Google's foldable strategy is broken, and the Pixel 11 Pro Fold proves it

Google launched the Pixel 11 series last week, and as someone with a soft spot for foldables, there was one phone I immediately wanted to learn more about: the Pixel 11 Pro Fold. I’ve spent a fair amount of time with foldables lately, especially after using Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 8 and Z Fold 8 Ultra.

So, I was genuinely curious to see how Google would respond. Would the new Pixel Fold finally feel like a good alternative? Would Google fix some of the things that held back last year’s model? More importantly, would it give me a reason to pick it over Samsung’s polished foldables?

The more I looked at what Google has actually changed from last year, the more underwhelmed I became. This doesn’t feel like the big leap I was hoping for. In fact, after comparing it with what Samsung is doing, and considering where foldables are heading in general, I’ve started wondering whether Google should make one at all. That sounds harsh, I know, but I have a few strong reasons for saying it.

A slimmer Fold with some not-so-slim compromises

The 11 Pro Fold is now 19 grams lighter than its predecessor. And with a book-style foldable, that matters to me more than it would on a slab phone. These are already big devices you’re carrying around all day, constantly folding and unfolding. So, any weight the company can take off is something I’ll happily accept.

Google’s efforts to make the Fold easier to carry extend to its thickness, too. Unfolded, the 11 Pro Fold measures 5mm, making it 0.2mm thinner than last year’s model. Fold it shut, and you’re looking at 10.1mm, a more noticeable 0.7mm reduction. That’s definitely solid progress (for Google).

But this is where my excitement starts to fade — Samsung has already shown me how comfortable a foldable can be when it’s thinner. And once you get used to that slimmer feeling in your hand and pocket, going back to something chunkier is difficult.

To be honest, being slightly thicker wouldn’t bother me if Google gave me something worthwhile in return. Give me a gigantic battery, much faster charging, or significantly better performance, and I’d happily live with those extra millimeters.

But that’s not really happening here. Battery life is one of the first things I worry about with any foldable because I’m powering two displays, including one enormous inner screen that begs me to spend more time on it. So naturally, I’d expect any brand to prioritize battery capacity on a device like this. Instead, Google has gone in the opposite direction. The Pixel 11 Pro Fold has a 4,750mAh battery, down from the 5,015mAh cell inside last year’s Fold. So instead of looking at the thinner body, I immediately wonder what I gave up to get there.

I kept looking for the silver lining

Charging doesn’t make things any better, either. Google is still sticking with 30W charging, which gets you roughly 50% in 30 minutes. I can live with slow charging on a phone that comfortably gets me through everything I throw at it.

On a power-hungry foldable, though, I want the option to plug it in for 15 or 20 minutes before heading out and get a significant amount of battery back. And that becomes even harder to overlook when I see what the competition is doing. Samsung, for instance, has moved to silicon-carbon battery technology this year while also improving charging speeds. That only makes Google’s decision to stick with 30W feel even more dated.

Performance is another area where my experience with Pixels makes me a little skeptical. I’m willing to give Google the benefit of the doubt here because I haven’t spent enough time with the Pixel 11 Pro Fold yet. But after using the Pixel 10 Pro Fold last year, along with other Tensor-powered Pixels, I’m not going into this generation with much confidence. My issue with Tensor has always been slow performance and the overheating that comes with it.

Of course, the Tensor G6 should be better than the chip it replaces. Year-over-year performance improvement is the bare minimum I expect from any new flagship processor. The bigger question is whether that improvement will actually be enough to change my opinion of Tensor. Maybe it will. I don’t want to write it off before properly living with the phone, which means using it for weeks, perhaps even months, before making that call. And I’d genuinely love for the Fold to prove me wrong.

That really gets to the heart of my problem with the Pixel 11 Pro Fold. When I look at everything Google has changed this year, I’m still struggling to find an upgrade that would actually make me want to switch.

Google is folding while everyone else is flying

When Samsung launched the eighth generation of its foldables, it reminded me of something pretty simple. If you keep chipping away at the same problems year after year, those improvements eventually add up. That’s exactly how Samsung got to the Fold 8 Ultra. It took years of tweaking the design, making the phones thinner, improving the battery, and ironing out the annoyances along the way.

Having used Samsung’s recent foldables, I can definitely say that they feel much more mature now. And that’s what makes Google’s position so frustrating. Even the Galaxy Z Fold 8 — Samsung’s new passport-style foldable — feels like it’s doing a better job than the Pixel 11 Pro Fold in some of the areas that matter most to me. It’s the overall experience that gets me: how long I can use it, how quickly I can top it up, and how confidently I can push it when I’m multitasking.

I’d still give Google the edge on the cameras, but that almost proves my point. The Pixel 11 Pro Fold isn’t supposed to be competing with just one Samsung foldable. It has to make a case for itself against phones like the Fold 8 Ultra and Motorola Razr Fold, too. And Motorola, in particular, shows just how ambitious a foldable can be in 2026.

Motorola has managed to keep it just as thin and light as Samsung’s foldables while also packing in something I desperately want on a book-style foldable: stylus support. Come on, you’re carrying around a phone that opens into a tablet. The moment I unfold a screen that large, I want to scribble a quick note, annotate something, sign a document, and use it like a digital notebook. If there’s any smartphone that makes sense with a stylus, surely it’s this one. Samsung dropping stylus support from its latest Folds remains a big disappointment for me.

Motorola doesn’t stop there, either. You get three 50MP rear cameras, so the camera setup feels much more balanced, along with better selfie hardware. Then there’s the massive 6,000mAh battery and 80W wired charging. For me, that means I can use the large foldable screen without constantly worrying about battery life, and when I do run low, I can top it up quickly and get back to using it. That’s the kind of freedom I want from an expensive foldable, and it only makes the Pixel 11 Pro Fold harder to accept.

The biggest upgrade might be the price tag

The price makes these compromises sting even more. The Pixel 11 Pro Fold starts at $1,899, which is $100 more than last year. I understand that the ongoing RAM crunch and rising component costs are affecting the entire industry, so price increases are becoming difficult to avoid. But as a buyer, I still have to ask: what exactly am I getting for that extra $100?

The phone is thinner and lighter, yes, but the battery is smaller, charging is still slow, and the cameras mostly remain unchanged. When I’m spending nearly $2,000 on a foldable, I need more than a handful of small refinements to make that price feel worthwhile. I’m willing to give Google the benefit of the doubt. Samsung has been making foldables for much longer, while Google has had less time to figure things out. But with every generation, that excuse becomes less convincing, especially when Samsung and Motorola are pushing the category forward much faster.

A few years ago, I might have been more forgiving. Today, there are enough good foldables that I don’t have to be. And that’s what makes the Pixel 11 Pro Fold so difficult for me to recommend. That’s ultimately why I’m questioning whether Google needs to release a new Fold every year. I don’t want it to abandon foldables; I want it to take them more seriously. If that means skipping a generation, going back to the drawing board, and returning with something far more ambitious, I’m all for it.