Google Pixel 10 Pro Fold review: three weeks with fine foldable

Google Pixel 10 Pro Fold review

In 2023, Google came out with its first folding Pixel smartphone. It soon tasted for more, as last year there was the Pixel 9 Pro Fold, and this year it is the Pixel 10 Pro Fold's turn. That smartphone has to compete with another major foldable; Samsung's Galaxy Z Fold 7. Is that cat in the box, or will Google have to step up? DroidApp finds out for you in this comprehensive Google Pixel 10 Pro Fold review.

Unboxing

The packaging that holds the Pixel 10 Pro Fold offers some paperwork and a USB-C data cable. Other than that, we don't find anything else in the box. Except, of course, the device itself, which is immediately unfolded already in front of you. Google does not put a screen protector on the screen. Among other things, Google sells the original Pixelsnap case, which fits perfectly around the phone. For that, though, Google still charges 79.99 euros. A hefty amount to put it irreverently: two pieces of plastic.

Design and interface

The design of the foldable Pixel is not substantially different from its predecessor, the Pixel 9 Pro Fold. We do see some differences with other foldables, such as the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7. That smartphone has a more angular finish, where the Pixel features rounder corners. Personally, I like the Pixel's rounder corners better, but this could also be personal preference. The device feels solid, though you shouldn't sit on it, a previous video made clear. However, if you handle the device normally, we see no cause for concern.

On the right side of the smartphone are the keys. These are the volume button and the power button. The power button also houses the fingerprint scanner. This one does a good job, is accurate and quite fast. What we liked is that the device is easy to operate with one hand. Of course, it depends on how big your hands are, but we had found my way around it pretty quickly.

The back of the Pixel 10 Pro Fold houses the camera module. This contains three lenses and an LED flash. We will come back to this in detail later in the Pixel 10 Pro Fold review. Google's phone is a bit thicker than the Samsung, though. The phone is dust- and waterproof with IP68 rating; something Samsung misses some points with its IP48 certification.

But of course, the Fold largely revolves around what you see when the phone is unfolded. There we see quite thick screen bezels, although we didn't necessarily find that distracting. There is an additional camera in the top right corner. The crease is noticeable, and you can see it quite well with a white background, for example, although we didn't experience this as annoying. Overall, the phone feels well-finished and solid.

Interface

On the Google phone's front screen, the smartphone works like a real Pixel. This means a sleekly designed interface with Material 3 Expressive, with pretty shapes and a colour palette to match (if desired) the background you set. The whole thing looks slick and is definitely my favourite. You have opened the apps menu with a swipe, after which you can choose to type directly, looking for the app you need. You can also nicely personalise the lock screen with part of a photo, and there is also the option to activate the Always-on display.

Foldable

With the big screen, Google gives you the opportunity to get even more out of your smartphone. After all, there is a big screen on which you can do all sorts of things. A pity is that multitasking is limited by placing a maximum of two active screens. With the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7, you can do this with three screens simultaneously. You can also choose to always display the taskbar with shortcuts on the big screen.

Whatever you see on the front screen can be displayed directly on the big screen by flipping open the device. While this often works well, it is not always the case. For instance, sometimes we see that certain apps do not scale right away, which we still sometimes see with Instagram. Whether the cause lies with Google, or with the app developer, we don't quite get clear.

Communication and multimedia

The Google apps for making calls and sending a text message are, of course, standard on the Pixel 10 Pro Fold. There is room for a physical SIM card, but you can also add an eSIM. Call quality is fine, nothing to complain about. For connectivity, you can connect the Pixel to WiFi 7, GPS, Bluetooth or use NFC. Everything is on board.

In terms of multimedia, the Pixel 10 Pro Fold has the big advantage that you can use the large screen to watch a movie on. Of course, you can also use the front display for this. In terms of image quality, it's fine, and the maximum brightness is also fine for the sunny days that are yet to come with this grey weather. At the front and bottom are the speakers, from which comes good sound. There is a good balance between the higher and lower tones, and even at high volume, the whole sounds good.

Camera

The camera module of the Pixel 10 Pro Fold features three lenses: a 48-megapixel main camera, 10.5-megapixel wide-angle lens and a 10.8-megapixel telephoto lens. The latter allows for 5x optical zoom. So with these specifications, the camera does differ from the Pixel 10 Pro (XL). While those are also Pro models, those two models offer a 50MP main camera and twice a 48-megapixel lens. A big difference on paper, but how "Pro" is this Pixel 10 Pro Fold's camera?

