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00:00Yo what's up, MKBHD here. Yo, the Pixel Fold is a weird phone. There are so many things
00:09about this thing that are unusual. So I and many other people have been waiting for a
00:14folding Pixel. This is something we imagined was coming eventually, so it is kind of surreal
00:19to actually be holding and have been using and testing this phone. I've been using it
00:24for about a week now, and boy do I have a lot of thoughts. So I guess let's just start
00:28with the design. I really like a lot of the decisions they've made with this foldable,
00:34which really optimize far towards it being thin and passport shaped. Originally, when
00:38I first got to play with it, I was saying, man, this could be the best foldable to use
00:43while closed. And I do now stand by that take. It's the easiest, best foldable to use when
00:49it's closed. But unfortunately, it does have a much lower ranking for using it while open.
00:55So the front screen is 5.8 inches diagonally. It's got these curved edges you can see and
00:59it's actually fairly thin bezels all the way around. The rails all the way around the phone
01:04itself and the hinge are stainless steel. And the whole thing is relatively thin. It's
01:10just bordering on a little bit thicker than the thickest normal phone you can get. I think
01:14the number is like 12 millimeters total. You can see there's no air gap in the middle.
01:18So honestly, yeah, I've spent a lot of time using the outside screen like a normal phone.
01:25And it's just the most reachable, usable outside screen of any folding phone. You unlock
01:29it with the fingerprint reader on the side, which is also the power button. And it's pretty
01:33quick. This is 120 hertz OLED display that gets up to 1550 nits peak brightness. So it's
01:40plenty visible outside. It looks really good to me in most situations. I mean, I'm impressed.
01:45This is a premium outside display, which I mean, I guess I should be for $1,800. But
01:51we'll get to the price a little bit later. The point is, though, I've always said the
01:56best foldables have to be usable as just a regular phone too. And this one does accomplish
02:02that. Great. So then you open up the phone. And then that's when things start to get a
02:09little more weird. So you can't exactly open this phone with one hand. I've definitely
02:12tried. I kind of try this with every foldable. Some are easier than others. This one's pretty
02:16much a no go. But once you get it open, when you're in there, you're greeted with an interior
02:217.6 inch folding AMOLED display. Also 120 hertz and also plenty bright up to 1450 nits.
02:29Really nice size. It's reminiscent of that Oppo Find N2 foldable. But there are a couple
02:34of things to note. Here's where some of the weird starts. So first of all, the crease
02:38is pretty average. It's definitely not dramatically worse than others I've seen, but you can for
02:43sure see it if you're looking for it and you can kind of feel it. But because it's through
02:48the middle of the screen, you aren't usually running your finger over it, unlike the vertically
02:52folding phone. So it's not really a big deal. It's easy to disappear to your eyes as you
02:56just look at content and use it normally. But then there was just some talk about how
03:01it didn't seem like the phone fully unfolds to 180 degrees. And well, I don't know. This
03:09hinge is really firm, so you can fold it up halfway or any angle you want really easily,
03:14which is awesome. But then when you fold it flat, visually it looks pretty flat. But
03:20when you put it on a table, since there's a camera bump, it becomes more clear as it's
03:24rocking back and forth. It's maybe like one or two degrees short of flat. It's kind of
03:29weird. I mean, you can force it to get to flat or even a little bit past that, but it
03:34really doesn't feel good to do that. Anyway, then there is the bezel. As you've probably
03:39seen by now, this phone does have a slightly bigger top and bottom bezel than some other
03:43folding phones. It is noticeable at first when you just look at the bezels. But again,
03:50it's one of those things where you start using the phone and it is easy to forget about.
03:53You know, I think a lot of videos are going to hold it up side by side next to the Samsung
03:56fold. And then it's like, oh yeah, clearly one of them has a dramatically thinner bezel
04:01and it is really noticeable. But just using the phone, it looks fine. And Google actually
04:06says that this was an intentional decision. So what they were saying is they were again
04:09biasing so much towards it being thin that for some of the hinge components, they move
04:14them out and above and below the hinge instead of in that Z-axis space so that it could be
04:20as thin as it is. But now you end up with a little bit of extra bezel above and below
04:25the screen. But it did allow them room to put in a real webcam or selfie camera instead
04:31of a under display one. But also I think this is a little bit along the lines of Google.
