Pixel Fold vs Galaxy Z Fold 5

Google Pixel Fold vs Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5

These foldy boys are expensive. For the cost of the Galaxy Z Fold 5 Vs Pixel Fold, I could have bought a Jaguar—not one of those, but this one. Could have bought a Mercedes. Could have bought over a thousand gallons of gas. Or if I was super hungry, over 2,000 slices of pizza. But instead, I have almost four thousand dollars of foldable phones here that I gotta compare and pick a winner. Instead of me just kind of making it up, I figured these phones are pretty powerful.

They should defend themselves:

Pixel Fold vs Galaxy Z Fold 5

Pixel Fold: I got that aspect ratio that’s perfect. And when you want that sweet Pixel magic sauce when you’re taking pictures, I got you – machine learning hardware, Google Pixel Fold is your move. I got a real front-facing camera on my tablet side, so you can actually use it for stuff.

Galaxy Z Fold 5: If you want a kid, the Pixel Fold’s fine. But if you want a grown man, Z Fold 5 is for you. This is my fifth generation; I’ve been doing this for half a decade and I’ve perfected it, whereas he’s just learning it. My processor might get a little warm, but at least my battery’s not gonna explode.

That got weird. I’m just gonna go full Thanos and do it myself.

I’ve been thinking about this blog from before these phones were ever even announced. I have an irrational love for foldables, but I’m starting to become a bit more rational. They have to add something more than just a regular rectangle phone, right? They’re generally more expensive; they’re thicker than regular phones; they’re usually more fragile than regular phones. You’ve got to get something better and different. That’s what you get from your average rectangle. Both these phones are doing the same thing but slightly different.

All right, hey, future John here. I actually switched to one of these phones. I’m now using it,

Hardware – Pixel Fold vs Galaxy Z Fold 5

So let’s start with the hardware. I think that’s the big giant story here, and it’s very clear that both of these phones were well thought out, well designed, and I think really well engineered, which is a big credit, I think, to what Google’s done because obviously their first device was on the same side, Galaxy Z Fold 5 is Gen 5.

It would have been easy for Google to copy Samsung’s homework, make it look a bit different, and go for a tall and narrow screen, but they didn’t. They bucked the trend, and I think that this was an absolutely brilliant move from the aspect ratio to 5.8 inches, which I think is the absolute perfect size. I could use a phone that is five-foot inch, so I can use a phone or that aspect ratio. It feels good in the hand; there’s enough room to type; video looks good on it; images look good on it; scrolling manually for social media looks good on that outer display.

Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5 clearly went with “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Let’s just make minor changes and hope nobody notices.” And that’s essentially what we have with the Galaxy Z Fold 5. It’s a 6.2-inch screen; it’s tall and narrow. We’ve seen it for the past few generations. To me, it is hard to type on because it’s so narrow – the keyboard gets all scrunchied up. But it’s definitely usable; you can do whatever you want on it. But I did find myself opening it up more and using the 7.6-inch inner screen even more than I did with the Pixel 4, because the outer screen there was so good.

This is also where I start to get, I think, a bit hypocritical and confused. I’m not a perfect person, so I love, like I said, the outer screen of the Google Pixel Fold. When I open it up and get to the 7.6-inch inner screen, it’s almost too wide because it’s double that 5.8 inches, whereas on the Z Fold, the 7.6-inch inner screen – same size, different aspect ratio—feels better in the hands. If I learned anything from Pixel Folds and a lot of Burger King commercials, it’s “not have it your way.”

Screen – Pixel Fold vs Galaxy Z Fold 5

Obviously, picking the right, very expensive foldable is a hard decision. When you open the screens up, I think you start to see the difference in the hardware here too. Samsung is the screen king for a reason. These screens are absolutely beautiful. And one of the big changes with the Galaxy Z Fold 5 is the inner screen is brighter at 1750 nits. You notice that versus 1200 on the Pixel.

