It’s a disgrace the Fold is simply accessible in two colours: Obsidian, the colour of my assessment unit, seems to be extra like a darkish matte grey than black, whereas Olive Green has a shinier gold body.
I’m not a fan of Google’s asymmetrical design. With the Pixel 11 Pro Fold closed, there’s a curved nook cutout, and whenever you open the telephone, the 2 halves have barely totally different thicknesses. All folding telephones nonetheless have a detectable fold line in the course of the display screen whenever you open them, however Google’s is among the many most noticeable. Some of us gained’t discover or care, however I’m the type of man who goes upstairs to show the sunshine on so the downstairs switches aren’t misaligned.
The fingerprint sensor within the energy button at all times bugs me once I change to a folding telephone, as a result of I’ve to select it as much as contact it and unlock the display screen, quite than urgent on the display screen like most telephones. You do have face unlock with the Pixel 11 Pro Fold, and it really works nicely supplied there’s ample mild, but it surely nonetheless doesn’t work in a darkish room, which is nonetheless annoying.
You get two pretty, sharp OLED shows within the Pixel 11 Pro Fold: an 8-inch principal display screen and a 6.5-inch cowl display screen. Both push peak brightness to three,600 nits, remaining legible in direct daylight, and boast a variable refresh price as much as 120 Hz. They’re clean, with wealthy colours, and I’ve nothing to complain about past that crease.
Pro Pretender
I’m not satisfied the 11 Pro Fold earns the “Pro” in its title. It does have the brand new HiLight characteristic, a gaggle of shade LEDs within the digicam module’s flash that mild up totally different colours primarily based on who is looking, or swirl by way of the rainbow whilst you chat to Gemini. It’s neat, if a bit of underbaked. It’s useful for those who put your telephone face down whenever you’re working or making an attempt to loosen up, but it surely’s a really minor characteristic.
All the Pixels get the brand new Tensor G6 processor, and the Fold has 16 GB of RAM paired with 256 GB, 512 GB, or 1 TB of storage. Switching from the Pixel 10 Pro XL, it was largely clean crusing. But it froze a few instances in split-screen view in Gmail and after launching an app on the outer show, then unfolding the interior show.
The 11 Pro Fold truly has extra in widespread with the common Pixel 11, as a result of it misses out on the high-end digicam in its Pro siblings. Folding telephones wrestle to match flagships on digicam specs due to form-factor limitations, they usually should embrace two front-facing cameras (one for open and one for closed).
Photograph: Simon Hill