The company still hasn’t indicated when the Fold will go on sale, or how much it will cost when it does. (Early estimates predict a price tag in the neighborhood of $1,800, in line with premium foldables from companies like Samsung.) Even so, industry observers predict that Google’s folding phone will drag the concept even further into the mainstream — even if it doesn’t set sales records.
“The new Pixel foldables might eat into Samsung’s sales somewhat, but Google putting its weight behind Android on more form factors is likely to grow the market overall,” said Avi Greengart, lead analyst at the research firm Techsponential.
Flashy gadget announcements often come with a lot of pomp and circumstance, not to mention a near-paranoid drive to keep details under wraps. But unlike rivals Apple and Samsung — which rely on such secrecy to create more spectacle — Google hasn’t bothered to keep either of these new devices a secret.
The company first laid out its vision of a more home-focused tablet late last year, at an event dedicated to launching its then-new line of Pixel 7 smartphones. More recently, the company offered a first look at its flexible smartphone — called the Pixel Fold — by way of a tweet published ahead of its I/O conference.
Surprise or not, people’s appetite for these kinds of unconventional devices seems to be on the rise. More than a quarter of smartphone owners in the United States are “highly likely” to upgrade to a foldable model next, according to a survey conducted by Counterpoint Research.
That leaves Google — long an also-ran in the U.S. smartphone market — with an opportunity. And, for now anyway, so does its relative lack of competitors.
Of the major smartphone makers developing foldable smartphones for use in the United States, only Samsung has shown a willingness to keep churning out new models. Motorola, which revived its fan-favorite Razr brand as a folding smartphone just before the pandemic, hasn’t released a new one in the United States since 2020. Meanwhile, Microsoft has experimented with dual-screen devices like its Surface Duo phones, though critics have largely found them lacking.
It doesn’t hurt that Google’s take on the folding phone is a little different than other options available in the United States right now. Like Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 4, the Pixel Fold opens and closes like a small book — the big difference is, well, how big one of its screens is.
Where Samsung opted for a taller, more narrow design when its Z Fold devices are closed, Google went with a slightly more squat look. The plus side? The Pixel Fold’s outer display is closer in feel to a more traditional smartphone, so pecking out text messages and browsing the web while the device is shut should feel much less awkward than on a comparable Samsung model.
Beyond that, Google is also expected to play up the Fold’s reliance on AI — though maybe not in the way everyone is talking about right now.
For years, the company has relied on features built on top of complex machine learning models to help its Pixel phones automatically retouch photos, or interact with incoming callers to make dodging spam easier. Tools like these will all but certainly appear in the Pixel Fold, but it’s not clear when — or even if — features powered by Google’s work in generative AI will arrive on devices like this one.
We’ll update this story as we learn more about the Pixel Fold, and the rest of Google’s hardware plans.