Hinge – Pixel Fold vs Galaxy Z Fold 5

One of the other big changes from the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5 is the hinge. And this is where, again, you can see Samsung’s been making phones for a while. The hinge now goes almost flat zero gap, no air, no dust, no dirt, no grime. It is awesome to see, especially after seeing the evolution of these phones from Gen 1 to Gen 5.

The hinge is where they start to flex the most. And Samsung was super proud of it. There are fewer moving parts in it, less stuff to break, less dirt that can get in from the outside of it. It is a really good hinge.

Google took a very different approach here, put the hinge essentially on the outside, gave you slightly bigger bezels, which I don’t mind at all. I actually really like the hinge on the Google Pixel Fold. But it doesn’t open all the way, which doesn’t sound like a big deal. It’s like two degrees off, and when you’re holding it in your hand, it’s fine. When you put it down on a table to use it, it just seems weird that it doesn’t do that.

You can stretch it open, which always is a weird feeling when you’re holding a foldable, like you’re going to crack the thing in half. Also, when it comes to the hinge on the Pixel, I want to stop the bezel hate. I like what they did. I get why they did it; it works. And some people complaining, I think, haven’t used the phone.

Camera – Pixel Fold vs Galaxy Z Fold 5

The bezel completely goes away, plus you get a real camera in Google Pixel Fold when it’s opened, hidden in those chunky boy bezels. Whereas on the Galaxy Z Fold 5, you’ve got an in-screen one that’s really only good for video calls. So I feel like Doug Demuro here talking about quirks. There’s a lot of quirks and features, I guess, on the Pixel. They’re a bit strange to me. The volume button placement and the fingerprint placement, I don’t know why they would do that. They put the fingerprint on top of the volume, which even if you have giant hands, it’s more natural to have it on the bottom, I think. I never got used to it; never got the muscle memory right. On the Google Pixel Fold, it is a small, minor thing, and probably over a few months, it wouldn’t bother me as much. But I definitely appreciated the normal placement you’ve got on the Galaxy Z Fold 5.

Pen – Pixel Fold vs Galaxy Z Fold 5

Also, if you’re a fan, you can use an S Pen on the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 55, which is awesome. But you’ve got to know where to store it unless you get a special case to put it in. I’m still surprised it’s not a proper silo to put that thing right into it.

Battery – Pixel Fold vs Galaxy Z Fold 5

So, like, if you’re just doing this on paper, let’s talk about battery life. The Pixel would wipe the floor with the Galaxy Z Fold 5. It’s got a 4,800 milliamp-hour battery, whereas Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5 is a paltry 4,400. The battery life on the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5 has actually been incredibly impressive, slightly less impressive on the Google Pixel Fold. Now, allegedly with Android 14 beta, those have been fixed and addressed. So, I assume it will get better over time. But right now, despite having more milliamp-hours, the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5 is still reigning on battery.

Processors – Pixel Fold vs Galaxy Z Fold 5

They’re also running different processors. We’ve got Tensor in one and Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 in the other. I have honestly noticed no difference from a processor standpoint either. Perhaps I will over time; Tensors haven’t always aged well as the phones go month over month. But right now, at launch, these are extremely capable phones that’ll do whatever you want from a multitasking standpoint or running games or apps, whatever. There’s no difference with these phones.

Continue to Camera

I think cameras are probably the weirdest part about foldables. You’ve got these crazy expensive phones that have never really used flagship camera sensors because they’re too thick to put on an already thick phone when closed. So, let’s just blind camera test this, right? You’ve got quasi the best from Google, and you’ve got sort of the best from Samsung, kind of going head-to-head. So here are some pictures. The portrait mode on these was the main portrait mode from the back cameras, not the front cameras. Look at the highlights; look at the sky; look at the green that you see here; look at the blue of the water. Can you, well, first of all, which one do you like better—A or B?

Let me know in the comments. And can you guess which one was which?

Just so you know, A is the Galaxy Z Fold 5 and B was the Google Pixel Fold.

