I mean, I do think this looks quite cool, in a this-may-be-how-we-imagined-the-future-in-1985 kind of way.
And The Guardian really likes it, giving it a 5 star review, off the back of its small size when folded up, quality of its LLM-generated responses to natural language prompts and its good screen and camera.
The cost? you ask. That’ll be £1750 and a £20/month Gemini AI subscription after a year.
The Guardian used to knock a mark off review ratings if the device didn’t meet an admittedly vague notion of being sustainable, but that policy appears to have been silently dropped. I’m scratching my head at how such a large device as the Pixel 9 Pro Fold which pushes AI so much manages to score a perfect 5, especially when it doesn’t even come with a sustainability statement or report.
But this is just typical of how The Guardian – and tech media in general – portray tech, which is simply a reflection of how manufacturers define what these products mean. In the case of the Pixel 9 Pro Fold it’s the screen quality, size when folded up, battery life and all the other technical, self-contained attributes that may affect your decision as to whether to part with nearly £2000.
Nothing on this monstrosity’s obscene financial and environmental costs, Google’s imposition of a subscription model for a deeply unethical, fundamental feature, or even existential questions such as who is this thing for? and what is it for beyond creating new demand?