The 3 Best Foldable Phones of 2025
Google’s phablet-style foldable has a slim profile, bright screens, great cameras, an all-day battery, and Google’s useful AI features. But all of that comes at a hefty price.
Google’s Pixel 9 Pro Fold is the company’s second-generation phablet-style foldable phone and our new favorite for 2024. Google changed things up this year and opted for a slimmer design and a slightly larger interior screen than on its previous foldable. With powerful performance, useful AI features, and flagship Pixel-quality cameras, this model is an excellent foldable, but it costs a lot for a device that may have long-term durability issues.
What we like
The Pixel 9 Pro Fold has a premium design and finish. It looks like a normal flagship phone but opens to reveal a larger, tablet-sized display. The exterior screen is a stunning 6.3-inch 120 Hz OLED display that offers a resolution of 2424×1080 and outdoor brightness of up to 2,700 nits, which makes it one of the brightest displays on any smartphone. Inside, the similarly bright 8-inch 2076×2152 OLED screen feels more like that of a tablet than a phone. The Pixel 9 Pro Fold has an all-metal frame with a steel hinge, and while it has a visible crease when open, it closes smoothly without a gap. Its matte-metal back has a smooth but not slippery finish. It’s not too heavy, and it feels good to hold and use.
It has all of Google’s flagship-phone features. The Pixel 9 Pro Fold has the same Tensor G4 processor and 16 GB of RAM as the Pixel 9 Pro. That combo makes for a nearly lag-free, flagship-level experience while you’re multitasking across apps, editing images, using speech recognition, or playing graphics-heavy games like Call of Duty: Mobile and Call of Duty: Warzone. Like other premium Android phones, the Pixel 9 Pro Fold can get warm to the touch after longer gaming sessions or extended GPS navigation, but in our tests it wasn’t enough to be a concern.
The Tensor chip also powers Google’s many AI features, including voice-to-text, Audio Magic Eraser (uses AI to remove unwanted background audio from audio and video), Add Me (uses AI to add you to an existing picture), Best Take (captures a series of photos and generates an “ideal” version using the best shots of each subject), Call Screen (screens and blocks unwanted calls), and Video Boost (uploads your video to the cloud and uses Google’s AI servers to enhance its quality). Like the Pixel 9 Pro, this model also runs Gemini queries and voice typing; Gemini Advanced for analysis of images, speech, text, and more; and Gemini Live, which is Google’s new conversation-based assistant that acts like an audible Google search. It also supports Google Assistant’s AI features. (Yes, that’s a lot of confusingly named AI.) You don’t sacrifice Google’s AI tools in order to use a foldable phone.
It has all-day battery life and wireless charging support. The Pixel 9 Pro Fold’s 4,650 mAh battery lasts more than a full day on a charge. After watching many movies, browsing websites for nearly two hours, and playing Call of Duty: Mobile for an hour, I still had close to 30% left at bedtime. On days when I used the phone less, I had over 40% battery life at the time I went to sleep. Google offers 21 W wired charging that can charge the Pixel 9 Pro Fold from 0% to 100% in around 90 minutes, as well as slower, 7.5 W wireless charging.
It will get guaranteed updates until 2031. Like all foldables, the Pixel 9 Pro Fold’s long-term durability remains a question mark, but at least you won’t have to worry about long-term software support. Like Samsung’s foldables, the Pixel 9 Pro Fold will receive feature, software, and security updates until the fall of 2031.
It has a fun camera feature that can successfully capture the attention of busy toddlers. A feature called Made You Look displays a cute animation of an animal of your choosing on the Pixel 9 Pro Fold’s external screen to grab a child’s attention while you’re taking their picture. It may or may not get them to smile, but in my experience, it works as advertised: Every time I used it, my 2-year-old stopped dead in her tracks to stare at it long enough for me to capture her facing the camera. It would be nice if Made You Look were not limited to the external screen’s 10-megapixel selfie camera, though, because it doesn’t offer the best details and isn’t ideal for low-light situations. This feature is exclusive to the Pixel 9 Pro Fold.
Its main camera is just as good as a flagship Pixel’s. The Pixel 9 Pro Fold keeps the 48-megapixel main sensor from last year’s model, and it continues to produce excellent results in detail, sharpness, and vibrancy compared with even premium non-foldable phones.
What we don’t like
Its other cameras aren’t as good as those of other Pixel phones. While the main camera excels, photos from its 10.8-megapixel ultrawide sensor and 10.8-megapixel telephoto sensor lack sharpness and detail in comparison with what you can get from those of the other Pixel 9 models. The secondary lenses on Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold6 are marginally better, but that Samsung foldable is $100 pricier than this Google model.
Like every other phablet-style foldable, it’s really expensive. If you want all of the benefits of a phone that transforms into a small tablet, you have to pay for it. And the $1,800 Pixel 9 Pro Fold still isn’t capable of handling small debris such as dust, lint, or a grain of rice without possibly sustaining damage to its internals, though it does have an IPX8 water-resistance rating. For that price, you could buy a flagship phone and a tablet without having to worry about dust or durability issues. However, you can add Google’s $280 extended protection plan at the point of purchase or up to 30 days after; this plan covers repairs and replacement caused by accidental damage up to two times in 12 months, and it extends coverage of any hardware failure up to two years, a boost from Google’s default one-year warranty. This plan adds a lot to the overall cost of the phone, but the peace of mind might be worth the investment.
