Google Pixel 10 Pro Fold Review: The AI-Powered Foldable That Finally Gets It Right (Mostly)

Despite its name, this is only the third-generation foldable for Google. Having started with the Pixel Fold back in 2023, then jumping to the Pixel 9 Pro Fold last year (to bring the naming in-line with the rest of the Pixel 9 series) and now the Pixel 10 Pro Fold. And despite it looking very identical to last year’s model, there are quite a few changes here. Including being the first foldable with an IP68 rating.

But, is there enough changes with the Pixel 10 Pro Fold to make it a worthy upgrade? Let’s find out in our full review.

Google Pixel 10 Pro Fold

Rating

$1,699

Google’s Pixel 10 Pro Fold is yet another solid foldable option here in the US. An incremental upgrade that results in a bigger upgrade than you might expect.

Pros & Cons

Pros

• Good cameras, not the best on a foldable however
• Bright, readable displays
• AI features are top-notch
• Great build quality
• First foldable with IP68 rating
• Good battery life for a foldable

Cons

• Heavier and thicker than the competition
• Still Expensive
• No major camera upgrades

Buy at

Buy at

Google Pixel 10 Pro Fold Specs

Google Pixel 10 Pro Fold Review: Build Quality and Design

Looking at the Google Pixel 10 Pro Fold, it is definitely a very iterative design change this year. The biggest difference you’ll notice is on the front and with the hinge. The hinge is much smaller this year, and gearless which is what helped make the Pixel 10 Pro Fold dust-resistant for the first time. The smaller hinge also allowed the front display to get a little bit larger at 6.4-inches now versus 6.3-inches. To be honest, I did not notice a big difference there, which I didn’t expect too, since it is such a small change.

In the hand, the Pixel 10 Pro Fold does feel very premium. Though it is also heavy and thick compared to other foldables on the market. Which is wild, since the Pixel 9 Pro Fold felt so thin and light last year. The Pixel 10 Pro Fold is a tiny bit thicker and heavier, but its almost unnoticeable. What is noticeable is comparing it to competitors that have shaved off a lot of thickness and weight this year. Like the Galaxy Z Fold 7 and the OPPO Find N5. Both of which are almost a full millimeter thinner when unfolded.

One of the main design complaints that I have with the Pixel 10 Pro Fold comes from the shape of the display. So the outer display still has rounded corners, which just looks odd on a foldable. Especially one that is as curved as the Pixel 10 series. Now, the reason for doing this is to keep the design language the same amongst the entire lineup. But it looks weird and you do lose precious screen real-estate. I mostly hate the boxy designed smartphones, but for a foldable, it works the best. And that’s why I prefer the Galaxy Z Fold 7 over the Pixel 10 Pro Fold.

The other issue I have is with the camera bump, which is less of an issue here, as it’s not as thick and it is wider, compared to what Samsung has. And if you pick up the Pixel RingStand, then it evens itself out quite nicely.

The Google Pixel 10 Pro Fold does definitely feel premium, but unfortunately it would not be my first choice for a foldable device. Even among those that launched in 2025.

Google Pixel 10 Pro Fold Review: Display

With the previous two Pixel Fold devices, the biggest complaint that most people had were about the brightness of both displays. Google has fixed that this year, thankfully.

With Foldables, brightness is even more important than on slab phones, primarily on that inner display which has a plastic layer. And plastic is naturally more reflective. But this year, that inner display has a peak brightness of 3,000nits or around 1,800 nits in high brightness mode. The outer display also got significantly brighter this year at 2,000nits in HBM and 3,000nits in peak.

The colors on both displays look really nice this year. They really pop off of the panel, and make watching video so much better. But, one of my main complaints still exists. And that is watching content on the main display. Unless you’re multi-tasking, it’s just not worth it. Since you have huge black bars on either side, and those do results in giving you about the same viewing space as the outer display.

