The Pixel 10 Pro Fold news you did not want to hear is now essentially confirmed
Obviously, nothing is truly etched in stone until Big G makes it official, but the chances of two guys like Evan Blass and Roland Quandt getting the exact same date wrong within a little over a week are... slim, to say the least. So while the Pixel 10 , 10 Pro, and 10 Pro XL are almost guaranteed to start shipping on August 28 following a pre-order kickoff the day after their August 20 announcement, the Pixel 10 Pro Fold , and curiously enough, the Pixel Watch 4 and Pixel Buds 2a are extremely likely to only reach their earliest adopters in October. That's a pretty lengthy waiting period for a foldable device that already had a timing disadvantage compared to Samsung's surprisingly popular Galaxy Z Fold 7 , not to mention a big problem for the Pixel Watch 4 as well, which will need to take on the recently released Galaxy Watch 8 and overshadow the Apple Watch Series 11 we're all expecting to see daylight before October.
My biggest fear, however, is that the October 9 date is not set in stone (how could it be in August?), and depending on exactly what's causing the Pixel 10 Pro Fold delay, Google might end up pushing it even further towards the holiday shopping season. That's hard to say, and it depends a lot on how you feel about last year's Pixel 9 Pro Fold and the aforementioned Galaxy Z Fold 7 . If you liked Google's previous foldable powerhouse but were not very impressed by its battery life, the Pixel 10 Pro Fold could be the answer to your prayers thanks to an important jump from 4,650 to around 5,000mAh cell capacity. That's likely to be the handset's biggest upgrade over its predecessor, but it definitely won't be the only one, with Qi2 wireless charging support confirmed by Evan Blass today, a 3nm-based Tensor G5 processor essentially guaranteed ever since the Pixel 9 Pro Fold came out with a 4nm-based Tensor G4 under the hood, and a modest charging speed improvement also expected for quite some time now.
While that may not sound like a radical set of changes or a major reimagining of Google's 2024 foldable, the battery size bump, "Pixelsnap" support, and a possible increase from a 6.3 to a 6.4-inch secondary screen could be enough to make quite a few Z Fold 7 holdouts pull the Pixel 10 Pro Fold trigger instead. In case you're wondering, no, the Pixel 10 Pro Fold is unlikely to be as thin and as lightweight as its number one rival this holiday season, but given that battery capacity upgrade, keeping the Pixel 9 Pro Fold 's dimensions and weight largely unchanged sounds like a genuine engineering miracle. So, yes, I do believe you should wait until October before deciding what the best foldable for your tastes (and budget) is.
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