Finally, a foldable to take to the beach. The Google Pixel 10 Pro Fold is official, matching last year’s starting MSRP of $1,799, and it comes with an IP68 rating. That means full water and dust resistance, which is something that no other foldable maker has figured out yet — and no small feat for a device with moving parts.
The 10 Pro Fold uses a new hinge with a gear-less design that Google says provides better protection against drops. It certainly feels sturdy, though it didn’t feel overly stiff when I unfolded and folded the phone back up again. The crease on the inner screen doesn’t look any more prominent to my eye, but I’m not usually bothered by the crease anyway.
Very small particles are a particular concern for foldables. A piece of sand or dirt that works its way under the sensitive inner screen can cause it to fail. Folding phones have some protections against particles, like brushes in the hinges to keep dust out, but none had been considered fully dust-tight — until now. Samsung’s IP48-rated Folds and Flips only guarantee protection against objects greater than a millimeter in size, which is bigger than a speck of dust (not to mention many sand grains).
Dust resistance isn’t the only hardware change on the 10 Pro Fold. When folded, the front panel is about a millimeter narrower, making the whole device a tiny bit less wide than the last version. With slimmer bezels, the outer screen measures 6.4 inches compared to 6.3 inches on the 9 Pro Fold, and the 8-inch inner display gets a little brighter in peak brightness mode this time around: 3,000 nits compared to 2,700.
The 10 Pro Fold gets the same high-level updates as the rest of the Pixel 10 series, including the new Tensor G5 chip and Qi2 support. Tensor G5 is at least partially responsible for a slew of new AI features, many of which run on the device itself. There’s a translator for phone calls that mimics the speaker’s voice, something called Magic Cue that proactively finds and suggests relevant bits of information based on context, and a journal app with AI-powered prompts. You can read up on the new AI features in more detail by jumping over to my Pixel 10 and 10 Pro hands-on.
Qi2 is a welcome addition to the Android ecosystem, offering support for up to 15W charging on the 10 Pro Fold and compatibility with a whole wide world of phone accessories thanks to the embedded magnets in the device. Google is calling its version Pixelsnap, and I can confirm that its first-party magnetic ring grip will remain stuck to a folding phone even while dangling the phone by the ring. Did it still make me a little queasy? Absolutely.
One place the 10 Pro Fold hasn’t offered improvements is in camera hardware. The Fold’s sensors and lenses are still a bit smaller than the more powerful, light-sensitive hardware on the two slab-style Pro phones. Google may have solved dust resistance on a folding phone, but it hasn’t found a way to cram in better cameras.
The Google Pixel 10 Pro Fold will come in two options that are shockingly not white or black: a gray-ish “moonstone” and a subtle greenish-yellow “jade.” It goes on sale on October 9th, with preorders starting today.
Photos by Allison Johnson / The Verge
