The Pixel 11 Pro Fold is mostly an incremental improvement on past Pixel Fold phones, which is nice to see, though the rise in price is considerably less welcome.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Larger external display | Tensor G6 is underpowered at this price point |
| IP68 water resistance | WiFi connectivity is problematic |
| Proper Qi2 implementation (if anyone at Samsung’s listening…) | HiLight notification is… a gimmick |
Score: 3/5
In this review
Google Pixel 11 Pro Fold Specifications
Google Pixel 11 Pro Fold Design
Google Pixel 11 Pro Fold Camera
Google Pixel 11 Pro Fold Performance
Google Pixel 11 Pro Fold Battery
Google Pixel 11 Pro Fold Verdict
Ethical disclaimer:
The Google Pixel 11 Pro Fold used in this review was loaned to me by Google for the purposes of review. I like putting disclaimers up front, because in a world rife with AI-led slop and “reviewers” with sloppy ethics, I think being clear with an audience should be a positive point of differentiation.
For more on ART’s Ethics position, see here.
Design
I noted in my review of the Pixel 10 Pro Fold last year that Google was playing it safe in design terms, only making minor changes to its folding phone recipe.
Guess what Google’s done this year? It’s tricky… you might need to use AI…
OK, OK, you totally won’t, because the Google Pixel 11 Pro Fold is remarkably similar to its predecessors in a design sense, though there are a few small improvement that are worth calling out here.
Google has upped the size of the external display on the Google Pixel 11 Pro Fold to 6.5 inches from the 6.4 inch screen on the Google Pixel 10 Pro Fold, and it’s done so without actually making a larger phone. That’s not wizardry in action, but instead Google managing to slim down the bezels on the newer phone, a nice design addition, though not one that makes the older Fold a “bad” phone per se.
It’s just that the Google Pixel 11 Pro Fold is slightly better, and when you do unfold it, you’re also still faced with an 8-inch, 2076×2152 pixel flexible OLED display, but it’s one that has a higher peak brightness at a claimed 3,600 nits. That can equate to better visibility in direct sunlight, which again is a nice little upgrade.
The day I’m taking photos of the phone… does not have bright sunshine. But I have tested it on days that did.
The Google Pixel 11 Pro Fold is marginally thinner – though you’d really need the two phones sitting side by side to pick this, and it’s irrelevant if you’re using a case – and 19g lighter, which represents some nice engineering work from Google.
That being said, at 239g, this is still a phone with some bulk to it, but then that’s the price you pay for a full-sized folding phone… and I do have to note while I’m handing out the engineering awards that Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra is even lighter again at 215g.
That comparison to the Samsung is an inevitable one, though there are plenty of other competitors in this space right now with the likes of Motorola, Oppo and Honor having available models, and rumours continuing to circle around a likely foldable iPhone this year…
But I digress.
The other “new” design feature on the Google Pixel 11 Pro Fold is the HiLight notification and Gemini light built into the rear camera array of the phone.
The idea here is that you can see when you’re using Gemini hands-free if you’ve got the phone flipped over, or set a specific HiLight colour for specific contacts if they’re calling.
All of which works, but with my long experience in the mobile phone market, I can’t help but feel like I’ve fallen back about 15 years in mobile phone terms, back when HTC used sell phones with notification “charms” that lit up to let you know something was happening. Then again, Google’s Pixel division has included a whole bunch of ex-HTC staffers for some time now… hmm.
HiLight isn’t bad, but it’s not terribly useful in real world use; it’s cute the first time that Gemini fires up its lights to let you know it’s thinking about a command, but not exactly essential.
It also baffles my brain as to why, when Google’s built in a full RGB light capable of at least hundreds if not thousands of colour variants that if you want to assign one to a particular favourite contact, you only have five colours to pick from.
Here are your colour choices. It’s… not extensive, is it?
Does nobody at Google have more than five near and dear contacts they’d like to classify with a HiLight?
One feature that’s been kept between Pixel generations and where Samsung is definitely still playing catchup is water resistance. The Google Pixel 11 Pro Fold is rated at IP68, which means in theory it’s fine for full immersion and dust resistant to boot, though as always this doesn’t give you carte blanche to go swimming with it.
That will more than likely kill the Google Pixel 11 Pro Fold, and at this year’s prices that would be an expensive dip.
If you’re not au fait with how IP ratings work, I’ve got a full guide to phone water resistance you can read here, or you can watch the video below:
The Google Pixel 11 Pro Fold isn’t an inexpensive phone, but that doesn’t buy you a whole lot of colour choices. You can get it in Olive or Obsidian finishes and… that’s it.
