With this steep discount, I think the Pixel Fold finally makes sense

Black Friday has officially come and gone, and now all the Cyber Monday deals are here. Over the past couple of days, you might have noticed an enticing offer on the Google Pixel Fold. Just recently launched in June, this foldable smartphone from Google is now available at Best Buy with a significant price drop. At its original MSRP of $1,799, we had a hard time recommending this first-gen foldable from Google, but right now over at Best Buy, the unlocked 256GB model is $1,399. That’s a savings of $400 that makes this foldable finally make sense.

What I like about the Pixel Fold

The Fold is Google’s first attempt at a foldable and offers Pixel fans a new form factor with the clean software experience we all love. You can read through Robby’s thoughts on this device and watch our full video if you want some more in-depth analysis but overall he did like the inner and outer screens, the speakers, and the tablet UI. In my time with the Fold, the screens stood out as well, with a 7.6-inch inner OLED display and a 5.8-inch OLED outer display, both boasting a 120Hz refresh rate. Also, the “notebook” style of this device allows for a normal smartphone aspect ratio on the outer screen instead of the thinner “candy bar” style outer screen on the Galaxy Z Fold.

The camera setup is equally impressive, with a 48MP main camera, a 10.8MP ultrawide camera, a 10.8MP telephoto camera with 5x optical zoom at the back, complemented by a 9.5MP selfie camera on the cover, and an 8MP selfie camera on the inner display. Internally, the Pixel Fold is equipped with Google’s Tensor G2 chip and 12GB of RAM, ensuring smooth, lag-free multitasking. The battery life is solid too, promising all-day usage and extending up to 72 hours with the Extreme Battery Saver mode.

Things to consider before purchasing the Pixel Fold

While the Google Pixel Fold does get a lot right, it has some glaring issues too, mainly software-related. Many big-name apps haven’t been optimized for the larger, inner screen, forcing them to open as a phone-sized app window with black bars on the side. Then there’s web content. Many websites load the phone-sized version of the article, resulting in text getting stretched across the large screen making for an awkward and sometimes totally unusable reading experience. And if you’re big into mobile gaming, you might want to stray away from the Fold for that reason too, since many games haven’t been optimized for Tensor G2, resulting in sputtering and overheating when Robby was playing Call of Duty Mobile.

Overall, this is a beautiful phone that just didn’t deliver on the software side, and that’s why at an MSRP of $1,800, it was hard to recommend. But with the current $400 discount, this foldable finally makes sense. At $1,399, the issues are more palatable and you could chalk them up as part of being an early adopter. It’s still an expensive phone – don’t get me wrong – but this deal is the most attractive offer we’ve seen on the Pixel Fold so if you’ve already been considering a purchase, now is the time to buy. And if you are going to pull the trigger, I’d recommend going so quickly since there are likely limited quantities and the Best Buy Cyber Monday event ends 11/27/23 at 11:59 PM CT.