I’m already worried about the Google Pixel 11 Pro Fold

The Pixel 11 Pro Fold will be one of the most important phones Google releases this year. After the Pixel 10 Pro Fold failed to do anything interesting with Google’s foldable ambitions, its successor needs to step things up — and in a big way.

From what we can tell right now, the Pixel 11 Pro Fold will mark another year of Google playing it safe with its foldable game. Considering how poorly that strategy worked last year — and how quickly Google is being outpaced by the competition — that makes me extremely worried.

One of my biggest issues with the Pixel 10 Pro Fold is its design. Simply put, the Pixel 10 Pro Fold is a chunky phone. 2025 was the year when almost every company in the foldable game finally cracked the code for super-thin, lightweight designs, but not so with Google. Compared to foldables from Samsung, OPPO, HONOR, and others, the Pixel 10 Pro Fold is considerably thicker and heavier than all of them.

Per Android Headlines‘ leak, the Pixel 11 Pro Fold will be 10.1mm thick when folded and 4.8mm thick unfolded. While that is an improvement over the Pixel 10 Pro Fold (10.8mm and 5.2mm, respectively), it’s still significantly behind everyone else. The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 measures just 8.9mm folded and 4.2mm unfolded. The excellent HONOR Magic V6 is virtually the same at 9.0mm and 4.1mm. The upcoming OPPO Find N6 should be within the same ballpark, too.

I’m glad to see Google is supposedly making some progress here, but it’s not enough. That may seem like a harsh stance for a difference of a few millimeters, but this is what separates some foldables from feeling like normal slab phones and others from feeling like bricks. Almost every other brand has figured that out, but if these dimensions are correct, it doesn’t look like Google has.

The other notable change is with the Pixel 11 Pro Fold’s camera bump. The LED flash and microphone are now hidden behind the glass around the top camera sensor, shrinking the bump’s size and giving it a much cleaner look overall. Neat!

Okay, what else do we have? Oh wait … that’s it?

That’s it. It doesn’t appear that Google is adding any additional camera sensors, changing display aspect ratios, or making any other truly meaningful design changes. For all intents and purposes, this is the Pixel 10 Pro Fold again.

It’s worth reminding that this is just a design leak. We don’t know what specs Google has in store for the camera, battery capacity, charging speed, or anything else. But if the design changes really are this subtle, those other specs are now significantly more important.

If Google’s not investing its time/resources into a radically thinner and lighter design, we better see big improvements elsewhere. And, lucky for Google, that work is cut out for it. Not only were we disappointed with the Pixel 10 Pro Fold’s design, but also with its cameras, performance, and charging speeds. All of that can be upgraded on the Pixel 11 Pro Fold, and it better be considering how minimal the design changes are looking.

We’re still many months away from the Pixel 11 Pro Fold’s expected August release date. That’s plenty of time to learn about what Google may be cooking with the rest of the phone, and to see if there are any design surprises not visible in this first leak. We’re still very early on in this rumor cycle; a lot can change.

And, hopefully, it will. As a Pixel and foldable fan, I want the Pixel 11 Pro Fold to succeed. But Google needs to put in the work to make that happen, and this first leak doesn’t instill much confidence.