Pixel 11 Pro Fold feels like the end of an era
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Alas it seems we won't see any such phone that fits in a pant's pocket and that can be operated single-handedly. I am afraid that the 13 mini is the last of its kind.
Yet many reports of people dropping their gigantic phones. Maybe that's a business model after all.
My hope is that Unihertz ends up making a phone that I like enough, they seem to be pretty much the only ones making smaller phones. Their current offering doesn't really speak to me yet, but they're making quick progress.
Granted it is still considerably bigger than ip13mini, but it's step in right diretion
https://comparesizes.com/comparison/Unihertz-Titan-2-vs-Clic...
Not sure I’d want a physical keyboard, but it’s nice to have an option potentially.
You can still navigate by interacting with the lower half.
Anyway, I have fiddled with it few times in stores.
* It feels nice form factor for holding. but the folded 'passport' screen still feels it's not yet caught by websites or apps.
* The claims are Apple is suspected of doing this form-factor (and as a display manufacturer I guess Samsung could sniff it...), meaning Samsung tried to be first. like the Galaxy Edge.
I guess the discussion over the form factor would be more valuable in a year or so after Apple drops their product. If enough actors has similar form factor, I'd expect designers to caught up with it.
I would not take the release of this device as evidence that people wanted a smaller phone, no more than the release of the original iPhone Mini and Galaxy S10e, and to some extent the iPhone Air and the Galaxy Edge. Manufacturers are experimenting to see what form factors people will buy and it is entirely possible that this size will be phased out by both Samsung and Apple in a generation.
Samsung has a major advantage over Apple in that they have multiple generations of folding phones so modifying both their manufacturing and software is less of an issue.
Even MS tried with the surface duo but the device sucked in other ways. Now is a good time to revisit with advances in battery, thinness and heat management. I'd bet that's why Apple is finally doing it too to remain relevant in the massive Asian markets. Nailing the software makes it a fantastic device
And, as I understand it, it tends to give more usable screen space for viewing videos but is actually more difficult to use one-handed than the newer tall/narrow candybar format.
The normal Android one hand mode doesn't really help at all on the squatter passport format as it works by moving the content down, not across.
Really hope you're wrong and we do eventually get some more one-handed phones in the future, especially once battery tech evolves.
Battery-saver on all iOS devices.
I think this problem was unique to the 12 mini. I remember hearing a lot of people complain about it at the time, and I haven't experienced anything like it with my 13 mini (which I upgraded to from a six-year-old 1st-gen SE, so clearly my usage is not typical; YMMV).
The last phone I really liked was my iPhone 6s. Right size, shape and feel. That was incidentally the last phone that had a camera that didn't oversharpen everything too.
Yeah, I thought mine was great but just wasn't up to the job of running the latest & greatest. Ive switch to an iPhone Air. It was a reluctant switch and I would go back in a heartbeat if Apple released a smaller form factor with the latest internals.
The creator is really nice and basically handles everything himself. I had n issue in the upper separate piece and I learned just the top part can be ordered and replaced for cheap.
It’s not even that much bigger, less than the screen size suggests because of the end-to-end screen and taller aspect ratio. And that extra screen area is extremely useful.
Would be nice if it was smaller in my pocket, but it’s already not an issue to carry
It was totally annoying to me to not be able to operate the phone with one hand without feeling like I was about to drop it. I kept the 17 for most of the return window thinking I’d get used to it, but I just kept finding more situations where it bothered me. Battery life on the mini is not amazing, but a slim magsafe powerbank makes it largely a non-issue.
Edit: as others have pointed out it’s extremely hard to go back to the lightning connector too.
fits in the pants pocket too
sent from my iphone
I don't need a Pixel. An iPhone would be fine. Or arbitrary Android phone. Just make it not huge. I have human hands and pants.
Also this: https://lineage.microg.org/ so you can run a less-google-ish phone, but also run maps if need be.
I've since moved onto a Pixel 9a and it just isn't as good, IMO. The screen seems so much... weaker? I used to drop the 5 quite a bit onto hard concrete floors, and it never sustained the damage that this one has (without as much abuse): the screen is cracked along the side. I'm still not sure how it came about.
If it wasn't for GrapheneOS and the desire for a private and secure OS, I don't think I would stick with the Pixel line-up any longer.
