> trapped in a shape everyone else seems to be moving on from.
Really not sure if we were ever there. Foldable phones still feel like a novelty that is expensive and fragile, among other tradeoffs. Also moving on to what, exactly? The regular slate form factor is what people buy, and have been for years at this point.
I'm confused, what is everyone else moving away from, folding phones? The same article said Samsung is still making folding phones and Apple is about to release one.
Moving away from the tall narrow foldables that open to a square, to shorter, wider foldables that open to a rectangle, like the Galaxy Z fold 8 and the rumored iPhone foldable.
I picked up a Z Fold 8 for a test device, in order to optimize my app for folding phones (also in anticipation of Apple's folding phone), and the squat form factor really seems like something out of the future (certainly something different), I like it way more than I thought I would, the front is convenient for a lot of quick scrolling, checking things, and the wide 4:3 inner screen is really great for content viewing and web surfing. Even the front screen alone is better for content viewing then the traditional slab phones.
I like it so much I'd consider a non folding phone in the squatter form factor as well.
I'm tempted to get one to replace my very cracked Pixel 9 Pro XL. With all the incentives Google offers for Google Fi customers it's not all that expensive. Comes out to about $1100 after trade-in and includes a free Pixel Watch 5.
I'm foldable-curious and Samsung just includes too much overlapping bloat "features". Gemini is bad enough, I don't need Bixby and whatever else. Not to mention I would have to pay full price.
I'm on my last Samsung for this reason. Just way too much bloatware, need to agree to a new privacy policy once a week, and every time it updates I find a few new apps on my phone I didn't want.
Gonna hold out for the Motorola/Graphene phone though. One of the models is supposed to be a flagship foldable.
I also have a Samsung phone besides a Pixel with GrapheneOS and I just ripped out Gemini, most of Bixby, etc. using UAD-ng. It's very clean now, but I still have all the customizability of OneUI, Good Lock, etc.
> Samsung just includes too much overlapping bloat "features"
Yep, that's a major drawback. My partner has a Samsung phone and seeing all of the included bloatware, plus the terrible updates and add even more, made me not even consider one of their devices last time I bought a phone.
At work we bought a used tablet off eBay to replace a customer device where they really wanted an identical (obsolete) model.
OMG the amount of extra crap that Verizon branded tablet had pre-installed was agonizing.
All system apps so you couldn't get rid of it.
Just be careful about what your actual use case is.
For example, this form factor of foldable doesn’t give you significantly more screen real estate for 16:9 video content since it’s such a square aspect ratio.
They also generally aren’t large enough to take advantage of tablet layouts, while tri-fold designs fold out to be almost identical to a tablet size.
You have to really want to use two apps side by side in my opinion.
I'm on fi and got the fold 8 through fi for a pretty steep discount. It was cash off immediately + fi credits. I can pull up exact details if you care but it was several hundred dollars off split pretty evenly between instant discount and fi credits. Coming from nearly 10 years of pixels/nexus the transition hasn't been that bad. I miss a couple pixel exclusives, but nearly all the samsung bloatware can be disabled or removed entirely. I haven't bumped into bixby once.
One genuine nice Samsung feature is DeX. Been using it + moonlight (when needed) to make the phone basically a secondary computer when hooked up to USB-C monitor. Honestly I think this phone may end up replacing several other devices - kindle, gaming portable (eg: steamdeck, replaced by phone + GameSir G8 + controller), laptop, tablet. I think it can only replace laptop in my use case because I can remote into my desktop from it if I need extra compute - so if you are laptop only I don't expect it to be a straight replacement.
Honestly, best phone I've ever used - but I hope next year either google gets off the sidelines and adopts passport form factor + gets its shit together on the crease, cpu and dex equivalent so I can get my pixel exclusives and vanilla OS back, or alternatively Samsung makes the wide form factor the "ultra" and gives us better cameras, speaker placement, s-pen and IP68.
The other thing I would say is that Pixels are just not high end hardware and they masquerade like they are. They get these insane launch sale deals like we are seeing now and the whole reason for that is because they aren’t competitive with true flagships.
It’s just not really a flagship phone in terms of processor performance.