First, the camera app; it is user-friendly and lets you find your way around quickly. The shutter button has a prominent place on the screen, along with the option to switch to the front-facing camera or other cameras on the device. In fact, you can also choose to take selfies by flipping open the device, thus using the high-resolution camera. The various Pixel tools like 'Add Me' and 'Night View' are quick to call up. We mention more features you can use in the Pixel 10 Pro XL review.

Google is known for the high-quality cameras it provides. The Pixel 10 Pro Fold is no exception. The smartphone takes nice photos, although they are less saturated than you are used to from Samsung devices, for example. Whereas Samsung cameras opt for more saturation, with the Pixel 10 Pro Fold it is more natural and can therefore appear a little less sparkling, but is more realistic. You mainly notice this on more cloudy days.

From the camera app, you can zoom in, up to 5x. These are fine pictures, as the zooming is done optically. Not optical is the 2x zoom, which is reflected in the quality. The 2x zoom regularly results in pictures that are not completely sharp, which is a shame.

At night, the phone also manages to take fine photos, although they sometimes lack the wow-factor. The camera seems more sensitive to movement here, something we caught the Pixel 10 Pro XL on too, so we sometimes stumble upon a somewhat blurred image. However, the camera is not bad, as it still gets nice pictures, although we do see more noise with the Fold, for example.

Photos we took with the smartphone can be viewed in the Pixel 10 Pro Fold photo album.

Video camera

With the Google Pixel 10 Pro Fold's video camera, you can film at a maximum resolution of 4K at 60fps. You can also opt for the Full-HD resolution and then have the 10-bit HDR enabled if desired. There is definitely potential in the video camera, however, it is noticeable that at 2x zoom here, the images don't want to become sharp, and the device has some trouble with focusing at all, as can be seen at the beginning of this video. It seems coincidental when making the video sample, as we didn't have the problem every time.

Performance and battery life

The new Pixel 10 models feature Google's own Tensor G5 chipset. This processor has already proven itself in our other review and does a fine job. We haven't discovered any annoying hiccups or bugs with the device in recent weeks. For the really heavy work, Google has to leave competitors such as Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Elite ahead. The phone comes standard with 16GB of working memory and 256GB/512GB of storage.

The AI features we know from other Pixel devices are also present on this device. Of course, there is the hotkey for Gemini, but not all AI features are available in our country due to regional restrictions. Think Magic Cue, Live Voice Translate and a few other options. This is a shame, as it makes the phones 'dumber' than in several other regions.

Battery

You can charge the Pixel 10 Pro Fold's 5015mAh battery faster than ever before. In fact, the smartphone features support for 30W fast charging. These are not yet the figures of Chinese manufacturers, but there is progress! You can also charge the phone with 15W wireless charging. There is a magnetic ring on the back, called Pixelsnap. This allows you to 'stick' the smartphone to something. This system also handles Apple's MagSafe, so you can use those holders for this as well.

What about endurance? Over the past three weeks, we used the Pixel 10 Pro Fold as a daily-driver. Not once did we find ourselves with a dead battery at the end of the day. Screen time and usage time on a battery charge depends on many factors. Including whether you use the large screen a lot, which obviously demands more from the battery. Thereby, you can go longer if you are mainly connected to WiFi. If you use the device mainly on the mobile network with fairly intensive use with the large screen as well, we generally note a screen-on-time of between 4 and 5 hours, sometimes a bit more. An excellent score.

Update policy

Google's well-known update policy, also applies to the Pixel 10 Pro Fold. This means that the foldable will be kept up with updates for a period of seven years. These include security updates as well as Android updates. In addition, every quarter the Pixel Feature Drop full of new features and improvements is released.

Review

We tested the Google Pixel 10 Pro Fold for three weeks and it was excellent. Battery life is fine, the device is sufficiently fast and occasionally reaching for the big screen is very pleasant. We used the big screen more often than previously thought. It is a shame, though, that you can only open a maximum of two apps side by side, instead of three as on the Galaxy Z Fold 7. When closed, the phone could have been a bit thinner, but it was not very disturbing. The phone is pleasant to operate with one hand (provided you don't have too small hands), which is nice.

The camera generally performs really well, but could still use some attention here and there. If you can live with that, then the Pixel foldable is a very fine smartphone that will definitely make you happy! Although, your wallet will be a bit less so, because the Pixel is far from cheap. If you don't need the big screen, then we would recommend the Pixel 10 Pro (XL).

The Pixel 10 Pro Fold is available at Belsimpel, Bol.com, KPN, Odido, Vodafone and MediaMarkt.