I don't think most people realize that. The iPhone mini was essentially a category on it's own (iPhone mini 13: 131.5 x 64.2 x 7.65 mm)
That said, I have long fingers and can easily use the largest phones with one hand.
I’d probably still be on my 13 mini if this feature didn’t exist.
But it does not make my hand bigger to hold my phone, and it adds a gesture i.e. friction to the UX.
Check out the Motorola Razr! I switched from an iPhone 13 Mini to the Razr last year and I'm a big fan. The outer display is 4"! It runs all applications and it's extremely usable one-handed. Some apps and websites are clearly not designed for a screen that small, but the vast majority work just fine. And it unfolds into a phablet for when you want/need an enormous screen. And it's Android so you can use Firefox. I'm much happier with it than I was with the iPhone.
But you can use a swipe down gesture on the white bar at the bottom of the screen which pulls the whole thing down, bringing the top part of the screen easily in reach of your thumb.
I use my phone one handed very often.
Apple cancelled it because sales weren't that strong, but I wonder if they can now collect enough data to see they are kept in use longer? (Or are all iphones passed down, forever)
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.
Which honestly I support. I still have my LG VX8100 and wish it would work on modern networks.
I think there is a real movement to want to use social media and phones less, but I think it's is more likely to come from Apple implementing tools to help break social media addiction than buying a flip phone.
The best I've had was to turn my phone greyscale, which really helped me cut back on any short form video consumption, but my endless reddit scrolling is still there.
Maybe I should go back and do that again. The typing experience on iphone is so poor that it made commenting on reddit (my main vice) painful.
I leave the brick in my car. I can still scroll if I want, but I have to intentionly get up and move to do it. Most of the time I decide it isn't worth it.
It cut back usage like 99%.
What have they implemented?
Foldables will slowly become the standard phones, probably over a decade or so.
I’ve not been sold on flip phones so far, but the latest “passport” style has made me curious.
I was in the heart of the VR revolution in 2015, they were predicting 150b+ market by 2020, it barely reached 20b... In 2025...
They're always hyping their new gadgets but at the end of the day people are just not buying these in any meaningful amount. They love to take the past 6 months performance and draw a straight line from there.
They look weird.
They make some people sick.
They're distancing people since the experience is single person.
They can't be used much outdoors.
Etc, etc.
A different smartphone format that has the potential to merge smartphones (super popular) with tablets (also popular) is a totally different thing.
Once screen durability goes up and prices go down to 800 or less, they will fly off the shelves.
They're selling 20 million units at an average price of 1.8k each.
In terms of usefulness, they are actually more useful than the bigass phones like the iPhone Max or S26 Ultra, and other comparable ones from various manufacturers. The outer screen is pretty small and very usable with one hand. There are a few multitasking options you can choose from once you unfold them. you can have two or four apps open at once if needed. They are also very good for watching videos. A huge number of smartphone users do spend a lot of time watching stuff on their screens.
The latest Samsung Z Fold 8 has become a huge success... its size appears to be even more ideal for one hand. the thinness and overall size of it once opened has essentially seemed like the perfect form factor for the latest generation of smartphone users.
I had a Pixel 9 Pro Fold, and within half a year it developed some issue probably related to the sensor that tells it which screen should be turned on, and the screen would randomly stay black.
At least Google replaced it with the newer generation model for free, which I then sold.
My Fold 4 at some point started making grinding noises that raise ones blood pressure. I guess it is now solved as the new hinges are waterproof and stuff.
The screen does not really fold completely does it? All hinge mechanisms have a way to allow the screen to have a smooth arc on the fold point, not rubbing on itself. I've not used a foldable since that model so these are second hand info.
Cool. I want one like that, just without the inner screen.
They were mad the mini was a financial flop but like come on, they didn’t try to market it as a lifestyle device really at all, which is the key. “Think Different”, right? It’s easy. So bummed their first foldable is gonna cost 2 grand or whatever and not be a flip phone with an outer screen. I would pay a crazy amount of money but not for something that unfolds into a freaking iPad mini…
I think there's some new folding phone aspect ratio ("passport sized"?) that's more popular but the article never really explains which one they're talking about. Don't think it means moving away from folding in general.