I know Samsung has a lot more of their garbage software on it but I think if I was in the Android market I’d probably be inclined for a Samsung device over a Pixel. If I lived in Europe or Asia I’d be looking at something Chinese that’s not sold in the US market. Companies like Xiaomi and Huawei make way better phones than Google.
> It’s just not really a flagship phone in terms of processor performance.
I'm curious to know which apps/use-cases you feel are hobbled by the non-flagship processors on Pixels. It feels like most peoples top 3 activities on phones are infinite scrolling inside apps or a browser, taking pictures, and playing games, which Pixels seem to be great at. It's been many years since I felt that a phone that is slow enough to notice - even the midrange ones, and I (used to) write and debug code on my phone.
Samsung also has these kinds of sales. A bunch of people on a forum I frequent had some Z Fold 8 just north of 1000 Euro with a trade in and by stacking coupons.
Heck, even flagships like the S26 Ultra, which was introduced in March and still dominates the CPU, GPU, etc. charts are currently 500 Euro off in my country.
Even discounted, Pixel have pretty bad prices compared to the competition. The primary reason to buy a Pixel is to run GrapheneOS. Otherwise, just get an iPhone or if you are willing to remove the bloat with UAD some Samsung phone.
From Europe, at this point I don't even look at Pixels because of their sad excuse of a battery. Just buying directly from China better phones for half the price. Oppo, Vivo, Xiaomi are all good, others probably too, Huawei has nice hardware but due to US ban no usable Android.
Huawei has their HarmonyOS but still releases Android phones too for international markets - but these can't use Google Services, so they have their own services. If it's possible to somehow install google services I have no idea.
Personally I would perhaps like to use or at least try Pixel's software (I've had some Google-software phones years ago, a Nexus I think? Maybe even some Pixel. And they were fine), but not on that HW.
That’s in the eye of the beholder. Folding phones are unique devices and the best tri-fold designs can legitimately replace a tablet.
A whole lot of people use their phone as their primary and most-used device. I don’t think a high price is insane, it’s just that folks who consider them a utility and a side-device to a desktop computer tend not to feel that way. Many millennials and older who grew up with desktops and laptops probably can’t comprehend the idea of a phone being the only device or primary device.
My iPhone was something like $1300 and I feel like it was worth every penny, and that a cheaper model did not meet my needs and wants.
Does anyone use one of foldables for more than a year? I know a couple of people who have them and the massive creases seem like they’d be really hard to get used to.
I drop my phone a lot, I have a great case for it so not a scratch after 6 years. I am interested in getting the foldable but apparently the cases don't protect the hinge or let dirt get in? Anyone have experience with this? Maybe I'm not the right audience, too clumsy
At least for Samsung, when you first turn it on, you get a nice big warning that says the phone is not dust or water resistant, and that you can damage the screen with sharp objects, like your fingernail. [1]
I tried one and permanently dented it on accident with the stylus. Can't image what would happen if you did something crazy like go to a beach.
Among other manufacturers Spigen has cases that protect the hinge. I've owned a foldable for 3 years and never had anything get into the hinge thanks to that, though some amount of dust did gather inside the hinge cover over time.
But I would be nervous about spending that much on a phone if you expect to be dropping it a lot, honestly.
I have pixel 10 Pro Fold. Formfactor: for Pockets. The slim when folded is great for most pockets. I think it's great and I use it in folded and unfolded mode every day depending on what I want to do. Not sure how well the wider one would work with pockets when folded. It's an important feature for me at least.
Sadly, I can't read this article due to the hard paywall. Is The Verge actively trying to shrink their readership? Why would I want to subscribe to yet another monthly subscription if I can't even get a taste of what this one is offering?
I have zero interest in folding phones and only read to kill time while eating, but this review is incredibly irritating. "This isn't exactly like another phone, with a bunch of subjective design differences, therefore it's dated and bad!" I hate this way of thinking so much. Products should be different. There should be small phones and large phones, thin phones and thick phones, rather than scoring them all against the latest fad in order to try to force the market to conform. I hear small phones don't sell well and that's why nobody makes them anymore, but I can't help but wonder if small phone sales are artificially deflated by shitty reviews like this one that punish companies for manufacturing outside the media's anointed design trend.