Both of these cameras I think actually take great photos, even though the Pixel is missing the same sort of hardware as the Pixel 7 Pro. It is very pixely in its photos, which is a gigantic complement, and I mean that from the bottom of my heart. The main difference you see with this, I think, is in the portrait shot. The Pixel is handling colors much better, and it’s a bit more balanced overall. But that is not to say that Samsung is bad.

I think in most cases, people would probably prefer the photos out of the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold because it produces brighter, kind of more punchy photos. I think the Pixel does a generally better job on skin tones, especially darker skin tones. Samsung, they make T-Mobile proud—you’ve got a lot of magenta showing, a typical high-saturation Samsung thing.

I do wish we had more optical zoom here, but I get it—size constraint. Both these are really good, but I feel like it’s a cop-out to be like, ‘They’re both great.’ Whichever one gets, I gotta pick one because they make the video better. So, pixel camera overall is slightly better. But if you like that high-contrasty stuff, the Samsung is going to do what Samsung’s going to do.

So, I think it’s up to—now, it’s pretty safe to say that both these phones give you a pretty compelling package. Right? They both have their own strengths and weaknesses. But where things start to change is when it comes to software.

Continue to Screen

With the Google Pixel Fold, you think software would be like a massive blowout—like Lakers versus Bulls, just blowing them out of the water. But it was at this moment that he knew he f***ed up. Like, I can’t understand why Google is not giving you more customization when it comes to software. And I’ve talked a lot on social media and that kind of stuff about not being able to customize the inner screen and the outer screen of the Pixel. It’s the same on both.

Now, you might like that, but certainly on Android one of the best benefits of Android is customization, and I feel like that’s a very Apple decision, not a very Google decision. Maybe it was because it’s their first phone; maybe it’ll come when software gets upgraded to Android 14. I don’t know. But right now, it is not there, and it’s weird. I use my phone differently on the outer screen versus the inner screen, and I want it to look different on both of those.

That alone is very weird. Samsung almost treats the screens as separate phones if you wanted to. If you want it to mirror, you have that option there as well. You are getting kind of the best of Google, what they can do with Android, with sort of the best of Samsung’s now half a decade of experience making foldables. And that is really apparent with software. And it is absolutely nuts that coming from the maker of Android, you figure out if anybody, they would give you the most options. And it’s a little confusing as to why it’s not there yet. We’re not looking for much customization; you just want sort of one experience that can be universal across the device. You’d be happy with whichever one you go. But if you want to be able to customize more and treat the other screen separately, like that’s very clearly an easy decision to make. So, like, this might seem like a pretty obvious answer, right? Which one is going to win? But it’s not as obvious as you think.

Conclusion

If you have pretty much any version of the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold before the five, you’re not going to notice a giant difference when you choose to upgrade. In fact, if you’re on a different experience, I’d probably say stick with the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold. For Z Fold owners, you want to get something new, you’ve got 800 bucks to burn a hole in your pocket, I’d go for the Pixel.

Anyway, hey, future John here. I actually switched to one of these phones. I’m now using the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5 as my everyday phone for a few months, kind of give it a shot, see how it performs. But ultimately, it’s the more mature software on the Samsung side that has made me go to the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5 over the Pixel.

Now, the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5 is not a perfect phone. The tall and narrow aspect ratio on the outer screen is still a bit weird and hard to reach with one hand. Being able to have those home screen customizations on both really makes it feel like more of a complete product.

I am hopeful that Google will stick with the Google Pixel Fold. Now, Google is known for a lot of things, but chief among them is killing products that are really good. They’ve done it with hardware before, actually done it with a ton of their software and apps. But I’m hoping the Google Pixel Fold will get multiple generations. I think by the time we get to Gen 2, Gen 3, Gen 4, Gen 5, you will have a really well-rounded, pretty awesome phone.

And before, a lot of it is software. And if Google updates this over the next weeks or months, we’ll revisit this. Right now, but as the software stands in early August when I’m filming this, for my money and it’s a lot of money I’m going with the team that has the experience that’s been doing it for a while. I’m going to pick up the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5.

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