Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold review: Unique and expensive

Companies, most notably Samsung, have been making foldable phones for the last few years now. But it was only in 2023 with the OnePlus Open that users finally got a foldable phone that I believe was worth buying. This was because unlike the earlier foldable phones, including the Pixel Fold that did not arrive in India, the Open was almost like a regular phone. It was usable and practical. Since then phone companies have followed the design ethos the Open brought. Google with its Pixel 9 Pro Fold is joining the bandwagon. The result is that the Pixel 9 Pro Fold is a phone that is immensely usable with all the goodness of a foldable screen and, practically, only one of its downsides.
Given Google’s clean Android and a host of Gemini AI features it is also a foldable phone that I believe is one of the best you can buy in India, although at a price of Rs 1,72,999 it is definitely expensive. But look at this way: it is also unique and rather exclusive, and in a country where Coldplay concert tickets sell at 10X in black market and where hundreds of people lineup to own the latest iPhone in the first hour of its sale, Rs 1,72,999 isn’t that high of a price to buy exclusivity.
The better question with the Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold is not whether it is a value for money or not. Instead it is: can it replace your regular phone and offer you something more with its foldable screen? And on this count my answer is: yes, but conditions apply.
Slowly but definitely smartphone makers are settling on the design basics of a foldable phone. The idea is that the top screen, when the phone is in clamshell mode, should be large and good enough to make it usable as a regular phone. The inner — and bigger screen — when unfolded turns the device into a sort of compact tablet. Also the phone needs to be light, slick and slim to be carried as a regular phone. The Pixel 9 Pro Fold scores well on all these points.
The Pixel 9 Pro Fold is an attractive phone. It comes in obsidian — sort of deep grey — colour and its metal body is smooth but not shiny. This is just the way I like my phones. The one shiny part is the hinge, which is barely noticeable. The build quality of the phone is fantastic in every way. It feels solid and premium. The camera island, shaped like an almost square with overly rounded corners gives the phone a Pixel look.
At 257 grams, the Pixel 9 Pro Fold is a light phone in its category. Compare this to the iPhone 16 Pro Max, which is 227 grams. This light weight means that you can easily use and carry the Pixel 9 Pro Fold throughout the day. It also helps that the 9 Pro Fold is a slim phone at around 10mm thickness when folded. Unfolded it is just 5.1mm thick!
The design of the Pixel 9 Pro Fold makes it an easy to use device, more so in the regular phone mode when you use it through the outer screen. This screen, unlike what we have seen with many other foldable phones, is of high-quality. It is more or less the same screen that is there in the regular Pixel 9, which we found to be excellent in terms of its brightness and colours. The inner screen when unfolded measures 8 inches. This too is an excellent screen with sharp resolution, and it is lovely to watch videos on it.
Having said that, the foldable screens are still a work in progress. They have a protective film on them which makes them more reflective than the screens of regular high-end phones. Despite extremely high brightness, the Pixel 9 Pro Fold is unusually reflective in well-lit or sun-lit environs.
What about the crease? That too is present. And this too is because the foldable screens are a work in progress. All foldable phones have it, even though this crease is no longer as evident as it used to be. On the Pixel 9 Pro Fold I found the crease visible when I looked at it from an angle. The good part, though, is that when I hold the phone in my hands and look down upon it — the manner in which we use our phones — the crease is not that evident. The crease is also felt when you slide your finger across the screen.
Needless to say, the crease is one of the big reasons why I still recommend a regular phone to most people, and while Pixel 9 Pro Fold has managed minimise it as much as possible with the current technology, the crease will bother perfectionists and those who agonise over even pixel-level flaws in the display of their phone.
The hinge is robust and when the phone is unfolded it opens fully flat. Similarly, when it is folded it folds without any noticeable gap between its two halves. This is exactly how a foldable phone should be. One part though I don’t like is the lack of a grip or some sort of a nub or tiny alcove in the frame in which you can dig your fingers to unfold the phone. Currently, because the fingers have nothing to hold on to, unfolding the phone takes an extra second or two and you have to be careful lest it slips out of hands as you are trying to pry it open.
The core hardware of the Pixel 9 Pro Fold is similar to the Pixel 9 Pro XL hardware. This means there is the Tensor G4 chipset inside it, along with 16GB RAM and 256GB storage. Only one variant is available.
As I noted earlier, the Pixel 9 Pro Fold can be used in two orientations: one through its outer display as a regular 6.3-inch phone. And two, with its inner screen as a device that gives you a bigger display for your entertainment needs — gaming, watching stuff — or for running two apps side-by-side or a bigger canvas to do photo or video editing. Irrespective of how you are using it, the Pixel 9 Pro Fold is a fairly fast phone. No lags or scrolling issues on it. And the best is: no heating and no unreasonable heating while gaming. Talking of the display, both of them are superb and support 120Hz Hz frame rate, which makes a difference while using apps like Instagram.