Reviews like this like to exaggerate certain things in order to get a punchy headline ("feels like the end of an era") and to create a matching narrative for the article. To keep readers engaged. Pretty typical for The Verge.
But as far as reviews go, this one is just as bad as most. They didn't do any standardized measurements of the battery life including comparisons with similar phones, or performance benchmarks, or charging speed measurements, or any camera measurements that go beyond vibes. They are just reporting what anyone who bought the phone could also tell you: subjective impressions and a few out-of-context sample photos.
It's like Ferrari eventually caving to make SUVs. Steve Jobs insisted on single-hand-sized iPhones because that's legit the best design for how he envisioned people using it. But the kind of people who refresh phones the most aren't using them healthily, the phone is constantly in both hands in public, and that's also a large portion of the market now. Even when Apple went back to making "mini" iPhones (still larger than the 3G-5S), they didn't sell well.
Listen to each person who says he wants a small phone. Is he the kind of person who would even buy the smaller phone if it got released, rather than holding onto an old working phone? Is he also going to spend more money on apps, AirPods, etc, maybe a iPad too? Sometimes yeah, usually not. I'm in that group, I understand why Apple doesn't cater to me.
Also don't think anyone makes buying decisions based on these reviews. It's more entertainment than anything else.
Even in this article, they repeat the same: what everyone always gives as the advantage of Pixel phones has nothing to do with form factor or even hardware in general. Presumably also because there's not much special about Pixel form factors, but the plusses are almost always the software, features, and "cleanest android" with occasionally the camera mentioned (mostly because people are repeating what phone reviewers say). With the iPhone people sometimes respond that the hardware is a plus, but for Pixel I have never even heard that. For Samsung it's the opposite. People buy Samsung phones for the new and powerful hardware, and on a hardware-capabilities-per-dollar they are fantastic, with occasional mention of the pen integration.
Pixel phones are "great software with a frankly boring phone built around it".
I think this even works for Google: if the hardware ceases to be the differentiating factor as we go on in time, it seems to me Google's position would keep improving over time, certainly over Samsung.
I kept hearing how Pixel is the clean Android software experience, then I got one as a work phone. It honestly felt pretty unintuitive, and I thought that was just how Android is, but then it broke and I got a Samsung replacement... The Samsung UI is surprisingly better. Down to the clock settings.
Idk, mine has it. You must have some kind of alarm/clock functionality somewhere. The time picker is normal scrollable hh-mm-ss, right? On a Pixel, it's something like an analog clock but also not.
I also can't look on the Pixel anymore, but I remember there were weirdly two different control centers that always got me.
Yes, but this a medium-length "I tested this phone a few days" article with the intention of getting affiliate revenue. That's the joke. What's next, "Look at this Amazon product listicle" behind a paywall?
This is the same site that ran a front page saying if you vote for Trump you are literally a racist. I liked it better when it was just headphone reviews and holiday gift guides to pump their affiliate revenue. XD
> trapped in a shape everyone else seems to be moving on from.
Really not sure if we were ever there. Foldable phones still feel like a novelty that is expensive and fragile, among other tradeoffs. Also moving on to what, exactly? The regular slate form factor is what people buy, and have been for years at this point.
I'm confused, what is everyone else moving away from, folding phones? The same article said Samsung is still making folding phones and Apple is about to release one.
Moving away from the tall narrow foldables that open to a square, to shorter, wider foldables that open to a rectangle, like the Galaxy Z fold 8 and the rumored iPhone foldable.
Oh. Well that removes the one reason I might care for a foldable, to fit in my pocket or hand.
The younger generation is moving back to 2000s style flip phones with no smartphone features.
Which honestly I support. I still have my LG VX8100 and wish it would work on modern networks.
It's like 0.01% of the younger generation doing that
It's feels like 3d TVs and AR headsets, they're trying to find a new customer base to milk but it just isn't here
I picked up a Z Fold 8 for a test device, in order to optimize my app for folding phones (also in anticipation of Apple's folding phone), and the squat form factor really seems like something out of the future (certainly something different), I like it way more than I thought I would, the front is convenient for a lot of quick scrolling, checking things, and the wide 4:3 inner screen is really great for content viewing and web surfing. Even the front screen alone is better for content viewing then the traditional slab phones.