> 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.
How long are these phone's purchasable windows? like 12 months max?
So it's still a "smart purchase" now, despite being out of date? So maybe it's not out of date yet? But will be soon, like literally every other phone?
I've had a Moto Razr Pro for three years now. No signs of wearing out and it's taken quite a bit of abuse. The only tradeoff is probably water resistance and the crease in the screen (which you get used to but is a trade-off). The positive: same size a a wallet when folded, outer screen makes checking notifications fast, and the outer screen lets you use the outer camera for selfies and video recording. I'll probably get another one when the battery dwindles away.
I guess you are not nearly as bad at handling phones like I do -- sometimes I drop the phone three times a day.
I'm holding off for the coming while with the current RAM prices keeping phones incredibly expensive, but in five or six years when my current phone goes EOL I hope to see affordable options.
And it wasn't 4 years old when I bought it. It was a year old. My point is you can buy second hand of the previous model or so, a lot of people have FOMO and upgrade often even though newer Folds have only minor differences.
The average customer just buys the latest Galaxy or iPhone without thinking about it.
I like it so much I'd consider a non folding phone in the squatter form factor as well.
https://www.unihertz.com/pages/telecom-compatibility-check
They were having some issues with ATT certification in the States, but looks like it's done. They have more info on their KickStarter page - https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/jellyphone/titan-2-elit...
New iPhones used to be $199 and when they went to $299 the decision was seriously questionable.
Now they cost like a used car, everyone buys $1000+ iPhones without batting an eye, insane.
This one is $2000, I wouldn't get it if I had a billion on principle.
They can definitely make phones for $300 and you can buy a smartphone that is more powerful than the original iPhone for $50. It probably will be a bit slow running modern apps but it may possibly still be workable for a while.
The only difference is that now you can play graphicially intense desktop-style games, but no one really does that. And also it has some sattelite phone functionality. The cameras are also better, the battery life is better, but it all doesnt fundamentally change the way you use it. The complexity over last year's smartphone is unnessisary.
Now that everyone in the world is basicially required to use a smartphone, the only way for big smartphone to make more revenue is to sell each consumer more smartphone per smartphone.
Cameras have improved, but less than you think. Most of the improvement is in low-light, but in well lit scenes we actually sort of peaked 10 years ago. It's gotten slightly worse now, believe it nor not.
But you can't legitimately run a phone from 10 years ago, because while everything is the same, the software uses 100x as many resources. That sort of tricks people into thinking "oh it must be doing so much more!"
But... is it? Think back. Instagram 10 years ago, YouTube 10 years ago. Yeah... it's basically the same. Some argue they've regressed. I'm sure we've more than 10x the code size, but nobody sees that.
Web browsers have also gotten much more complex, but again, you won't notice it. We have a lot more fringe web APIs like webusb but like... the regular web browsing experience for 99% of tasks is identical.
With a 2-year contract with your carrier in which you pay the cost of the phone gradually each month
It appears you haven't attempted to buy a used car lately either. Details vary, but in the US, generally you are looking at $6k floor for a running car.
Ah! Fair.
The photos I take with it are genuinely precious to me, and I'm more than happy to shell out 800-1000€ every 3 years so as long as yhe cameras keep getting better.
I have zero interest in folding phones though. Theyre less durable and have worse cameras so im sitting this fad out.
In today's money, they used to be around the $400-$700 range. Now they start at ~$1000, which is insane; especially considering a last-gen, extremely performant laptop with a 5x larger screen and battery can be had for those $700.
Nowadays a 4 or 5 year-old phone is perfectly usable and you're not really missing out on anything. That changes the economics of phone manufacturing, ultimately you're still paying about the same for an equivalent measure of time using the phone.
Although, implementing such changes are generally unpopular for those that are already car dependent.
I'm curious what people need the huge screens for on phones? Is it mostly for watching videos?
Also, bad eye site, large fonts, suck in small screens
Bad eye sight is a good one, but I don't think it explains the popularity of large screens fully, are there really so many with bad eye sight to the point that they need a larger screen?
ROTFL! I can't wait until you kids get old enough to have to put readers on to use your devices like most older people do. And while I am yelling at the kids on my lawn, let me add every UI/UX person at apple - the idiotic and unnecessary choices they make for the sake of "cool design" infuriate me on a daily basis.