To make better use of the larger display, Google offers custom UI in its apps. In the landscape mode — although given the square shape of the phone it is unfolded it is a little weird to change the orientation — the apps use tablet UI. This means in Gmail, you get a UI with two panes. On the left are the emails, on the right their content. Similarly, other apps too have been optimised for the bigger display.
As I used the Pixel 9 Pro Fold I started settling in a routine. For most of the regular and usual stuff, like replying and reading messages, making calls etc, I rarely unfolded the phone. But when it was time to watch something, or game, or read something, the unfolded screen turned the Pixel 9 Pro Fold into this immensely large-screen device. It was fun and practical.
One thing that could have been better is the stereo speaker system. The speakers are okay but don’t have the heft and depth to make the content truly enjoyable, particularly at a louder volume. In other words, I preferred watching stuff on the Pixel 9 Pro Fold with earphones paired with it.
As we have seen with other Pixels, the Pixel 9 Pro Fold also comes with software that is powered by Google Gemini AI. In some instances, the features powered by the Gemini AI seem to be superfluous. But in some instances — and particularly the Gemini Live that can do natural voice conversations — they seem magical.
Depending on what you are doing and how much you want to rely on AI, your mileage with the Gemini AI will vary.
Battery life is one area where the Pixel 9 Pro Fold could have been better. Compared to the Pro XL this year, the Fold has a smaller battery at 4650 mAh. Combined with a larger screen, that is if you are using the larger screen a lot, this results in a battery life of around 12 to 14 hours. The Pixel 9 Pro Fold will last one full day of use, but not more. By close to midnight you would need to charge it.
As I have said several times in this review, the foldable phones are still evolving. The moving parts, and space constraints due to the hinge and an extra slim profile, means foldable phones often have less stellar hardware. In the case of the Pixel 9 Pro Fold it is evident in its camera system. Now, given that this is a Pixel phone and Google has a reputation to maintain, the overall camera performance of the Pixel 9 Pro Fold is quite good. But it is not superlatively great like that of the Pixel 9 Pro XL, which I reviewed a few weeks ago. And there is a simple reason for that: the camera hardware is different.
To maintain a slimmer profile, Google is using a smaller main image sensor in the Pixel 9 Pro Fold. This image sensor uses a 48-megapixel sensor. The lenses too are different — narrower aperture at F3.1 in telephoto, for example — although the phone has a 5X telephoto lens. The different camera hardware means that the Pixel 9 Pro Fold is not as good as the Pixel 9 Pro XL in low-light scenes. For the sake brevity, let me summarise the Pixel 9 Pro Fold camera performance using some bullet points:
— In good light, the Pixel 9 Pro Fold cameras perform admirably well. They capture a ton of details (look at the photo of bread pakoda or fruits and veggies).
— The colours, whether in low light or good light, are excellent in photos shot with the Pixel 9 pro Fold.
— In low light, the Pixel 9 Pro Fold camera clicks noticeably soft images. There is a loss of detail, particularly with the telephoto 5X lens.
— The video recording is similar to still photography performance: good when the light is ample, grainy when it is not.
— I absolutely love the way Google has utilised all the selfie camera features and the unique design of the Pixel 9 Pro Fold for selfies. There is a feature that lets you use the rear cameras for selfies, and it is just SO MUCH BETTER. Check the comparison photo embedded in this article.

The Pixel 9 Pro Fold lets people use its rear cameras to click selfies. The difference, in low light particularly, is stark: here image on the left clicked with front camera, the other two images with the rear camera system

To summarise, the camera system in the Pixel 9 Pro Fold is versatile and capable. But it falls short of the absolute top benchmarks set by the Pixel 9 Pro XL. And that is okay because the design challenges for foldable phones are different. Among the foldables, the Pixel 9 Pro Fold has a top notch camera.
After using it for over two weeks, I feel the Pixel 9 Pro Fold is one of the most innovative and fun phones out there. It is also, for a foldable phone, incredibly practical and usable. Its design is 100 per cent premium and great-looking. Its screens are fantastic, software and features unique and top class, and camera system capable.
But I also feel that like other good foldable phones out there, the Pixel 9 Pro Fold remains a marquee product, whose value is not in what it lets people do but in its exclusivity and uniqueness. That crease in the inner screen stops the perfectionist in me from fully enjoying the Pixel 9 Pro Fold. And that also holds me back from recommending it whole-heartedly. So, if you want a unique and exclusive phone that you can fold and unfold to impress friends or strangers at a party, go for it. But if you want the best Pixel this year — and arguably one of the finest phones ever made — go for the Pixel 9 Pro XL.