After plenty of rumours and leaks, Google finally made official the existence of its upcoming foldable device — the Pixel Fold. Google released a short teaser video on its social media channels on the occasion of Star Wars Day, showcasing the device’s design, hinge mechanism, inner display, and the underlying software. In each post across social media, Google also hinted at a 10 May announcement, which happens to be the first day of Google’s annual I/O 2023 developer conference. Apart from the Pixel Fold, Google will also be announcing its successor to the Pixel 6a, called the Pixel 7a, and the Pixel Tablet at the upcoming event.
The video teaser is quite short, but unlike most teasers, it showcases the Pixel Fold in its entirety, giving us a good idea about its design, hinge, display, and software. The video starts off by showing what appears to be a chunky camera module at the back sporting three cameras and an LED flash unit, alongside a “mysterious” grille, as its purpose is yet to be confirmed. We are then treated to a view of the hinge, which for now, appears to fold the two halves shut without a visible gap.
Next up is a view of the inner display and software layout. What’s evident is the rather thick bezel, which is a detail the Galaxy Z Fold dealt with in its earlier models. Our best guess is that with a phone to tablet form factor, Google may have thought of thicker bezels as it generally makes a tablet easier to hold. Then there’s also space needed for the inner selfie camera — shown off in recent leaks —placed near the top right corner.
Software-wise, the layout looks very familiar to a regular Android 13 homescreen. So, we will have to wait and watch to know what sort of optimisations Google has made for its first foldable Pixel device.
And lastly, we get a glimpse of the outer display which has its Always on Display feature enabled, so we don’t have an idea of its bezel. What is clearly evident is that the Pixel Fold’s form factor is closer to Oppo’s Find N2, which is shorter and wider when folded compared to the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4‘s narrow and taller design.
As per a recent report, the device will be powered by Google’s current generation Tensor G2 SoC, which already powers its Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro smartphones. It is expected to have a 120Hz, 5.8-inch OLED outer display (1,080×2,092 pixels) with a 17.4:9 aspect ratio and a 120Hz, 7.6-inch inner display (1,840 x 2,208 pixels) with a 6:5 aspect ratio. The foldable is said to have a 48-megapixel primary camera, a 10.8-megapixel ultrawide camera and a 10.8-megapixel telephoto camera with 5x optical zoom. For selfies, it is likely to sport a 9.5-megapixel selfie camera in the outer display and an 8-megapixel camera above the inner display.