That said, with the Pixel's enormous crease you feel it if you touch the middle of the screen.
So the unfolded state of the folded phone is not a "tablet" to me. Maybe a tablet with a glaring defect... definitely not a tablet I could use as an actual tablet.
It also enables multitasking by having applications side by side which can be very useful on a phone too.
You don't have to use it all the time, but it's nice when you need it.
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...
But I would be nervous about spending that much on a phone if you expect to be dropping it a lot, honestly.
It's a bunch of small habits to change, then you may be ready for a fragile foldable. Until then, yes, probably not the target audience!
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.
Personally, I find smart watches a gimmick but maybe I havnt looked into them enough.
Gonna hold out for the Motorola/Graphene phone though. One of the models is supposed to be a flagship foldable.
Otherwise, in no world is $1100 for a cell phone anything but expensive.
Yes, iPhones are also expensive.
Nearly $2000 after tax for a phone is fucking absurd.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
4 year old video, but Genshin Impact ran better on the Exynos chip of the time compared to Tensor:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=IG5eTHJfM5U
Sure, 4 years later anything can run Genshin, but the point is that the next new hit game is just around the corner and gamers appreciate the extra performance.
My understanding is also that the pixel’s tensor chip series is not very “flagship” in terms of battery stamina/efficiency when you’re doing heavy tasks such as gaming.
So it’s not always about having the faster processor, you can also benefit by your processor being the most efficient on the market and making the most use of the battery in your chassis.
Video comparison of last year’s phones head to head where the Samsung phone lasts nearly 8 hours longer on video playback:
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.
I have never seen anything like that on a flagship Samsung, nor our daughter's A series.
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’ll never go back to tiny thin rectangle.
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.
Thats expensive :/
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.
Also don't think anyone makes buying decisions based on these reviews. It's more entertainment than anything else.
And that is to say that it looks dated and ugly, particularly compared to Samsung's square phones.
Google's design comes with larger bezels, more weight and thickness, and a bigger crease.
The rounded corners are subjective I guess.
I never even considered buying a foldable phone, and they're already moving on from that shape.
Not having to rotate the phone to view either portrait or landscape content is more convenient than I thought.
With google the added question though is, are they losing interest again?
The real question these days is: how badly does the software stack screw you over?
> Might as well complain that using two monitors on your desktop is unusable because of the bezels.
There's a pretty important difference there - monitors don't draw content on the bezels.
If what you're doing is reading an ebook, what advantage is a folding phone supposed to have over a non-folding phone? Reading isn't an activity where you can use more than a small part of the screen at once.
> Reading isn't an activity where you can use more than a small part of the screen at once.
So reading through War and Peace on your smartwatch screen before you fall asleep is a good idea? /sarcastic
Sure, your eyes are focused on a small part of the screen, but what ends up in your peripheral vision still helps you keep your place. You feel more "grounded", somehow.
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 also can't look on the Pixel anymore, but I remember there were weirdly two different control centers that always got me.
$1900?
Wow wth
Also it's not Apple's fault that MMS was terrible for years and now RCS is still terrible. Google also tried to make their own proprietary chat and failed... like 10 times. But more importantly, I don't care, this is not my battle. I'd use WhatsApp if that's what people did here, not that I like it any better.
Maybe RCS between Pixel phones is ok, because that's not the same thing, it goes through Google's servers only. And that was also the only way you got E2EE in RCS until very recently.
The iMessage app does both SMS, and the iMessage protocol. Apple could have released an android app to let you have blue bubbles on android and communicate securely without any of the constraints of SMS by simply releasing "iMessage for Android".
Somehow Signal, Whatsapp, Telegram, Discord, WeChat, LINE, KakaoTalk, etc etc all manage to have both iOS and Android apps that can message each other, but for some reason the richest company in the world, Apple, cannot manage to port its chat app to one additional platform?
It is 100% Apple's fault that messaging between iOS and Android has had so much dumb "green bubble" friction.
Apple's conflation of the SMS and iMessage protocols has also made it harder for people to realize what's happening. Frankly, Apple should have had two apps from the start (Text Message and iMessage), one of which only spoke SMS, and the other of which only spoke iMessage.
