Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold review: Google sets the tone for foldable smartphones

The firm's second foldable phone and the first to be released in France, the Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold stands out as an excellent choice in this area. Our test.

While Samsung remains the leader in foldable smartphones, that doesn't stop other manufacturers from entering the market. Although Apple is still quite hesitant about the idea of ​​folding its iPhones, Google released its first foldable Pixel in 2023 with the Pixel Fold. An original smartphone in its format, but which was not free of defects, and above all, not available in France.

It was in mid-2024 that Google released its first foldable smartphone in our country: the Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold. A very complicated name for what turns out to be one of the best foldable phones on the market. Discover our test.

Editor's note: this test was carried out entirely in from a copy loaned by the brand.

Google is betting on the square for its design

Where almost all foldable smartphones allow you to have a tablet-sized device when unfolded, the Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold innovates by offering a square format. The latter measures approximately 155 by 150 mm and allows a good grip on a daily basis, but with fairly thick edges. The selfie sensor is, for its part, quite discreet and placed on the upper right edge of the screen.

The square format of the Pixel 9 Pro Fold has advantages and disadvantages © Linternaute/Julian Madiot

In the center of the screen is the distinctive fold of foldable smartphones that many manufacturers are trying, as best they can, to make us forget. For the Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold, the result is mixed: the crease is clearly visible and clearly felt to the touch, but it is quickly forgotten when consuming content.

When folded, the Pixel 9 Pro Fold sports a 6.3-inch screen with very pronounced edges on the left side where the device's hinge is located, which is probably its biggest design flaw.

The edges of the Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold are, as for they are completely matte and very pleasant to the touch. Their coating is very practical so that the smartphone does not slip from the hands and does not retain any fingerprints.

On the back, we also find a matte coating in white or black depending on your model (white here) as well as the Google logo in the center of the back. The photo block is distinguished from those of other Google Pixels by not being in the form of a slice that goes from one edge to the other of the phone, but simply in a corner. A decision surely motivated by the presence of components at the interior of the Pixel 9 Pro Fold, but which proves restrictive when you want to use the device on a flat surface since the latter will then lean to one side.

The Google photo block Pixel 9 Pro Fold is protruding. © Linternaute/Julian Madiot

The daily handling of the Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold is excellent. The smartphone fits well in the hand and the volume and power buttons on the right edge fall perfectly under the thumb. Unfortunately, we will remember its rather high weight of 257 GB which weighs a lot in the hand and in the pocket.

Two very bright screens

This is undoubtedly one of the best points of the Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold: its screens. These are OLED panels that can reach up to 2700 nits of brightness according to Google. For comparison, the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra reaches up to 2600 nits and the iPhone 16 Pro Max reaches up to 2000 nits. Such a rate allows the two screens of the Pixel 9 Pro Fold to be very readable even when the phone is used in direct sunlight.

The Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold's screens are simply excellent. © Linternaute/Julian Madiot

In addition to beautiful brightness, the two screens of the Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold have an adaptive refresh rate that can go up to 120 Hz. An excellent fluidity therefore and which will delight video game fans (as long as they find a title that can go up to 120 FPS). Too bad though that the external display can't go below the default 60Hz and save more battery.

As a reminder, the refresh rate of a smartphone screen is fairly equivalent to the FPS (frames per second) on a computer screen. The higher this rate, the smoother the images in your applications and games will be. An adaptive refresh rate allows you to automatically adjust this rate based on the content displayed. to save the device's battery (a screensaver, which does not need animations, will often run at 1 Hz to not consume too much).

As mentioned above, the unfolded format of the Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold is square, which has its advantages and disadvantages. The positive point is to benefit from great readability for documents, web pages and online articles. The downside, however, comes from games and videos, which are inevitably saddled with large, rather unsightly black bands. While it is always possible to force full screen display, this is usually at the expense of quality. or causes some display elements to be lost.

The Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold offers two types of colors for calibrating its screens:

• Natural: displays colors that are more “dull”, but also closer to reality when you consume content.
• Adaptive:allows for more vivid and pronounced colors to be displayed, but less faithful to reality.

Both color modes are very good, but we have a slight preference for the second mode which displays deeper blacks.

The best performance for a Google Pixel

Let's get straight to the point: the Google Pixel has never shone in terms of pure performance. Since Google developed its own chips, the Google Tensor, its smartphones have excelled in photography, but not in video games or heavy applications.

The Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold is equipped with the Google Tensor G4 chip cut in 4 nm and has 16 GB of RAM. A very nice configuration that allows the Fold to be the most powerful Pixel ever launched by the Mountain View firm. We were able to test the phone with several games that are quite resource-intensive, such as the productions of the Hoyoverse studio (Genshin Impact, Honkai: Star Rail, Zenless Zone Zero), but also Call of Duty Mobile or Pokémon GO. If the games do not launch automatically with the graphics settings pushed to the maximum, it is possible to increase them without feeling any slowdown or complete freezes. The titles unfortunately never reach stable 60 FPS, but everything remains perfectly playable.

The Pixel 9 Pro Fold's performance is good, but at this price, you'd expect better. © Linternaute/Julian Madiot

During longer gaming sessions, the Tensor G4 gets a little warm small. Nothing that prevents you from enjoying games, but we still prefer to note it.

In everyday use, the Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold remains a marvel of fluidity. Switching between multiple applications is done quickly and we did not experience any slowdowns during our many weeks of testing.