04:36The Pixel has never really been all about pristine, super highly engineered, like amazing
04:41hardware. They've sort of flexed their strengths on the software side. And I think there's
04:46a little bit of that here too. Either way, you can check the box of IPX8 water resistance,
04:51which is nice. I do really like this satin finish on the back, which does a good job
04:55of minimizing fingerprints and looks pretty good. And the camera bump doesn't go all the
04:59way to the very edges to meet the rails of the phone. That would have been tough with
05:03a foldable. But I do still think they did a good job of maintaining the whole pixel
05:07aesthetic. Performance is weirdly good. It's really, really good. It's actually the best
05:13of any Pixel phone, even though it's using the same chip. It's the Tensor G2 from the
05:16Pixel 7 and 7 Pro. But it's, yeah, it feels smoother and faster and more consistent than
05:21the Pixel 7 and 7 Pro. So, you know, maybe it could be that 12 gigs of RAM that are in
05:25here. It also has 256 or 512 gigs of UFS 3.1 storage. But yeah, it's been butter the whole
05:32time. I am very happy to report. Now, it's still a Pixel, so I have to add the disclaimer
05:36that it might not stay this way. You know, Pixels have a history of this accelerated
05:42aging, which is even more of a bummer when you pay this much for a phone. But, you know,
05:46I can't report on that until we actually get to a year from now. So the best I can do is
05:50tell you how it's acting now. And it is acting great. The other thing, though, that I'm kind
05:55of actually hoping changes over time is the battery life. Because the battery life in
06:02the first this week that I've been testing the phone has not been great. Usually, actually,
06:07I can kind of just throw away the first day or two of me testing this phone because it's,
06:11you know, still setting it up, still connecting everything and getting it working properly.
06:15And then I can start looking at the numbers. But basically, every day since I first got
06:20this phone, I've kind of had the same experience, which is not that great. Four hours of screen
06:24on time at the end of my day, which is not nearly as high as some of the flagships out
06:31there. It is a 4800 mAh battery, which is really good for a foldable, but not gigantic
06:38for a giant screen on the inside. So Pixels have this feature called adaptive battery
06:43and sometimes they can get a little bit better over time. Depends on your use, depends on
06:47who you are, your mileage may vary. But yeah, I've gotten I would say this is like C plus
06:53battery life. And the more I think about it, I've been using a lot of the phone wall
06:58closed, which means it's the smaller outside screen. And so if I had been using the larger
07:03inside screen even more, it would not have gone better. So yes, C, C plus for battery.
07:10But I want to talk about the software experience here because it is a Pixel after all. And there
07:15is one weird thing. So this was a very interesting phone to test because Google had to do a lot
07:21of software work and I was excited to try all of it. Google's apps are all these beautiful
07:26tablet optimized apps now. They're so thoughtfully designed for the phone with this size screen.
07:31They all look normal on the outside screen, but on the inside, Google Drive has this
07:36nice slide out sidebar and multi-column view. Gmail's new multi-column view is great. The
07:42weather app, the new weather app is absolutely fantastic. Google Calendar is completely redesigned.
07:48There's just so much good stuff. And then the new dock sort of ties it all together.
07:53So this dock I talked about on the Pixel tablet, you swipe up slightly from the bottom and
07:58the home bar turns into your home screen dock. So this is the apps that you have on
08:03the bottom of your home screen. And you can quickly switch between these apps or launch
08:07into multitasking super easily. So just like the other folding phones, I feel like a multitasking
08:13God when I'm using this huge folding phone open and just typing away. But here is the
08:19weird part. As far as I can remember, every other foldable phone allows you to set up
08:26the home screens and stuff on the outside screen. And then the inside screen is separate.
08:33You can have a separate set of widgets. You can go crazy and make a different layout on
08:37the inside here. And on this phone, you cannot do that. So look, right now, my outside screen
08:45is these three pages, this one with the icons and the weather, and then this calendar widget
08:49one, and then this third one. So when I open up the phone, that's exactly mirrored here.
08:54The left one is the first home screen. Then the right one is the second one. And I swipe
08:58over and here's the third one. But if I like take this raindrop icon and move it over here,
09:03and then when I go back to closed, it's also moved the raindrop icon there because it's
09:08keeping them exactly mirrored at all times, which is fine. I think that actually makes
09:14a lot of sense, especially for beginners. Like I bet if Apple made a folding iPhone
09:20right now, they would do the exact same thing because iPhone users are used to not having
09:23a ton of customization on their home screens. But I haven't found a way to unlock that
09:28at all. Like there is no, I haven't seen any home screen setting or display setting to
09:33actually be able to set up a different home screen on the inside versus the outside. Just
09:38feels kind of un-Android-like to me. Like I feel like I can't be the only one who's
09:42spending $1,800 on a first gen folding phone who would like to have some apps on the outside
09:48screen and like a bunch of widgets on the inside screen, you know? You actually can't
09:53even span the middle with one widget because it's treating them basically as two separate
09:59home screens, even though it's all with one big folding screen. I just found that so weird.
10:04So anyway, aside from that, I really enjoyed using the Pixel Fold. Seriously, between the
10:10great performance and the Google software, you know, all the Pixel stuff, Google Assistant,
10:15call screening, etc. It's really easy to get past the weirdness. The other thing you typically
10:20expect out of a Pixel though is good cameras. So let's talk about this camera situation
10:25for a little bit because as I've said, everywhere you look, there's just a little bit of weird.
10:30So first of all, actually, there are five cameras on this phone. There is the 9 megapixel
10:35hole punch camera on the front on the outside screen. Then there's an 8 megapixel camera on
10:41the inside up in that bezel. Then there's the three primary cameras on the back. The thing
10:47with these back cameras is because of how thin the phone is, there's definitely not enough room
10:53to physically fit the same size sensors and optics that you have in the flagship Pixel phone.