Now, let’s talk about that crease. Much like with the Galaxy Z Fold 7, I feel like the crease looks worse than it is. It looks huge and deep, like a valley, but that’s actually not true in real life. I hardly noticed the crease, but it is there. It’s not anywhere near as flat as some of the Chinese foldables like the Magic V5 or the Find N5.

Google Pixel 10 Pro Fold Review: Performance

Inside the Pixel 10 Pro Fold is the Tensor G5. This is a new chip from Google, using TSMC’s N3P process, which many expected would bring the Tensor G5 in-line with other flagship chips. Forgetting that Google is focusing on AI performance and smoothness. Which they absolutely nailed, despite having laughable benchmark scores.

In day-to-day usage, I really noticed no issues with the Tensor G5. It worked as it should, was very smooth and almost never heated up. It would get warm when doing things like running benchmarks, playing some demanding games, or using the camera for a long time. You know, things that most phones would heat up while doing. This is a huge change over the Pixel Fold that launched with the Tensor G2 a few years ago.

When it comes to gaming, you will notice a few issues with some popular titles. Specifically if that game has stopped supporting PowerVR graphics, which is what Google is using on the Pixel 10 series. This was noticeable on Genshin Impact, and more noticeable while playing the game on the Pixel 10 Pro Fold versus the other Pixel 10 models.

That said, if you’re just playing some casual games to burn some time, then the Pixel 10 Pro Fold should work perfectly fine.

Benchmarks

Let’s get into the benchmarks of the Pixel 10 Pro Fold. Now since the results should be very similar to the Pixel 10 series, we’re not going to compare it to those, but rather other foldable devices. So in these tests, we are comparing it to last year’s Pixel 9 Pro Fold, as well as the Galaxy Z Fold 7 and OPPO Find N5, both of which run the Snapdragon 8 Elite, but different variants of it.

First off, let’s talk about Geekbench 6. So this benchmark will test the CPU in both single- and multi-core as well as the GPU. Giving us raw compute scores for the CPU and GPU.

What we see here is that the Pixel 10 Pro Fold is actually slower than the Pixel 9 Pro Fold, except for in multi-core. Now, as we have mentioned with the previous Pixel 10 devices we’ve reviewed, we do believe there is a bug keeping the GPU from running as fast as it should be. This could also be due to Geekbench not beign optimized for PowerVR GPU’s, since Google did ditch ARM for PowerVR this year.

And when you compare these scores to the Find N5 and Galaxy Z Fold 7, it is definitely a huge gap here. The Single-core score on Geekbench 6, is about on par with something like the HONOR 200 Pro, which launched last year with the Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 processor. But we knew that Tensor wouldn’t win any benchmark crowns. So this is not surprising in the least.

Now moving into AnTuTu, once again the Google Pixel 10 Pro Fold is lower than its predecessor, but that’s nothing compared to the Galaxy Z Fold 7. Which is even crazier, since the new chips from Qualcomm and MediaTek that we will be seeing very soon, are crossing 4 million on this test. Whereas Google barely passes one million.

The final benchmark we run here is a CapCut video export test. Where we load up the same 60-second video into the app, and export it at 4K60, timing how long it takes to export. Google’s Pixel devices have never performed that well on this test, and that’s the case again this year. The Pixel 10 Pro Fold took 10.4 seconds, where the Pixel 9 Pro Fold was 12.1 seconds. But OPPO was able to do it in about 6.5 seconds. So there’s still work that needs to be done.

So what did we learn from the benchmarks here? Well, Google is not focused on raw performance, which is what Google has said for years now. But it also shows that benchmark results don’t really correlate that much with day-to-day usage.

Thermals

Now, moving over to thermals, the results were mostly the same as last year. So for thermals, we run three different tests. One is measuring the temperature after running the 3D Mark Wildlife Extreme Stress Test. This benchmark is going to push your device to the absolute limit, and it shows where a device might start to throttle. Surprisingly, some devices have no throttling at all and have hit temps of over 150 degrees fahrenheit. Which is not good, you can literally smell it melting.