I like it so much I'd consider a non folding phone in the squatter form factor as well.
I'm tempted to get one to replace my very cracked Pixel 9 Pro XL. With all the incentives Google offers for Google Fi customers it's not all that expensive. Comes out to about $1100 after trade-in and includes a free Pixel Watch 5.
I'm foldable-curious and Samsung just includes too much overlapping bloat "features". Gemini is bad enough, I don't need Bixby and whatever else. Not to mention I would have to pay full price.
I'm on my last Samsung for this reason. Just way too much bloatware, need to agree to a new privacy policy once a week, and every time it updates I find a few new apps on my phone I didn't want.
Gonna hold out for the Motorola/Graphene phone though. One of the models is supposed to be a flagship foldable.
I also have a Samsung phone besides a Pixel with GrapheneOS and I just ripped out Gemini, most of Bixby, etc. using UAD-ng. It's very clean now, but I still have all the customizability of OneUI, Good Lock, etc.
> Samsung just includes too much overlapping bloat "features"
Yep, that's a major drawback. My partner has a Samsung phone and seeing all of the included bloatware, plus the terrible updates and add even more, made me not even consider one of their devices last time I bought a phone.
how about any time the system updates it automatically installs gambling apps on my phone?
Are you sure it's not some carrier install? (Which are apparently a thing in the US.)
I have never seen anything like that on a flagship Samsung, nor our daughter's A series.
At work we bought a used tablet off eBay to replace a customer device where they really wanted an identical (obsolete) model. OMG the amount of extra crap that Verizon branded tablet had pre-installed was agonizing. All system apps so you couldn't get rid of it.
Just be careful about what your actual use case is.
For example, this form factor of foldable doesn’t give you significantly more screen real estate for 16:9 video content since it’s such a square aspect ratio.
They also generally aren’t large enough to take advantage of tablet layouts, while tri-fold designs fold out to be almost identical to a tablet size.
You have to really want to use two apps side by side in my opinion.
I'm on fi and got the fold 8 through fi for a pretty steep discount. It was cash off immediately + fi credits. I can pull up exact details if you care but it was several hundred dollars off split pretty evenly between instant discount and fi credits. Coming from nearly 10 years of pixels/nexus the transition hasn't been that bad. I miss a couple pixel exclusives, but nearly all the samsung bloatware can be disabled or removed entirely. I haven't bumped into bixby once.
One genuine nice Samsung feature is DeX. Been using it + moonlight (when needed) to make the phone basically a secondary computer when hooked up to USB-C monitor. Honestly I think this phone may end up replacing several other devices - kindle, gaming portable (eg: steamdeck, replaced by phone + GameSir G8 + controller), laptop, tablet. I think it can only replace laptop in my use case because I can remote into my desktop from it if I need extra compute - so if you are laptop only I don't expect it to be a straight replacement.
Honestly, best phone I've ever used - but I hope next year either google gets off the sidelines and adopts passport form factor + gets its shit together on the crease, cpu and dex equivalent so I can get my pixel exclusives and vanilla OS back, or alternatively Samsung makes the wide form factor the "ultra" and gives us better cameras, speaker placement, s-pen and IP68.
If you run GrapeheneOS on it and use it as your full machine while wired to a display or three, sure.
Otherwise, in no world is $1100 for a cell phone anything but expensive.
Yes, iPhones are also expensive.
The other thing I would say is that Pixels are just not high end hardware and they masquerade like they are. They get these insane launch sale deals like we are seeing now and the whole reason for that is because they aren’t competitive with true flagships.
It’s just not really a flagship phone in terms of processor performance.
I know Samsung has a lot more of their garbage software on it but I think if I was in the Android market I’d probably be inclined for a Samsung device over a Pixel. If I lived in Europe or Asia I’d be looking at something Chinese that’s not sold in the US market. Companies like Xiaomi and Huawei make way better phones than Google.
> It’s just not really a flagship phone in terms of processor performance.
I'm curious to know which apps/use-cases you feel are hobbled by the non-flagship processors on Pixels. It feels like most peoples top 3 activities on phones are infinite scrolling inside apps or a browser, taking pictures, and playing games, which Pixels seem to be great at. It's been many years since I felt that a phone that is slow enough to notice - even the midrange ones, and I (used to) write and debug code on my phone.