10:59So there is all new stuff here and it's a little bit smaller. So there's a 48 megapixel main camera,
11:05a 10 megapixel ultra wide and a 10 megapixel 5x telephoto. Pixel Fold photos feel a lot like
11:14Pixel 7a photos, which isn't an insult. That's just to say that they're in the same style,
11:19the same contrasty pixel style, but overall are definitely a step down in quality from the
11:25flagships. They're a bit noisier, a bit more muted in the colors, especially with the ultra wide.
11:31And it takes a bit longer to gather the same amount of light as the larger flagship sensors.
11:35Also, if you want to see video from the Pixel Fold, I actually shot the entire last autofocus
11:39video on the Pixel Fold. So you can clearly see it's a step down from some of the other
11:44flagships I've shot with. There's a lot of noise in the darker areas of the frame.
11:48But I will say it was definitely easier to shoot with because it's a folding phone,
11:52so I can just unfold it and I see the viewfinder and I can frame things up with the primary camera.
11:56So that's an advantage. But yeah, it's not like you're going to go out and shoot,
12:00you know, movies on this thing. I mean, Samsung has had to deal with the same type of thing. Like
12:03the camera quality of their super expensive foldable phones has always been a slight step
12:09down from their, you know, big flagship slab style phones. So I think that's a fair comparison.
12:15This is a step, it's a notch down from the Pixel flagship cameras. You know what's fun?
12:23This is a, this is technically a first gen device, right? This is the first time Google's ever
12:28made a foldable. And on one hand, you can kind of tell that they've at least learned some things
12:34from the other foldables already out there because this feels a little bit better in some ways.
12:38Like they've gone with this passport sized form factor and they've made conscious decisions to
12:43make it thin. And there's some hinge innovation here and it's kept the Pixel aesthetic. Just a
12:49lot of good choices that are impressive for a first gen device, but it still clearly has some
12:55first gen shortcomings also that have me thinking, well, maybe the next one will be better. You know,
13:01like for the inside display, the crease and the bezels and the 178 degree almost flat fold,
13:09like maybe the next one will be better. For the weak battery life, like, yes,
13:14there is wireless charging, but hey, maybe the next one will have faster charging than the
13:19current max of 30 Watts. And of course the app situation is still, let's just say it's clearly
13:25imperfect. They've done a lot of good stuff with their software, but some apps still look horrible.
13:31I mean, look at Instagram. It just, it looks terrible. You can double tap to the left or to
13:37the right to move it over closer to the side where it's more reachable. But still, I mean that,
13:42that is rough. Twitter also looks horrible. My golf app, 18 birdies, also not optimized.
13:49Even YouTube studio is just not optimized for this bigger screen. And the list goes on and on
13:54and on. Maybe, maybe that'll be better by the next one. So then the last weird thing about this phone
14:00is it is $1,800. So of course that, that price is out pretty much anyone who's just going to like
14:07walk into a store casually and just get a normal upgrade for their phone. It will be relegated to
14:12the early adopters, the enthusiasts, maybe people watching this video and the pixel fans. It's a
14:18smaller group, but also I got to say, weirdly enough, I really like using this phone. I like,
14:26love using this phone. It's got just the right set of quirks and features to that, that I like it over
14:32the regular pixel, which I had been using. And also I think it's, it's specifically because it's
14:39so well optimized for using it closed. Like I keep talking about how it's the best foldable to use
14:43closed. It's got the right set of strengths and weaknesses that I spend most of my time just
14:50enjoying using it like a normal phone closed. And then every once in a while, my 20, 30, 40%
14:55of the time that I open it up and use it, it's just this whole new world. And it's a nice benefit.
14:59It's getting closer to that ideal folding phone for me. I really like it. It's also Android 14
15:06coming up soon, five years of promise, security updates, great haptics, great speakers. I mean,
15:14this there's a lot of, it's got just enough upside that I really like it. I'm sure I'm looking
15:19forward to the next one still, of course, but for anyone else who's going to jump in on this first
15:23gen version, just know what you're getting into. It's a weird one, but I like it. Also, you might
15:28have spotted a few designs from channel sponsor dbrand a few times in this video, this new one,
15:33it's called robot city. And I think it's pretty sick. It's one of my favorite designs they've
15:37released yet. It helps a lot also on a phone that's as monotonous as the pixel fold. So these
15:42sort of designs have kind of become a staple of dbrand over the years. I don't know if you
15:46remember the hair dryer that's been in the studio, which was wrapped in the original
15:50robot skin. So this new one, robot city, if you can look closely, you'll see it. Actually,
15:55there are three different versions that you can choose from that are all these unique,
15:59discreet pieces of art. First one is called dead quarters, kind of like a dystopian headquarters
16:06of robot city. The second one is an abusement park, complete with sharks and krakens and
16:14doomed carnival rides. And the third one really hits home for me. It's called crime square,
16:21because you know, like Times Square, but with crime, there are so many Easter eggs in them,
16:26it's silly. So if you want to check them out, the robot city skins are available on over 100
16:31devices, including the pixel folds. If you want to check them out, I'll have a link down below
16:34in the description. Either way, that's been it. Until the next one. Thanks for watching.
16:40Catch you later. Peace.