But here’s how the Pixel 10 Pro Fold stacked up in this thermal test:

Now, what we see here is that the Galaxy Z Fold 7 does not have a vapor chamber inside, which is why it ran hotter than the Pixel 10 Pro Fold. That is actually quite surprising, especially after seeing the other thermal tests we’ll be doing. But good to see. Of course, the Find N5 does have a vapor chamber, so it does have lower readings.

Next up we play Genshin Impact at max graphics settings and max brightness for an hour to see how well it performs.

This time around, the Pixel 10 Pro Fold was very similar to its predecessor, only being a tenth of a degree warmer. Which we’d say falls into the margin of error here.

Finally, we record 4K60 video for 10 minutes and measure the temperature at 5 minutes and at 10 minutes to see how hot it gets. We scan the temperature around the whole device and take the hottest reading. Of course, it’ll be hotter around the camera, versus towards the bottom near the charging port.

Here, the results are a bit puzzling. And the only thing we can think of as to why the results are so different is, the varying cameras and ISPs being used in each device. But surprisingly, the OPPO Find N5 was the hottest both at 5-minutes and 10-minutes in.

So what did we learn with the thermals here? Well, thermals are quite good this year. Of course, it helps with a slower processor and a more efficient chip. But kudos to Google for finally fixing this issue.

Google Pixel 10 Pro Fold Review: Battery Life and Charging

Since Google switched to Tensor with the Pixel 6, battery life has always been a problem for the Pixel. It hasn’t been outright bad since the Pixel 8 series, but it hasn’t been class-leading either. With the Pixel 10 Pro Fold, Google has worked some magic and given us some pretty good battery life here.

For me, in my day-to-day usage, it was hard to kill the battery in a single day. I typically unplugged around 7am, and then by the time I go to bed around 11pm, I was typically around 20-30%. That’s far better than the Pixel 9 Pro Fold was, and gives me about 6-7 hours of screen-on time.

Of course, battery life really differs based on how you use the Fold. If you use the outer screen a lot, it will last much longer, compared to using the inner display a lot more. But that’s why we run benchmarks, which we’ll get to in a minute.

Onto charging, its faster, but still on the slow side. So Google did up the charging speed to 30W this year, up from around 23W last year. It’s still quite slow, but I don’t mind it as much since I’m mostly only charging at night, and because we have PixelSnap. Google has finally added the magnets inside the Pixel 10 series this year, giving us MagSafe for Android. And it’s about time. Now, when I need to top up, I just put it down on a magnetic charger or attach a MagSafe battery to the back, and that’s it. Game changer.

Benchmarks

Now, let’s talk battery life benchmarks. For the battery life, we fully charge the phone, and let it sit at full charged for about an hour to ensure it is fully charged. Then we bring the brightness to about 100lux, so that it is about the same brightness on every phone we test, and load up a YouTube video. Letting it play, until it dies. And here’s the results among those foldables:

Now the important thing to remember here is that this was all done on the inner display, so these numbers are lower than they would be if you used the front display all the time. And honestly, they don’t really correlate that much with my own experience and usage. For me, the Pixel 10 Pro Fold performed much better than the Pixel 9 Pro Fold.

Now, when we look at charging, it’s not surprising to see it take a bit longer. After all, this is a significantly larger battery. Sure, the charging speed did increase this year, keep in mind that those peak charging speeds don’t last long. It actually sticks to 15-20W a whole lot longer.

While these numbers do look bad, especially compared to OPPO (OnePlus), it’s actually pretty fine if you are only charging at night.

Google Pixel 10 Pro Fold Review: Software

This year, the Pixel 10 series did actually launch with the latest version of Android. Unlike last year, where it was launching with Android 14, since Android 15 wasn’t launching for another month or two. So that’s good to see here. And it will also get 7 years of updates still. Technically, the Pixel 10 Pro Fold does launch with Android 16 QPR1, which does include Material 3 Expressive.

