Google’s Pixel 11 Pro Fold feels like the end of an era
The Verge · LC · trust 58/100
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A great foldable with IP68 and a reliable triple camera, trapped in a shape everyone else seems to be moving on from.
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The foldable phone market is in the middle of a huge transformation, but no one told Google.
Last year, Samsung transformed its Galaxy Z Fold 7 with a dramatically thinner design. This year, it made its phones thinner and lighter again, almost eliminated the crease, and introduced a new passport-sized form factor that feels like the future. Next month, Apple is expected to enter the market with a foldable iPhone that, rumor has it, includes all of the above and adds iOS too.
In the face of all that flux, Google’s Pixel 11 Pro Fold has hardly changed a thing.
Like the other Pixel 11 phones, this is an iterative hardware upgrade, but unlike the others its design feels dated already. It’s a little thinner and lighter than last year’s phone, the main camera is a bit better, the screens a touch brighter. But it’s mostly the same hardware, boosted by software updates like Camera Looks, multitasking Bubbles, and Creator Suite tools.
This isn’t a bad phone at all. The IP68 rating makes it tougher than Samsung’s latest, and the triple camera and solid software are both big draws. Perhaps not changing the design will even work in Google’s favor: The 11 Pro Fold’s aspect ratio sits in between the two extremes of Samsung’s 2026 lineup, its stocky Z Fold 8 and skinny Z Fold 8 Ultra , and despite a price hike still feels competitively priced with either.
That’s enough to mean the 11 Pro Fold still feels like a smart purchase right now, but I’m worried it won’t do for long.
At $1,899, the Pixel 11 Pro Fold is $100 more than last year’s phone . Unlike on the other Pixel 11 models, that’s not masking a storage bump: This has the same 256GB starting storage as last year’s model. You can pay an extra $120 to get 512GB storage, and a further $230 to get 1TB. Every version comes with 16GB of RAM.
That $100 hike gets you a handful of hardware improvements on last year’s phone. The chipset has been upgraded to the new Tensor G6; both OLED displays run a bit brighter, now peaking at 3,600 nits; the 48-megapixel main camera uses a larger image sensor; and the Qi2 magnetic wireless charging now runs at 25W, up from 15W.
That’s just about it in terms of actual performance upgrades. There have been slightly bigger changes to the design though. This year’s phone is 0.7mm thinner when closed and weighs 19g less. That doesn’t sound like a whole lot, but holding the two generations side by side you can easily tell the difference, and the 11 Pro Fold is more comfortable to use for extended periods.
Still, it might be too little. Last year, Samsung slimmed its Z Fold 7 down dramatically, and pushed that even further this year, echoing similarly slim designs from Chinese rivals Oppo and Honor . Google’s foldable still feels big and bulky by comparison, like hardware that’s a generation behind.
The same is true of the display’s crease, which is pretty obvious even head-on, and easily noticeable when swiping from side to side. Oppo and Samsung have both worked miracles to make their creases almost invisible unless the light’s just right, and it feels like Google has a lot of catching up to do.
The almost square main display is well-suited to multitasking, helped by Bubbles , a new Android 17 feature that’s available on every Pixel but comes into its own on the foldables. Multiple apps can be opened in floating bubbles, allowing quick access to a smaller window that can be minimized just as easily. On the 11 Pro Fold’s larger display, those bubbles can float perpetually in a dedicated dock in the bottom-right corner for unobtrusive access. It’s ideal for hopping into Spotify to skip a song, diving into Todoist to tick off a task, or pulling up WhatsApp to reply to a message, all before getting back to whatever you were working on.
But in the wake of Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 8, this square screen feels a little behind the times. The industry seems to agree: Huawei has adopted the same design , Apple is expected to , and both Honor and Oppo are rumored to have wide foldables in the works. I enjoyed Samsung’s passport-sized form factor for its pocketability and natural feel when reading or watching TV and miss it while using this. By contrast, the 11 Pro Fold is tall when closed, and boxy when open. I do find it more comfortable than the unnaturally skinny Z Fold 8 Ultra though, and anyone split between Samsung’s two shapes may find this a happy medium.
Still, the 11 Pro Fold has its own advantages. Unlike those phones, it has an IP68 rating for dust- and water-resistance, following the similar score on the 10 Pro Fold. For a phone that can cost upwards of $2,000, that extra level of protection is worth more than mere peace of mind. Google also boasts that the new glass fiber composite back is three times more durable and “ nearly impossible to crack .”
Google’s foldables remain the only ones to support Qi2 magnetic wireless charging, here upgraded to faster 25W speeds . The necessary magnets are part of why the phone is thicker than rivals, a tradeoff which will make sense for some.
This may have Qi2, but it…
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