Google talks about “phone-first” design of Pixel 9 Pro Fold

Google introduced its second-gen foldable smartphone, the Pixel 9 Pro Fold, at its Made by Google event in August. The search titan’s second attempt at the foldable segment seems to be quite successful as the new offering is in popular demand. Notably, most early buyers of the phone won’t be able to get their hands on their unit before October.

Apart from the upgraded performance and camera features, the new slimmer design of the Pixel 9 Pro Fold is attracting huge consumer interest. The company’s design team is particularly proud of the design of the new foldable offering. To note the new changes, Google has even posted a blog about the Pixel 9 Pro Fold’s design changes.

The company is describing the new offering as “fully redesigned and upgraded” from the first-gen Pixel Fold. So, let’s find out how the new foldable from Google improves upon the design of last year’s predecessor.

Google design team had a “phone-first” mantra in mind for the Pixel 9 Pro Fold

According to Google, its design team had a “phone-first” mantra in mind while designing the new Pixel 9 Pro Fold. The redesign was driven by user feedback. Claude Zellweger, Google’s director of industrial design, said “We saw that people were often using it closed”. Although the users liked the large tablet-like experience, they mainly wanted to use the phone as a regular device.

This led the company to take a “phone-first” approach while designing the Pixel 9 Pro Fold. The brand’s primary goal was to make a foldable that “felt, looked and acted primarily like any smartphone” – and provided additional tablet functionality on top of that. For example, the Pixel 9 Pro Fold offers an aspect ratio of 20:9, the same as the Pixel 9 Pro. That said, the goal was to make the new Pixel Fold more aligned with the rest of the Pixel 9 (review) lineup.

A new hinge, slimmer camera frame, and other smaller tweaks for a slimmer design

Furthermore, Google said it developed a new hinge using multi-alloy steel and high-strength aluminum alloy to make the Pixel 9 Pro slimmer. The company touted that the new hinge is more durable than before. It maintains the same torque feel as the first-gen Pixel foldable. The new design also adds a fluid-friction mechanism and optimized magnets. These essentially enhance the experience while opening and closing the foldable.

Furthermore, the Pixel 9 Pro Fold incorporates a new slimmer camera frame. It has allowed the brand to make a slimmer phone while maintaining the high-performance camera prowess of the original model. The company has redesigned the camera bar and incorporated customized optical modules. Furthermore, Google has made many other smaller changes to make the new phone thinner. It has included a slimmer haptics driver, USB Type-C charging port, and thermal system to add a new vapor chamber.

All the aforementioned changes allowed Google to make the 9 Pro Fold 1.5mm slimmer when closed and 0.7mm when open, compared to the first-gen model.