The Google Pixel Fold release would clash with Samsung's Galaxy Z Fold 5 directly
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Google is gearing up to finally announce its long-awaited first foldable phone this year, and its launch may be calculated to coincide with the summer quarter when Samsung's Galaxy Z Fold 5 is scheduled to be released as well.
Tentatively named Google Pixel Fold, the phone will be entering mass production in the July-September quarter, report The Elec's Samsung supply chain sources. The insiders tip that Samsung Display, which has received orders for both the Google Pixel Fold's 7.57-inch foldable OLED display panel, as well as the 5.6-inch cover screen, will start making those in July or August en masse.
Google Pixel Fold specs
Given that the Google Z Fold 5 usually appears on retail shelves towards the tail end of August, Google might have scheduled the launch of its first foldable phone to clash with Samsung's finest directly. That's quite a bit of hubris, given that Samsung's Fold line has already went through several editions that proved their mettle in the marketplace, but Google has reportedly delayed its own Fold twice - once in 2021, and once in 2022 - in order to perfect its existing specs and add real value in terms of software and multitasking advantages that a phone with bendy display brings to the table.
Unfortunately, this also means that it hasn't paid much tribute to the notion that the Google Fold has to be released with the latest and greatest hardware specs at the time of launch, so the supply chain sources are reporting that Google's first foldable phone will be released with toughly the specs that have been bandied about for a good while already.
Expect the aforementioned 7.6-inch internal foldable display and external 5.6-inch screen, but not of the latest OLED generation that Samsung will use for the Galaxy Z Fold 5, as well as Google's homebrew Tensor G2 chipset that is great in terms of AI and image processing, but won't be able to beat the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 that Samsung's 2023 foldables will carry, at least as far as raw benchmarks are concerned.
Google Fold Android 14 L interface
Still, Android 12 already brought a dedicated L edition meant for multitasking on foldables and tablets, and Android 14, which is likely to be detailed in length at Google's I/O 2023 developer conference in May, is likely to continue that tradition.
In it, Google will most probably give with even more emphasis on the opportunities that the foldable form factor brings to the table, now with a Google Pixel Fold in mind, up for a release in August or September.
When Android 12L was announced, the speculation was that Google is actually giving hints for the Pixel Fold release with it, but the two subsequent delays in the release of its first foldable phone mean that it would be an eventual Android 14L that will bring the goods and all that is left is to wait for more design previews. Color us excited!
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