I’ve been playing around with Material 3 Expressive on my Pixel 9 Pro for past few months, really since Google I/O, and I actually quite like it. However, it does take some getting used to. It’s a huge departure from the older software on Pixel devices. Some people love it, some hate it. I think its a breath of fresh air.

Now let’s talk about some of the new features on the Pixel 10 series this year. The one that I was most interested to check out was Magic Cue. This is sort of like a new assistant that is there in different apps, primarily messages and the phone app. So, if you’re friend asks you what restaurant you’re meeting at, it’ll give you a prompt to share that info with that person in Messages. Or if you’re calling an airline about your flight, it will pop up all of your flight details right there in the phone app.

We did get a demo of this ahead of Made by Google earlier this month, and it looked great. And in practice, it does work pretty great. However, I will say, if you are included in any of the beta apps that Google offers, you will need to leave the beta to get Magic Cue to work correctly. Once I left the beta’s Magic Cue worked just as it should, though it wasn’t always 100% when asking when my next flight was, or where it was going.

Google does say that it takes time to really index everything and download the latest models, but three days in and it’s still not working 100%. I imagine that this is just not fully baked yet, and will improve and expand as time goes.

The other feature that I was really excited to try was Live Translation in calls. I’ve used it on the other Pixel 10 models, but not on the Pro Fold yet since I haven’t traveled internationally since getting this phone. But it does work the same. So using it in IFA on the Pixel 10 Pro XL, it has worked really well. Surprisingly well actually.

The last big change here is going to be the Daily Hub. This is essentially Google’s version of the Samsung NowBrief or NowBar. And my experience has been largely the same. Lots of potential, but right now it’s pretty useless. The Daily Hub lives in Google Discover. So now when you swipe over from your home screen, you’ll see a shortcut at the top for the Daily Brief.

For the most part, when I open the Daily Brief, it gives me the weather, some YouTube videos I might like, and some stuff to ask Gemini for more research. Which is entirely based on what I’ve been searching for lately. In the last few days, it’s been showing up some emails about IFA as “reminders” and also a bit more calendar events. So, this is another feature that I think will really improve with time.

Overall, the software is quite good. On this new Tensor G5, the software does run very smoothly, and everything works as it should. Though some of the new features do need a bit more time baking in the oven. Which I’d expect to see those improve with the QPR1 update coming in September, and potentially the QPR2 update in December.

Google Pixel 10 Pro Fold Review: Camera

The primary camera on the Google Pixel 10 Pro Fold is quite good. It’s a 48-megapixel sensor once again, and it still takes great pictures. Which is what we expect from a Pixel these days. Of course, it does tend to struggle at night, unfortunately, but we’ve seen that with all of the Pixel devices. As Night Sight can only do so much.

The other two cameras – the 10.8MP 5x telephoto and 10.5MP ultrawide – are the exact same as last year’s cameras. So the major differences here are going to be software-based processing. And, it looks pretty good. Is it perfect? Of course not. And it does tend to break down in challenging lighting, since it is only a 10.8-megapixel camera.

I recently did a comparison between the Google Pixel 10 Pro Fold, OPPO Find N5 and the Galaxy Z Fold 7, and the results were a bit surprising. OPPO tended to beat the Pixel quite often in most photos.

Should you buy the Google Pixel 10 Pro Fold?

Foldables are always pretty hard to recommend, since there are such big trade-offs, not to mention the much higher price tag. And that’s still the case here, especially when it comes to the camera. But, the Google Pixel 10 Pro Fold might be the best foldable for most people.

You should buy the Google Pixel 10 Pro Fold if:

• You want the best Google software experience on a foldable.
• You want the best foldable battery life in the US.
• You want PixelSnap/Magnetic charging on a foldable.

You should not buy the Google Pixel 10 Pro Fold if:

• You want the best camera on a foldable.
• You want the best foldable software.

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