicate that the Pixel Fold will be a premium device.

They also mark a very high price. Google hasn’t said anything about pricing, or anything else, aside from showing the images and updating the IO keynote date, but we can assume this foldy will be priced considerably higher than non-folding pixels.

Google’s news of a premium foldable smartphone comes at a time when smartphone sales are at a deep depression. Also, consumers haven’t responded to foldable devices as enthusiastically as smartphone makers experimenting with the form factor. I hoped they would. Perhaps the arrival of a foldable phone made by the same company that makes the software that runs on it (the “full stack” approach) will be the nudge that pushes this still awkward hardware design out of its niche and into mainstream.