Samsung also has these kinds of sales. A bunch of people on a forum I frequent had some Z Fold 8 just north of 1000 Euro with a trade in and by stacking coupons.
Heck, even flagships like the S26 Ultra, which was introduced in March and still dominates the CPU, GPU, etc. charts are currently 500 Euro off in my country.
Even discounted, Pixel have pretty bad prices compared to the competition. The primary reason to buy a Pixel is to run GrapheneOS. Otherwise, just get an iPhone or if you are willing to remove the bloat with UAD some Samsung phone.
From Europe, at this point I don't even look at Pixels because of their sad excuse of a battery. Just buying directly from China better phones for half the price. Oppo, Vivo, Xiaomi are all good, others probably too, Huawei has nice hardware but due to US ban no usable Android.
Interesting, I didn’t realize that the ban went that far — Google can’t even put Google Play on it for European customers then?
I’m now recalling that Huawei does have their own OS that is not based on Android.
In any event, your exact sentiment reflects my feelings. Honor, Xiaomi, Oppo, Vivo, etc etc, what is the Pixel really getting you over those options?
Huawei has their HarmonyOS but still releases Android phones too for international markets - but these can't use Google Services, so they have their own services. If it's possible to somehow install google services I have no idea.
Personally I would perhaps like to use or at least try Pixel's software (I've had some Google-software phones years ago, a Nexus I think? Maybe even some Pixel. And they were fine), but not on that HW.
It’s $1800; they are applying trade-in and some sort of GoogleFi discount to get it down to $1100.
Nearly $2000 after tax for a phone is fucking absurd.
That’s in the eye of the beholder. Folding phones are unique devices and the best tri-fold designs can legitimately replace a tablet.
A whole lot of people use their phone as their primary and most-used device. I don’t think a high price is insane, it’s just that folks who consider them a utility and a side-device to a desktop computer tend not to feel that way. Many millennials and older who grew up with desktops and laptops probably can’t comprehend the idea of a phone being the only device or primary device.
My iPhone was something like $1300 and I feel like it was worth every penny, and that a cheaper model did not meet my needs and wants.
> free Pixel Watch 5.
Personally, I find smart watches a gimmick but maybe I havnt looked into them enough.
Does anyone use one of foldables for more than a year? I know a couple of people who have them and the massive creases seem like they’d be really hard to get used to.
I drop my phone a lot, I have a great case for it so not a scratch after 6 years. I am interested in getting the foldable but apparently the cases don't protect the hinge or let dirt get in? Anyone have experience with this? Maybe I'm not the right audience, too clumsy
You can get covers that shield/protect the hinge
At least for Samsung, when you first turn it on, you get a nice big warning that says the phone is not dust or water resistant, and that you can damage the screen with sharp objects, like your fingernail. [1]
I tried one and permanently dented it on accident with the stylus. Can't image what would happen if you did something crazy like go to a beach.
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/GalaxyFold/comments/1vhhow0/because...
Among other manufacturers Spigen has cases that protect the hinge. I've owned a foldable for 3 years and never had anything get into the hinge thanks to that, though some amount of dust did gather inside the hinge cover over time.
But I would be nervous about spending that much on a phone if you expect to be dropping it a lot, honestly.
like all folding phones it is just too expensive for me to justify.
Yeah, you can almost buy two phones for that price. There you go, wireless foldable
Need bordless phones and a frame to clip them together
For me the biggest issue, frequently hearing and reading about broken inner screens, is that it makes the screen a consumable, which socks.
I have pixel 10 Pro Fold. Formfactor: for Pockets. The slim when folded is great for most pockets. I think it's great and I use it in folded and unfolded mode every day depending on what I want to do. Not sure how well the wider one would work with pockets when folded. It's an important feature for me at least.
> A great foldable with IP68 and a reliable triple camera, trapped in a shape everyone else seems to be moving on from.
I never even considered buying a foldable phone, and they're already moving on from that shape.