Btw everyone knows whether they're using iMessage or SMS, that's the whole bubble color thing.
Everyone sorta knows, but because iMessage "feels" like it's just the native messaging app on the phone, it makes people feel like the issue is android (why don't android phones come with this super-sms built in?) rather than apple for not making the app available broadly.
If it were a separate app, then perhaps the EU would have regulated "when setting up iOS, you must get a default option between iMessage, Whatsapp, Telegram, Signal, etc, you must be able to change the default messaging app", and forcing people to install it would make it more obvious that this is Apple implementing a proprietary chat protocol, not Apple just doing SMS better than android.
> they didn't create the problem. And they're not a charity.
Apple did create the problem by creating a walled garden messaging app, banning beeper for implementing the iMessage protocol for android, and tying some of the phone's core functionality to this built-in app in an anti-competitive way.
A certain amount of industry interoperability should be expected. If you make a browser, it should be able to load competitors websites (which nice, safari can load google.com, good work). If you make a computer that can install arbitrary software, you should allow anyone to install software they wrote freely (oops, apple missed that one). And if you make a messaging app or social media app, you should make it support all major operating systems people use so that people can switch their operating systems and phones without losing touch with their friends. I should still be able to facetime my grandma even if I switch to linux because gosh knows she's not going to learn a new video call app.
You're correct that SMS is straight ass and needs to be deleted from the world. And you're also correct that RCS sucks (seriously? No end-to-end encryption built into the protocol? Jesus Christ is it 1998?)
But many companies build protocols all the time and then open them up. iMessage only works on Apple because Apple is greedmaxxing. Not because of any technical or cultural constraint. They know the value proposition for an iPhone will drop significantly if they open up iMessage, so they don't. This is on the record, by the way, not speculation.
Of course iMessage makes iPhones valuable. Apple has invested in iMessage since 2011 for their own gain, which is how every tech business works, and maybe Google should've done similarly.
But I also rarely use proprietary software in general, so I think our perspectives are different.
Also, I do not care about Apple’s bottom line. I just don’t.
I kept them longer and I was able to do more... but that was few years ago when phones were getting more powerful for a reason.
Cameras were getting more megapixels to get on par with non digital photography (arguably, if you are not an artist at least) and everything needed to come along, memory, storage, processing and of course screen resolution.
... but again once that was done, which varies for everyone but still, and that is the key part of the argument, reaches a plateau of usefulness for the average user, then everything "more" was really a technical specification d*ck measuring contest. Unless you have superhuman vision, current screens are "good enough" to check your family photos and your work email.
Long story short I went from flaghships to 2nd hand few generations olds Pixel 8 (cheapest I could try GrapheneOS on) and I don't regret that decision at all.
TL;DR: I did, I don't anymore.
PS: before someone argues I don't know what I'm missing as I'm probably not using my phone for much, I do quite a lot on my phone including programming on it (directly on it, not via ssh), streaming videos on video projectors, running qemu for other architectures, etc. I'm not a casual user.
Signing up for a new phone contract, you start looking at a $600 phone. Thats $25 a month plus $15 for your calls and data, so $40 a month. Then you see the next phone next to it thats only $1200, it's so much better, and you're only paying $65 a month for it.
And then they flash this one in front of you, only $67 a month (just ignore the fact it's now over 3 years instead of 2)! 5 minutes later, you are in.
Instead carriers played a funny game to uncouple the phone from the now month-to-month service contract (so they can keep changing the fees, prices, and plans on you with no recourse) but then couple the contract to terms of a 0% APR finance agreement that becomes immediately due in full when you cancel the month-to-month service agreement.
And now we're about to go to charging interest on those finance plans... because the phones are getting more expensive and carriers are starting to realize there's a lot of risk letting a family's worth of 4-6 phones upwards of a $10,000 transaction out the door in a single blink of an eye.
I hope Samsung (Royole) does a 180 and introduce something groundbreaking soon, of course, after everyone copied their shit.
Is it time to bring Jony Ive back?? Have some backbone, Apple...
> that, rumor has it, includes all of the above and adds iOS too.
Ok, this snippy comment is for The Verge - what crack reporting got you the scoop that Apple would be releasing an iOS phone?