It could really feel like Twitter is slowly imploding, however the platform remains to be place to go for breaking information. Working example: On Thursday, Google teased its newest {hardware} gadget in a tweet. It is a folding Pixel cellphone.
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The cellphone is named the Pixel Fold, and that is just about all we learn about it for certain. The corporate says it’ll reveal extra particulars on the gadget throughout the keynote deal with of Google IO, its annual developer convention, which takes place in Mountain View, California, on Wednesday, Might 10.
There are some things we will discern in regards to the Pixel Fold simply from the picture and brief video that Google launched. The identical photos seem on the Google Retailer on a web page that presumably will develop into the product web page the place the cellphone could be bought when it goes on sale.
It folds book-style, just like the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold, not clamshell-style just like the Z Flip or Motorola’s Razr redux. Additionally, strikingly, the Pixel Fold seems to have a full-size display on the entrance. Many folding telephones that collapse like a ebook use a smaller display on the entrance, however the Pixel Fold goes massive, with an edge-to-edge display like those discovered on common, nonfolding smartphones.
Video: Google
The Pixel Fold’s inside display would not seem to go edge-to-edge, however as a substitute is nestled inside a slim black bezel. On that folding display, we will see some Android widgets and person interface parts that look as if they have been optimized for the bigger folding display. Little doubt, when the Pixel Fold is revealed, the adaptive Android parts will likely be an enormous a part of the demonstration.
There are some chrome accents on the sides which are harking back to the Professional-level Pixel fashions and a few current flagship-level Samsung Galaxy units. There’s additionally a chrome end utilized to the digital camera bump on the again of the cellphone. (Chrome accents on a cellphone all the time remind me of the Ford Crown Victoria, and I want firms would cease doing this, as a result of who desires to be reminded of a Crown Vic eight dozen instances a day? However I digress.) These accents sign that the Pixel Fold will likely be a premium gadget.
Additionally they sign a really excessive worth. Google has stated nothing in regards to the worth—or the rest actually, apart from displaying the photographs and re-upping the date of the IO keynote—however we will assume this foldy will include a price ticket significantly greater than the non-folding Pixels.
Google’s information a few premium, folding smartphone comes at a time when smartphone gross sales are in a deep hunch. Additionally, customers haven’t responded to folding units as enthusiastically because the smartphone makers experimenting with the shape issue have hoped they’d. Possibly the arrival of a folding cellphone made by the identical firm that makes the software program working on it—the “complete stack” strategy—would be the nudge that will get this nonetheless awkward {hardware} design out of its area of interest and into the mainstream.