The Obsidian model that Google’s loaned me isn’t a terrible colour or anything, and I know I’ve said this before in reviews, but is there a reason why premium phones don’t ship in more vibrant and fun colours?
Is someone holding a gun to your head to force you to only make dull coloured folding phones, Google?
Blink the HighLight notification light twice if so…
Camera
The Google Pixel 11 Pro Fold features a “Pro” suffix, and in the world of smartphones that usually equates to having professional-grade cameras.
However, as has long – and annoyingly – been the case with foldable phones, what you’re getting despite paying the highest prices for a smartphone isn’t the best camera array that you could get. Indeed, once again on paper the changes here feel marginal, with the same technical megapixel counts for the primary 48MP wide, 10.5MP ultra-wide and 10.8MP 5x optical telephoto cameras as its predecessor.
Google says that it’s tweaked the hardware for that primary 48MP wide sensor to an extent, and as it has long done, it talks up the algorithmic smarts of its camera post-processing and (because it’s Google) the ways you can use AI to further tweak your photos.
The most obvious area where I’ve seen some improvements in my testing have been in low-light shooting, where the Google Pixel 11 Pro Fold does tend to capture a little faster and maybe with a little more light, though sadly I didn’t have it and the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra at the same time to put them head-to-head.
I certainly won’t say that the Google Pixel 11 Pro Fold has a bad camera, because for most purposes it’ll deliver decent enough shots, though I don’t quite know that it deserves its “Pro” suffix in this case. It’s fine, but if you want the best in smartphone photography, this isn’t it.
Pixel 11 Pro Fold Sample Photos
Oh, look, it’s me. Selfies are fine, but that’s not a premium feature these days anyway.
Sydney Pigeons do not have time to stand still for photographs.
Is it too late for me to become a food blogger? I do like food…
Seagulls secretly do ballet when they think nobody is watching.
For sale: Open air Sydney property with city views, offers over $4 million considered.
How good is the zoom on the Pixel 11 Pro Fold? Let’s find out. Here’s the regular shot…
And here’s the maximum 30x zoom. Not a bad effort (though it would struggle any further, I suspect.)
Performance
The Google Pixel 11 Pro Fold is built around Google’s latest generation “Tensor” processor, the Tensor G6, paired up with 16GB of RAM and 256GB, 512GB or 1TB of RAM, depending on how much you want to deplete your wallet by. The 256GB model Google sent my way will run you $2,799, and I do feel it’s important at this point to note that this is a $100 jump over the price of last year’s Fold.
That’s the price we’re all paying as the mad fever to invest in AI and gobble up all the RAM and storage for data centers has sent component prices skyrocketing, including companies like (checks notes)… ah… Google. Yeah, that’s a bit awkward, isn’t it?
The 512GB model is even more pricey at $2,999, and while the Google factories are pumping out 1TB models, those aren’t being sold here officially, though I have seen some other retailers offering them up for around $3,349 if you’re so inclined.
Google’s Tensor processors have never kept up with the cutting edge of smartphone performance, and just like in years prior, Google does its damned best to try and hide this.
Why do I say hide? It’s because if you do get a Pixel 11 Pro Fold early enough – as I did, courtesy of Google – then you’ll find that specific benchmarks “aren’t available” for those phones. Other apps can run fine, but for some reason they’re not “available” through Google Play.
Yeah, I see what you’re doing there Google, and just like last year I’m calling you out for this quite blatant anti-consumer nonsense. It’s a matter of course that becomes a little more pointed given Google’s higher level of app blocking coming in with Android 17, where developers, even those providing apps outside of Google Play will have to register with Google in order for Android devices to even sideload them.
Google’s position here is that it’s acting in the interests of consumers and protecting them from dodgy apps, an argument that would have more weight to it, I feel, if there weren’t quite so many dodgy apps in the Google Play store already.
That aside, while the Google Pixel 11 Pro Fold is an Android 17 phone, I was able to sideload the benchmarks that Google didn’t want me to run, namely Geekbench 6 and 3Dmark before the launch review embargo lifted. Lo and behold, by the way, because this review is running after the embargo has lifted… those benchmarks are now “available”. Now isn’t that convenient?
To jump ahead of any complaints on this score, I used Geekbench 6 even though Geekbench 7 is available, because my prior comparison CPU scores are built around that older benchmark. I’ve noted down the Google Pixel 11 Pro Fold’s Geekbench 7 scores for future reference, but they’re not as relevant here.
Here’s how the Google Pixel 11 Pro Fold compared using Geekbench 6 (sideloaded):
It’s not surprising that the Tensor G6 outclasses the Tensor G5, because there would be something rather badly wrong if that wasn’t the case. Still, when the best you can do at a CPU level is beat out the competition’s phone from three years ago, it’s not an impressive look.
