Photos: Here’s the canceled Pixel Fold that wasn’t good enough for Google

The Google Pixel Fold was a relatively late arrival compared to other manufacturers’ first-generation foldables. At the time of its release in mid-2023, Samsung had just launched the fifth iteration of its book-shaped version of the foldable phone (and had debuted a second look with the more popular Galaxy Z Flip series), and several other companies had also debuted them. This situation could have been very different, though: Google actually had another prototype ready a year before the original Pixel Fold, but decided to scrap it because it wasn’t “good enough,” as Google’s head of hardware design Ivy Ross revealed on a 2023 episode of the Made by Google podcast.

While the existence of this canceled smartphone is pretty well known, we’ve never seen it in pictures or learned the full specs, but that changes today. Photos of what appeared to be a mysterious Pixel Fold-like device first surfaced in a low-key XDA forum thread (the original images are now gone, sadly, but we have copies), sparking quiet speculation that it was either a fake or an early prototype. Thanks to an anonymous source within Google, Android Authority I can confirm that this is in fact our first look at the canceled Pixel foldable codenamed “pipit” and its specifications.

Before we begin, it’s worth mentioning that the devices codenamed “pipit” and “passport,” both supposedly canceled Pixel foldables, are actually the same device. While they were different projects at one point, they eventually converged into a single device that continued to be called “pipit.”

The canceled Pixel Fold has an oddly familiar look; the only feature that clearly distinguishes it from the final version is a (mostly) transparent glass bar that runs the width of the device, looking a lot like a Pixel 6. The released Pixel Fold has a smaller, polished metal camera island, matching the look of the Pixel 7 Pro.

Other than that, the form factor hasn’t changed much. The unusual aspect ratio is the same, the frame and hinge look pretty much the same, and even the matte rear glass was already there (the carbon texture on the top of the device is just a skin added by the seller) .

(We apologize for the image quality of the photos below. This is the best we managed to recover from the deleted photos in the feed.)

Unfortunately, the device discussed in the thread has a broken internal display, so we can’t compare it to the first-gen Pixel Fold. However, it’s fair to assume that it looks similar, if not identical.

Mundane specs

If “pipit” were to come out, it would have arrived a few months after the Pixel 6 series, so obviously its specs are a generation behind the first-gen Pixel Fold, which relies on the base configuration of the Pixel 7. Instead of a Tensor G2 with the Exynos 5300 modem, the device came with the first-gen Tensor and Exynos 5123 modem, which was notable for the number of issues it had.

Likewise, the device had an older camera setup. While the first generation Pixel Fold looked more like a Pixel 7a with its improved cameras, “pipit” had a much older setup with a rather old Sony IMX363, which debuted on the Pixel 3 in 2018! The other sensors are also downgraded and the telephoto lens is completely absent. I’ve put together a comparison of the camera specs below.

Another area where the “pipit” differs from the Pixel Fold is the outer display. The device has a slightly smaller display at 66 x 128mm compared to 67 x 130mm on the Pixel Fold. The resolution also differs slightly at 1,080 x 2,100 pixels compared to 1,080 x 2,092.

One thing, however, remained surprisingly the same: the internal display remained a completely unchanged panel. What’s interesting, however, is that Google has developed a prototype version of the device with support for pen input. Although it appears that the idea was eventually abandoned (the last prototype including this concept was the “PIPIT EVT 1.0 Stylus”, while other versions of the device reached the DVT stage much later), it is always interesting to see that Google was exploring something like this.

Although the Pixel Fold that ended up on store shelves is an upgrade over the “pipit”, it seems rather progressive, which begs the question: what went wrong? Why wasn’t the “pipit” good enough?

Of course, this is pure speculation, but we can make a good guess by looking at the broader context in which it would have launched. “Pipit” would have been announced at Google I/O 2022, alongside the canceled first-gen Pixel tablet with Tensor (codenamed “tangor”; the device that ultimately shipped is “tangorpro”) and the Pixel 6a. This would also have made it one of the first devices to run Google’s large-screen optimized version of Android, the 12L. It really couldn’t have been a better choice, so why didn’t it happen?

The launch of the Pixel 6 series was an absolute disaster. A good part of that was the buggy version of Android 12. Although the Android 12L version fixed some things, it was still far from stable. Not only that, but many features have also been carried over, making it 12L less than it was supposed to be.

It’s likely that Google decided to push back the release date of its tablet and foldable device a year ago to make sure the software was ready and to tweak the hardware if necessary. What was delivered wasn’t perfect yet, but it’s probably better than what we would have seen if Google had stuck with “pipit.”

Even canceled, “pipit” was something of a success: our sources tell us that many Google employees used prototypes as their everyday devices, and the first-generation Pixel Fold certainly built on hardware and software created for the canceled prototype. Hopefully the upcoming Pixel 9 Pro Fold will continue this generational improvement.