Using the original Pixel Fold in 2026 shows how much Google got right — and why it still failed

If you didn’t know any better, you might look at the Google Pixel Fold and assume it is a brand new, cutting-edge 2026 smartphone. You might even confidently think it is some sort of ripoff of the Apple iPhone Duo, the passport-style folding phone the company launched to massive fanfare this past September.

Well, the dedicated tech fans reading this already know the truth: the Pixel Fold launched all the way back in 2023, making it over three years old now. Clearly, it was a bit ahead of its time.

Now that the passport-style foldable form factor is suddenly back in fashion, the entire mobile industry is getting in on the trend. We are currently seeing major players like Apple, Samsung, Xiaomi, and even Motorola jumping on the bandwagon with very similar designs. With all of this renewed interest in the short-and-wide foldable form factor, it begs a few questions: What is it actually like to use the original Pixel Fold as a daily driver in 2026? And, perhaps more importantly, why on earth did Google abandon this form factor in the first place?

What’s aged like wine

At its core, the overall design of the Pixel Fold is really not all that different from the shiny new iPhone Duo. When the device is folded shut, the left side of the phone is completely flat thanks to the hinge, while the right side features deeply curved corners. There is a cutout for a selfie camera up at the top of the outer display. Google opted to place its camera directly in the middle, whereas the iPhone Duo features its cutout on the right side. The power button on the side of the device doubles as a physical fingerprint sensor, a design choice Apple also adopted for the iPhone Duo. Really, when you look at the two phones folded up next to each other, they aren’t too far apart. The iPhone Duo is definitely a bit shorter and wider, but the design DNA is remarkably similar.

When you flip the Pixel Fold over, you start to see a few key differences that actually work in Google’s favor. First, the Pixel Fold has three cameras on the back: a 10.8MP ultrawide, a 48MP primary, and a 10.8MP telephoto. The iPhone Duo, on the other hand, only has two rear cameras: a 48MP main sensor and a 48MP ultrawide. The lack of a telephoto camera on the Duo is pretty trash for a $2,000 folding phone in 2026, but hey, that’s Apple for you. Also, Google’s camera visor design allows the phone to have zero table wobble when placed onto a flat surface in a folded state. The iPhone Duo is going to be a wobbly mess.

So far, looking at the outside, the Pixel Fold honestly doesn’t seem too far behind the modern competition, which is pretty impressive given that it’s over three years old. But the pleasant surprises don’t stop there. What really shocked me is how great this design still feels to hold today. The squat form factor fits well in my palm, and I can access everything on the outer display one-handed. Interestingly, I can’t do this with the Galaxy Z Fold 8 — it’s simply too wide. So that’s another point towards the Pixel Fold.

When you unfold it, though, you are reminded that this is not a 2026 phone. The bezels are asymmetrical and enormous — but I’ll talk more about that in the next section. One positive thing to note here, though, is that the Pixel Fold hides its selfie camera inside the top bezel. Apple decided to go with an under-display camera for the iPhone Duo’s inner screen, and that decision hasn’t been well received by those who have actually used it (I haven’t used it yet, so I can’t pass judgment myself). Either way, a completely uninterrupted inner display is nice to see.

Moving on to software and performance, we must discuss Tensor G2. The Pixel Fold is currently running Android 17, and you know what? It’s awesome. Everything on the device feels snappy and smooth. I even played a bit of Genshin Impact without any major issues. Sure, the image quality looks a little grainy, but I was still locked to at least 30 FPS for the entire time I played, which is genuinely pretty good. To all you Tensor haters out there, I am running a chip that is four generations behind right now, and things are working just fine.

Installing a massive game like Genshin Impact didn’t obliterate my storage, either, because the Pixel Fold starts with a very respectable 256GB. It also features 12GB of RAM. That might not sound great by today’s standards, but remember that this phone predates the rise of generative AI, so 12GB was a good deal back then.

And of course, we need to talk about still photos. This is a Pixel we’re talking about, so naturally, the still photos are pretty good. This is true even though the phone features old hardware that wasn’t particularly cutting-edge back in 2023. You get access to classic Google features like Top Shot, the ability to shoot in RAW, and even the Made You Look feature, which puts a silly character on the outer display to convince your kids to look at the phone when you’re trying to get a photo of them.
Finally, battery life has been pretty good. It isn’t exactly great, but considering this older device has a bigger battery than the brand-new Galaxy Z Fold 8, that’s really not too bad a look

But it isn’t all sunshine and roses.

What’s aged like milk

The Pixel Fold might feel semi-modern when it’s in your hand folded up, but things change quite a bit when you unfold it. As I mentioned earlier, the bezels of the inner display are absolutely enormous and, even more annoying, asymmetrical. This design immediately reveals that it is not a modern foldable phone.

