…And it was dropped off at FedEx a few hours ago.
With the $300 off for Black Friday + 10% off ID.me Federal Employee discount I decided to give it a try. Kind interesting it was 10% off of the full $1800 MSRP, not the sale price for a total of $480 off.
But now I’m back to my Pixel 9 Pro XL
I really do like the idea of a foldable phone, and with the upgrades made from the original Pixel Fold to the gen 2, I thought I could make it work but a few things kept me from keeping it.
First and foremost, the size of the external display. While I loved the internal display, the 6.3” external is just way way way too small compared to the 9 Pro XL of 6.8”. Since 90% of the use would be with the external display, it was hard to convince myself having the big internal display is more beneficial. A couple of my coworkers have newer Samsung Z Fold’s and that tall display is just not for me, don’t like it one bit. Never would I buy a Samsung phone, but I felt Google did it right, but too small.
The second problem was the launcher. I despise the native Pixel Launcher, been using Nova Launcher (and paid for the Premium version) for probably 10+ years now but with Android 15 there were some hiccups, so I switched to Microsoft Launcher, which surprisingly isn’t bad and I get it customized to where it’s 95% like I had Nova. But with all of my widgets, I would put things in the order how I wanted them on the external display and that wouldn’t translate properly on the internal display. Widgets would get cut off, appear on top of each other or the size would be off. I couldn’t get text and icon sizes to be to my liking. They were either super small on the external and the size of a half dollar on the internal or vice versa. Tried Nova and it was even worse.
The third problem and I knew about this, was most apps just look like garbage on the internal display. Google’s own apps are pretty good for the most part, but I don’t use many Google apps outside of Maps. For YouTube I just play videos in Firefox with uBlock enabled because of how bad ads are on YouTube. The Microsoft Office apps did look great, but realistically how often would I use them was the question. Mindless web browsing using Firefox would be the only thing I would use on the internal display, and it simply wasn’t worth it for me.
The fourth problem, and it may have been overblown and/or it may not be a problem anymore, but Pixel 9 Pro Fold owners were reporting problems connecting to AT&Ts 5G network early on. Not sure if that’s still a problem, but as I plan to dump T-Mobile and go with AT&T, I might run into that problem.
While this phone isn't quite for me, from a hardware perspective I was very impressed with it in the 4 1/2 days I've had it. Looking forward to see what future generations bring and I'll be open to giving it another try.
If the Pixel Watch 3 could be paired with two phones, there is a chance I would have kept the Fold and alternated between the two, but I don't feel like doing a factory reset on the watch every time I'd switch. If there was a 9 Pro Fold XL I would get it.
With the $300 off for Black Friday + 10% off ID.me Federal Employee discount I decided to give it a try. Kind interesting it was 10% off of the full $1800 MSRP, not the sale price for a total of $480 off.
But now I’m back to my Pixel 9 Pro XL
I really do like the idea of a foldable phone, and with the upgrades made from the original Pixel Fold to the gen 2, I thought I could make it work but a few things kept me from keeping it.
First and foremost, the size of the external display. While I loved the internal display, the 6.3” external is just way way way too small compared to the 9 Pro XL of 6.8”. Since 90% of the use would be with the external display, it was hard to convince myself having the big internal display is more beneficial. A couple of my coworkers have newer Samsung Z Fold’s and that tall display is just not for me, don’t like it one bit. Never would I buy a Samsung phone, but I felt Google did it right, but too small.
The second problem was the launcher. I despise the native Pixel Launcher, been using Nova Launcher (and paid for the Premium version) for probably 10+ years now but with Android 15 there were some hiccups, so I switched to Microsoft Launcher, which surprisingly isn’t bad and I get it customized to where it’s 95% like I had Nova. But with all of my widgets, I would put things in the order how I wanted them on the external display and that wouldn’t translate properly on the internal display. Widgets would get cut off, appear on top of each other or the size would be off. I couldn’t get text and icon sizes to be to my liking. They were either super small on the external and the size of a half dollar on the internal or vice versa. Tried Nova and it was even worse.
The third problem and I knew about this, was most apps just look like garbage on the internal display. Google’s own apps are pretty good for the most part, but I don’t use many Google apps outside of Maps. For YouTube I just play videos in Firefox with uBlock enabled because of how bad ads are on YouTube. The Microsoft Office apps did look great, but realistically how often would I use them was the question. Mindless web browsing using Firefox would be the only thing I would use on the internal display, and it simply wasn’t worth it for me.
The fourth problem, and it may have been overblown and/or it may not be a problem anymore, but Pixel 9 Pro Fold owners were reporting problems connecting to AT&Ts 5G network early on. Not sure if that’s still a problem, but as I plan to dump T-Mobile and go with AT&T, I might run into that problem.
While this phone isn't quite for me, from a hardware perspective I was very impressed with it in the 4 1/2 days I've had it. Looking forward to see what future generations bring and I'll be open to giving it another try.
If the Pixel Watch 3 could be paired with two phones, there is a chance I would have kept the Fold and alternated between the two, but I don't feel like doing a factory reset on the watch every time I'd switch. If there was a 9 Pro Fold XL I would get it.