Typical Pixel software, but little effort for the dual screen

The Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold runs Android 14 by default. The firm has already promised 7 years of major updates on the smartphone, which is both excellent and reassuring (hopefully your copy lasts just as long).

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On the software options, we find all the little habits that we appreciate on Pixel phones, including “Material You” which adapts the colors of your apps and widgets according to your wallpaper. We can clearly see that Google is the owner of Android since particular care seems to be applied to the different texts, menus and interfaces of the software.

It's a shame, however, that the Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold makes little effort to support the large internal screen. The latter can only support two applications at a time (where many competitors can display three or four) and some must be forced to be displayed in full screen if necessary.

The Pixel 9 Pro Fold's dual screen can only display two apps at a time. © Linternaute/Julian Madiot

On the other hand, the Pixel 9 Pro Fold has several AI-related features that are very pleasant. We note in particular the integration of Gemini, Google's artificial intelligence that can receive written requests, audio or photos to assist you. Finally, the camera benefits from the “Video boost” and “Add me” functions. which we will discuss a little later in this test.

Finally, let's note the number of software updates planned by Google: seven years. A model in the industry that guarantees the Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold an exceptional longevity provided that you manage to keep it in good condition for that long.

The photo quality of the Google Pixel… Well almost!

If there is one point on which the Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold is expected, it is on the quality of its photographs. Foldable smartphones have the unfortunate tendency not to have the best photo performances of their manufacturer, even though they often cost more than their high-end models.

For the Pixel 9 Pro Fold, Google has chosen three photo sensors to give maximum versatility to users:

• A 48MP main lens.
• A 10.8MP telephoto lens.
• A 10.5MP ultra-wide-angle sensor.

But beyond these technical specifications, it is the digital processing of the Pixel 9 Pro Fold that we must judge. Without big surprises, the results are very good. The details captured by the main lens of the smartphone are numerous and the colors remain bright and vibrant. A very specific trait of the Google Pixel and which makes these phones often appreciated by a good number of users. The resulting shots, however, remain a little further from reality than what you could get with an iPhone, for example.

At night, the results are still very good. The Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold manages to capture enough light to keep your scenes readable and render enough details. We still note a certain exaggeration on the brightness and light tones as some of our shots seem to have been taken during a rainy afternoon when it was really dark. Faces may also appear blurry in some of our attempts.

Overall, the results are very good. The Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold also has several AI-based features to improve your photos. First up is “Add me”, the new 2024 feature of the Pixel that allows you to add a person to your photos and whose results remain more or less good depending on how much attention you pay to the experience. It is also possible to edit your photos with artificial intelligence to add elements of your choice such as stars in the sky, butterflies around you, etc. Finally, we always find the excellent “magic eraser” which allows you to remove elements from an image. You can find our attempts in our test of the Google Pixel 9.

Good battery life, but complicated wireless charging

We were able to try the Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold for several weeks and we never noticed a lack of autonomy. Google's foldable phone easily lasts the day and ends it with a little over 40% of autonomy during standard use. Of course, this figure will mainly depend on your habits and gamers will probably need to go through a small recharge during the day if they want to enjoy long gaming sessions. Overall, the autonomy of the Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold is correct without being incredible. The 4650 mAh battery holds up well to the energy consumption of the Google Tensor G4 processor.

It's on the charging side that the shoe pinches. The Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold is only compatible with a limited charge of 21 W in wired mode. This is very little and even less than the majority of high-end smartphones on the market, foldable or not. You will need to wait about 1h30 to fully charge the phone.

The Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold supports wireless charging up to 7.5W. Unfortunately, it's quite tricky to use. We tried charging the Pixel 9 Pro Fold with two different wireless charging stands, and the phone's protruding camera block prevented it from detecting the charging coils on both of our devices! So you'll need to get a “pebble” charger or one that's small enough to fit under the camera block. A hassle.

Connectivity very good for correct communications

The Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold was able to go through several 4G/5G and Wifii connections during our weeks of testing. Good news: the foldable smartphone is compatible with the Wifi 7 standard, which allows it to be prepared for high speeds if you have a suitable connection. Downloading your large files and applications is then done in just a few minutes.

On the Bluetooth side, the Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold supports the 5.3 standard, which makes it easy to pair with many connected objects. We were able to pair the phone with Philips HUE smart lights, Airpods, Nothing and Google headphones as well as smartwatches from various brands. We never had any particular problems, even if some widgets on the phone prefer that you prioritize Google devices, but nothing shocking or blocking the use.

For communication, nothing to complain about either. Our phone conversations with the basic application were correct and we were able to clearly distinguish the voices of our interlocutors, even when they were in a very noisy environment. Same story on our side which is rather reassuring.

Our conclusion to the Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold test

The Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold is a very nice attempt by the manufacturer to offer a foldable model. While it is not the brand's very first foldable phone, it is convincing and innovative enough in its proposals to make us forget the first version which, in any case, has never been available in France.

At the heart of the Pixel 9 Pro Fold experience, we ultimately retain the biggest selling points of Pixel phones, including the photo quality which is still as lively and convincing. The phone's software is also very pleasant to use on a daily basis with lots of small customization features. Finally, the handling is very correct despite the fairly significant weight of the device.

The Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold is not without its flaws, however, and we regret the lack of effort put into the “dual” screen,” as well as a slight lack of power that may put off more than one person given the price of the smartphone.