Google has truly, officially confirmed that its mythical foldable phone is real. After it appeared in a few dozen leaks, Google has announced that the Pixel Fold is right around the corner. Now, you won’t have to wait much longer to burn some cash on it, as the phone will be officially revealed on May 10.
For now, we only have a slick teaser video to gaze at. I’ve had little hope about the Pixel Fold’s design, but I’m having somewhat of an epiphany after seeing those shiny metallic sides and the two-tone metal-glass finish on the rear panel. It’s not really surprising, but the video makes the whole package look enticing.
But what really caught my attention, going by the symmetry of the edges and the hinge design, is the possibility of a gapless design. Unlike the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4 and its V-shaped wedge between the two halves, it looks like the Pixel Fold will embrace the no-gap look of the Oppo Find N2.
It looks better, but more importantly, the design blocks liquid and dust particles from lodging between the two halves of the phone. Leaked renders also suggest the upcoming Galaxy Z Fold 5 will adopt a similar design in the coming months.
The Google Store has also put up a banner in anticipation of the launch. Unsurprisingly, that’s all Google is willing to reveal for now, saving the specifications and UI walkthrough part for the inaugural day of its I/O developers conference next week.
Unfortunately for Google, leaks have coughed up almost everything there is to know about the Pixel Fold. Google is reportedly going to ask around $1,700 for its foldable phone. That’s a lot of money, especially for a first-gen foldable phone and one with the Pixel brand name attached to it.
However, leaks suggest Google will serve the Pixel Watch as a freebie with the Pixel Fold, which sounds a tad more palatable from a buyer’s perspective. Google’s Tensor G2 chip will be powering the phone, while two OLED panels with 120Hz refresh rates will reportedly handle the content viewing part.
The primary camera on the back is rumored to be a 64-megapixel sensor that sits alongside a 12MP ultrawide snapper and a 10MP telephoto camera with 5x optical zoom output. However, other leaks are predicting a 48MP/10MP/10MP camera setup for the phone. We’ll find out the the details of the imaging hardware within the next few days.
Android 13 is going to run the show on the software side, but it will be interesting to see the Pixel-exclusive large-screen optimizations that Google may have in the pipeline. Preorders for the Pixel Fold are rumored to start by the end of May for the U.S., but it likely won’t get a wide international release. Thankfully, we don’t have too much longer to wait before everything is official.
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