Maybe it gets a little bit better on the GPU front?
Here’s how its GPU compared using 3Dmark Wild Life Extreme:
Yeah… not so much.
Google’s contention here is that straight up benchmarks don’t tell the whole story, and that the Tensor G6 is specifically fine-tuned for AI applications, giving it an edge in the AI-led world that we’ve all been dragged into whether we liked it or not.
I don’t entirely buy that argument for two reasons. Firstly, there are plenty of CPU and GPU intensive Android apps out there, and having less power to handle them than your compeititon is never a good thing.
Android 17 does bring with it the option to create “bubbles” for multi-tasking apps, which is very welcome, but again does rely on having enough CPU and GPU grunt behind the scenes to keep everything ticking along. For those purposes, while you would have to wait a while for Android 17 to arrive on the Samsung Galaxy Fold8 Ultra, once it does I suspect you’d have a much better time with it.
Then there’s the AI aspect. Google is, like every other company out there, relying more on AI data centers and less on on-device processing for most everyday AI tasks… and I know this rather painfully, because one of the aspects of the Google Pixel 11 Pro Fold that has been a bit of a problem for me has been its Wi-Fi connectivity.
It’s been patchy, and for a while I just put this down to dumb luck, but then I’m hitting the same issues with the Google Pixel 11 Pro Fold – review coming shortly – so maybe it’s a chipset issue. Either way, my Wi-Fi access on a strong connection that’s acting flawlessly across a range of devices sometimes drops out… and with it most of the AI features that are meant to make the Pixel’s Gemini inclusion feel “special”.
Speaking of specials, one of the deals that Google used to offer with past Pixel Fold (and Pixel Pro) phones was a year of its AI Pro platform. Not a bad freebie given it runs $32.99/month.
The good news is that you do still get an Google AI Pro subscription with the Google Pixel 11 Pro Fold.
The bad news is that it’s only a six-month subscription, not a full year. While I’m notably in the AI-is-still-error-prone-and-creatively-and-environmentally-destructive camp myself, it’s hard to see how halving a deal offered on prior phones is an upgrade for consumers.
Battery
Remember how I said that the Google Pixel 11 Pro Fold was marginally thinner than its predecessor, but that was an engineering detail you’d really need to have both phones side-by-side to fully appreciate?
You were paying attention earlier in the review, right?
It turns out that there’s an easier way to compare them that’s based around that super-thin body. Shrinking the size of the Google Pixel 11 Pro Fold gave Google less space to cram in batteries, and as a result the phone has a smaller battery than its predecessor, with a claimed 4806mAh battery hiding behind its frame, compared to 5015 for the Google Pixel 10 Pro Fold.
I’m not sure that consumers want less battery capacity, Google, though as always the proof is in the testing, and here Google’s lower-performance Tensor processors have tended to do rather well.
Battery testing is a complex beast; you can read about my own battery testing methodology here.
To put the Google Pixel 11 Pro Fold through its paces, I ran it… eventually… through my standard YouTube battery test.
I say eventually because I had to run it more than once, thanks to its Wi-Fi being temperamental on my home network. Dropping playback could give it a battery life advantage, so I had to watch it like a hawk to ensure it made it all the way through, which I didn’t particularly enjoy doing.
Here’s how it compared:
That’s some nice work there Google; while I don’t pretend that this test is the be-all and end-all for evaluating phone battery performance, it’s very pleasing to see the Pixel 11 Pro Fold besting most of the field save its own predecessor.
It’s also pleasing to note that, like last year’s Google Pixel 10 Pro Fold, the Google Pixel 11 Pro Fold supports proper Qi2 charging, including magnetic attachment. That’s a trick that Samsung could do with learning how to implement in a phone…
Google Pixel 11 Pro Fold: Alex’s Verdict
I am a noted fan of folding phones in the larger form factor, and for the past couple of years I have been a big fan of Google’s Pixel Fold phones for their clean simplicity, decent screens and battery life.
All of that is true for the Google Pixel 11 Pro Fold, though I am struck by how much the appeal of Google’s Pixel phones is pushing more and more towards its AI-driven vision of the world; while the HiLight feature is a bit useless for contacts, it’s also built into Gemini where I can see it being more functionally useful, and of course, Google wants to get that ongoing AI subscription revenue out of you, all of which relies on getting you as hooked on Gemini as possible.
Whether that appeals is very much up to you, but even so, within this space it’s hard not to see the Google Pixel 11 Pro Fold running a distance behind Samsung here… and it’s hardly the only player in this space.
The Google die-hards might never look beyond Google’s offerings, but if you’re happy to do so, it’s hard not to see the Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra as the better overall buy.
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