Also, we need to talk about the crease. Again, to be fair, this phone is over three years old, so it is perfectly logical that the crease down the middle of the display would be a bit more noticeable now than it was on day one. But this crease is something else entirely. First off, the phone doesn’t even fold completely flat. This is a problem foldable phone makers solved a long time ago. But since the Pixel Fold wasn’t quite there yet, the crease is even more pronounced than it typically is. But even if I could somehow fix the hinge so it folds flat, there is no denying this is one of the deepest, grooviest creases I’ve seen in years.

There is one more major hardware thing to discuss here: the weight. The Pixel Fold weighs in at a very hefty 281 grams. To put that into perspective, that is about 27 grams more than the iPhone Duo, which is already being criticized for its heaviness, especially compared to the Galaxy Z Fold 8’s 201 grams. Apple has a long way to go in terms of the weight of its first foldable, but Google’s first attempt is a literal brick by comparison.

While the cameras take good photos, you shouldn’t let the megapixel count completely fool you. The iPhone Duo’s modern 48MP main camera is likely to run circles around the 48MP shooter on this aging Pixel Fold. Furthermore, many new Pixel camera software features haven’t trickled down to the original Pixel Fold, and frankly, they likely never will. Magic Capture isn’t here. Neither is Add Me, nor a slew of other more modern Pixel camera features that we’ve come to expect.

Finally, let’s talk about the charging situation. While the battery life itself is fine, the charging speeds are pretty dismal. You are capped at just 21W when charging with a cable. If you want to charge wirelessly, you are looking at a laughably bad 7.5W. Unfortunately, there are no quick top-ups available for this bad boy.

Why the Pixel Fold still matters

OK, let’s take a step back. The flaws with the Pixel Fold are clear, especially in 2026, but overall, the phone is perfectly usable. That’s pretty remarkable when you remember that this was Google’s first-generation product. So if this has held up well over time, why did Google abandon this form factor in the first place?

For those of you who don’t know, the next foldable Pixel was the Pixel 9 Pro Fold. That design was much more in line with the form factor Samsung had settled on at the time: a thin, tall phone when folded, and a nearly square device when unfolded. Since that pivot, Google has never gone back to the passport-style form factor.

Let me also call out that Google was not the first company to launch a foldable that looked like this. That distinction belongs to OPPO. OPPO launched not only the first passport-style foldable, but also the second one, a full year before Google ever got to it. However, the OPPO Find N and the Find N2 were China-only releases. Because of that, the OG Pixel Fold was the very first time anyone outside of China got to use a foldable phone that looked like this

So what likely happened here? It is highly probable that Google saw what OPPO was doing and decided that this form factor was cool, and possibly even better than what Samsung was doing at the time. Given that 99.9% of Western buyers had never seen an OPPO foldable in person, Google likely assumed that being unique in the US market would help its new device stand out.

Unfortunately, I don’t think sales for the Pixel Fold went very well. Google almost never reveals actual sales numbers for its hardware, so we don’t know for certain how many Pixel Folds were sold. But we do know that the phone was discontinued and removed from the Google Store just a month after the Pixel 9 Pro Fold’s launch. If sales had been going well, the Pixel Fold would have stuck around for a while. Just look at the Pixel 10 series, which is still readily available from Google months after the launch of the newer Pixel 11 series.

My assumption is that Google saw less-than-stellar sales numbers for the Pixel Fold and decided the best course of action was to join the rest of the foldable world. It made its foldable phones look more like the Galaxy foldables, which are still the most successful on the market. This behavior is on track if you know anything about Google. The company has a long, long history of trying something new and then completely abandoning it if it’s not a giant hit right out of the gate.

But let’s imagine an alternate world where Google actually sticks to its guns for more than five minutes. Wouldn’t it be crazy if Google had stuck with this passport design this entire time? It would have been very validating for Google’s designers and engineers to see Apple, Samsung, and everyone else jumping on the trail that they originally blazed. Instead, here I am holding a three-year-old phone that is largely seen as a one-off novelty rather than the trend-setter it easily could have been. Tough break, Google.

If you’re interested in checking out a Pixel Fold for yourself, it’s actually not hard to get at all, and it’s not that expensive. eBay has plenty of listings available at very reasonable prices. Remember that the phone is running Android 17. If you can believe it, that actually puts it ahead of most other Android phones launched in 2026. Better yet, it still has at least one more OS upgrade to go, and maybe even Android 19 depending on whether Google releases that before the end of June 2028. If you’ve got the spare cash lying around, it’s a fun device to use and an interesting piece of Google history. Hey, it could even be your daily driver for a few years.