is a senior reviewer with over a decade of experience writing about consumer tech. She has a special interest in mobile photography and telecom. Previously, she worked at DPReview.
A book-style folding phone is a gadget that poses one radical idea: What if you always had a computer in your pocket?
When you’d like to be writing a blog while your plane is taking off, and large electronics (Computer) must be stowed? When you’re sitting on the couch putting together a grocery order, and Computer is in the other room? When your job is to write blog posts, but you weren’t allowed to bring Computer into the keynote venue? These are real scenarios in which I’ve used the Google Pixel 10 Pro Fold and Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 over the past month.
Each offers a large inner screen that is, at a minimum, lots of space for watching videos, reading posts, whatever it is you normally do on your phone. But I’ve been pushing them into Computer territory lately, with largely excellent results. The experience has only made me more greedy; I’m now seeing the different strengths and weaknesses of the Z Fold 7 and the Pixel 10 Pro — and I’m convinced that the ideal foldable is smack in the middle.
The thing about gluing two phones together is that the resulting device usually weighs about as much as two phones glued together. That’s true of the Google Pixel 10 Pro Fold, which is heavy enough to constantly remind you that it’s in your pocket. But the 10 Pro Fold has a secret weapon: Qi2 with built-in magnets, which allows you to use it with magnetic Pop Socket-type holders. I carried it with Google’s Pixelsnap-branded ring grip, which helps mitigate the weight issue when you’re holding the phone for a while. It kinda works as a stand too, and shouldn’t a phone that’s also a tablet come with a way to prop it up? I’m starting to believe so the more I use these things.
The 10 Pro Fold has one more feature that influenced my decision to bring it on my family travels over the holidays and to CES in Las Vegas (a literal desert!): dust resistance. Any phone that’s going to be my daily driver needs to withstand the harsh environment at the bottom of my tote bag, where goldfish crackers go to crumble and die. It’s the only folding phone with a full IP68 rating for dust resistance, which gave me real peace of mind every time I threw it in a bag.
But after a few weeks of lugging it around, I was ready to trade the 10 Pro Fold in for something lighter. So I switched to the Galaxy Z Fold 7, Samsung’s superthin and light foldable. It weighs a little more than a standard slab phone, making it much more comfortable to carry and hold. It doesn’t seem like much on paper, but I promise you — it’s a difference you feel in a hundred tiny ways.
Something about adding even a thin case to the Z Fold 7 feels antithetical to its whole deal
Since you can’t have everything, the Z Fold 7 lacks full dust resistance (it’s only sealed against large particles), so I felt a little more nervous with it day-to-day. Also missing: integrated Qi2 magnets. Samsung offers a couple of low-profile cases that add a magnetic ring, but I’m not a case guy. And something about adding even a thin case to the Z Fold 7 feels antithetical to its whole deal.
Maybe that’s just my hangup, though I can’t help feeling that a simple ring stand that I could slap on the back of this phone is just what it needs. Prying a case off when I want to reap the full benefits of the Z Fold 7’s ridiculously slim profile feels needlessly fussy when a simpler option is right there. A stand would also address the wobble the camera bump causes when you use the phone on a flat surface; I’m always propping the phone up on a drink coaster to stabilize it. I realize a case would help here too, but please see my previous points about being allergic to cases and wanting to easily ditch the propping mechanism at will.
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