By: Nick Gambino
The Pixel Fold, Google’s first foldable phone, is finally here. The new phone was announced and unveiled at the Google I/O annual conference and it looks like they’ve come out swinging.
The Google Pixel Fold is not a completely new concept. In fact, it seems to borrow its design from the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4. They’re not looking to reinvent the wheel or foldable smartphone. The new Pixel phone is essentially a tablet when it’s fully unfolded and a phone when it’s closed shut.
Like other foldable phones it’s a bit thick when it’s closed and there’s a crease when it’s open in its tablet form. This is something everyone is trying to crack, but it doesn’t seem to be a dealbreaker for users.
What may be a dealbreaker for those who are considering buying the Pixel Fold is the price point. This nifty new Google device fetches a hefty $1,700. That’s way above what the common consumer is looking to shell out for a phone. The company seems to be aware of this and addressed it upon release.
“It’s inherently a more expensive device,” VP of Product Management Google, Brian Rakowski, said at the event. “So we felt like if people were going to buy a top-of-the-line device, we wanted everything to work well.”
The Google Pixel Fold wasn’t the only new device unveiled at the I/O conference. They also showed off the Pixel 7A and the Pixel Tablet. The 7A is a welcome contrast to the Fold and is the company’s more budget friendly smartphone option, going as cheap as $499 for the base model.
The Pixel Tablet is of course…well, a tablet. The 11-inch device also goes for $499 at its cheapest model. Put those two prices together and they’re still not as expensive as the Pixel Fold.