They aren't moving on from foldable, they are moving on from the shape to a shorter and fatter shaped foldable.
http://archive.today/3ql6b
tbh, too expensive to buy, I would rather buy a samsung with that price
Sadly, I can't read this article due to the hard paywall. Is The Verge actively trying to shrink their readership? Why would I want to subscribe to yet another monthly subscription if I can't even get a taste of what this one is offering?
I have zero interest in folding phones and only read to kill time while eating, but this review is incredibly irritating. "This isn't exactly like another phone, with a bunch of subjective design differences, therefore it's dated and bad!" I hate this way of thinking so much. Products should be different. There should be small phones and large phones, thin phones and thick phones, rather than scoring them all against the latest fad in order to try to force the market to conform. I hear small phones don't sell well and that's why nobody makes them anymore, but I can't help but wonder if small phone sales are artificially deflated by shitty reviews like this one that punish companies for manufacturing outside the media's anointed design trend.
Reviews like this like to exaggerate certain things in order to get a punchy headline ("feels like the end of an era") and to create a matching narrative for the article. To keep readers engaged. Pretty typical for The Verge.
But as far as reviews go, this one is just as bad as most. They didn't do any standardized measurements of the battery life including comparisons with similar phones, or performance benchmarks, or charging speed measurements, or any camera measurements that go beyond vibes. They are just reporting what anyone who bought the phone could also tell you: subjective impressions and a few out-of-context sample photos.
It's like Ferrari eventually caving to make SUVs. Steve Jobs insisted on single-hand-sized iPhones because that's legit the best design for how he envisioned people using it. But the kind of people who refresh phones the most aren't using them healthily, the phone is constantly in both hands in public, and that's also a large portion of the market now. Even when Apple went back to making "mini" iPhones (still larger than the 3G-5S), they didn't sell well.
Listen to each person who says he wants a small phone. Is he the kind of person who would even buy the smaller phone if it got released, rather than holding onto an old working phone? Is he also going to spend more money on apps, AirPods, etc, maybe a iPad too? Sometimes yeah, usually not. I'm in that group, I understand why Apple doesn't cater to me.
Also don't think anyone makes buying decisions based on these reviews. It's more entertainment than anything else.
Who is paying $1900 for not an iPhone?
$1900?
Wow wth
$1900 for green bubbles is crazy. My wife's iPhone 6 is still nicer than this.
Even in this article, they repeat the same: what everyone always gives as the advantage of Pixel phones has nothing to do with form factor or even hardware in general. Presumably also because there's not much special about Pixel form factors, but the plusses are almost always the software, features, and "cleanest android" with occasionally the camera mentioned (mostly because people are repeating what phone reviewers say). With the iPhone people sometimes respond that the hardware is a plus, but for Pixel I have never even heard that. For Samsung it's the opposite. People buy Samsung phones for the new and powerful hardware, and on a hardware-capabilities-per-dollar they are fantastic, with occasional mention of the pen integration.
Pixel phones are "great software with a frankly boring phone built around it".
I think this even works for Google: if the hardware ceases to be the differentiating factor as we go on in time, it seems to me Google's position would keep improving over time, certainly over Samsung.
I kept hearing how Pixel is the clean Android software experience, then I got one as a work phone. It honestly felt pretty unintuitive, and I thought that was just how Android is, but then it broke and I got a Samsung replacement... The Samsung UI is surprisingly better. Down to the clock settings.
I have a Samsung S23 Ultra (for the CPU for emulation + the 5G modem). It doesn't even have a clock/alarm app.
Idk, mine has it. You must have some kind of alarm/clock functionality somewhere. The time picker is normal scrollable hh-mm-ss, right? On a Pixel, it's something like an analog clock but also not.
I also can't look on the Pixel anymore, but I remember there were weirdly two different control centers that always got me.
Lol at the verge paywalling
It's in the spirit of the subject matter. Really emphasizes the Fold.
i mean it started nearly 2 years ago...
Yes, but this a medium-length "I tested this phone a few days" article with the intention of getting affiliate revenue. That's the joke. What's next, "Look at this Amazon product listicle" behind a paywall?
This is the same site that ran a front page saying if you vote for Trump you are literally a racist. I liked it better when it was just headphone reviews and holiday gift guides to pump their affiliate revenue. XD