# Pixel 9 Pro Fold with GrapheneOS I'm coming from an iPhone 14 Pro Max and my comments are relative to that. ## Hardware Pixel 9 Pro Fold Specifications: - CPU: Google Tensor G4 (4nm, ARM v9.2-A, 1+3+4 core, Titan M2) - Security coprocessor: Google Titan M2 (RISC-V) - RAM: 16 GiB LPDDR5X (64 bit, 4266 Mhz, 68.2 GB/s) - Storage: 256 GiB (UFS 3.1) - Displays: - External (6.3" / 160mm OLED 1080x2424, 20:9, 422 PPI, 60-120 Hz, Corning Gorilla Glass Victus 2, 1800 nits 100% white / 2700 nits 5% white) - Internal (8" / 204mm LTPO 2076x2152, ~1:1, 373 PPI, 1-120 Hz, 1600 nits 100% white / 2700 nits 5% white) - Cameras H/W: - Ultra-wide angle camera (10.5MP, Dual PD, ƒ2.2, 127° FOV, 0.5x zoom, 0.295" sensor) - Wide angle camera (48 MP, Quad PD, ƒ1.7, 82° FOV, 1x zoom, 0.5" sensor, image stabilisation) - Telephoto camera (10.8MP, Dual PD, ƒ3.1, 23° FOV, 5x zoom, 0.3125" sensor, image stabilisation) - External selfie camera (10MP, Dual PD, ƒ2.2, 87° FOV, ?? sensor) - Inner selfie camera (10MP, Dual PD, ƒ2.2, 87° FOV, ?? sensor) - Camera S/W: - Video HEVC / AVC, Stereo Audio - Rear: 1080p/4K @ 24/30/60 FPS (240?) - Selfie: 1080p/4K @ 30/60 FPS - Connectivity: - Wi-Fi 7 (2x2 + 2x2 MIMO) - Bluetooth 5.3 (dual antennas) - NFC - Dual-band GNSS (GPS, Galileo, GLONASS, QZSS, BeiDou, NavIC) - Nano SIM + eSIM (Exynos 5400) - Sensors: Proximity, Ambient Light, Accelerometer, Gyrometer, Magnetometer, Barometer, Hall effect - Speakers: Stereo - Microphones: Three - Charging: 21 W wired + 7.5 W Qi wireless charging - Port: USB Type-C 3.2 - Ingress Protection: IPX8 - Size: - Folded: 155.2mm x 77.1mm x 10.5mm - Opened: 155.2mm x 150.2mm x 5.1mm - Battery: 4560 mAh (typical 4650 mAh) - Weight: 257g I absolutely love the folding screen, with all of the compromises that it makes. There is nothing that beats reading a PDF on a bigger screen, or having two apps side by side when you really need to get some work done, or unfolding the phone on a table to watch a video. It's too early to say what will happen to the hinge and fold line, but I'm not expecting them to last past a few years. They've been fine the last few months. I've never had any issue with the fingerprint sensor unless my finger was damp. Likewise, the battery life has also been acceptable. The quality of the hardware is relatively poor, especially for the price on release. The camera is especially relatively poor due to the thinness of the two sides of the device — it is easily beaten by phones that are a few years old. The stabilisation is not very good; photos are blurry in low light unless you hold the phone very still. The audio and maximum volume is mediocre. ## Software I immediately binned Google's flavour of Android without even trying it, and installed GrapheneOS. The installation was very smooth. I tried a wide range of apps and whittled them down based on the look and feel of the app, how easy they were to use, the functionality that they offered, their security posture, and how bloated the distributable was. These are my recommended apps in 2025: - Aegis to store 2FA codes - Aurora Store to download the odd app from the Play store - Auxio to play music - Calendar by Fossify - CoMaps for offline navigation and map marks - DAVx⁵ to sync Calendar/Contacts - Droid-ify front-end to F-Droid - Gallery by lacoblonut01 - Image Toolbox for advanced edits to images - KeePassDX to store passwords cross-platform - LocalSend to send files locally. (Or PairDrop for a web app.) - Material Files. You can edit text files, create shortcuts to files on the home screen, connect to remote servers. - Molly front-end to Signal for messages - Next Player to play videos. You can skip silences, and listen to videos in the background. - OSS Document Scanner - StreetComplete to add data to OpenStreetMap in a fun way - Syncthing-Fork to sync files - Thumb-Key for an alternative keyboard - Thunderbird for emails - Transcribo for voice-to-text - Voice for audiobooks and podcasts - WiFiAnalyzer - WireGuard for a personal VPN Some things I find annoying: - Turning the phone on with the power button and second-factor PIN goes to the PIN entry immediately so you cannot see the time. - The lock screen shortcuts at the bottom are too sensitive and often open by accident, interrupting whatever I was doing. - The camera roll in the camera app sometimes remembers photos that were deleted. - I cannot screenshot in Vanadium Incognito window despite allowing it in settings. - The bookmarks page on Vanadium sometimes just fails to load(!) - It is very difficult to configure what app to use to open files by default or change that as a one-off. - Text selection remains terrible, inconsistent, and difficult despite all these years. - It isn't possible to run more than one VPN interface. - It isn't possible to share folders between profiles. - Timers don't show up on the lock screen. - The camera app does not use the front screen when taking a photo with the rear camera. - The camera app cannot take portrait-mode photos. There are plenty of little papercuts with apps as well, but that would be too much to list. The GrapheneOS bundled apps are known to be far too, let's say, minimal. Vanadium makes its controversial choice on Security vs Privacy. The PDF viewer does not support swipe gestures to turn pages. I'm missing a ebook reader, especially one that supports the wide inner screen well.