Are foldables the best AI phones now?

For almost a decade, foldable phones have been a product looking for a problem to solve. They may have found their lane.

In a special episode of The Deep View Conversations, we make sense of Google's and Samsung's latest hardware and the AI announcements that came with them. But mostly, we talk about the new folding phones, the Pixel 11 Pro Fold and the Z Fold 8.  

While folding and flip phones have existed for years, this summer both Google and Samsung upped the ante by launching new experiences that let AI enthusiasts make the most of the added screen real estate for AI workflows. 

Topics covered include:

• The new AI features available on the Pixel 11 phones 
• How Gemini contributes to the AI experience on mobile
• Does Google still have the lead in AI hardware?
• The minimal hardware improvements to the Pixel devices
• The advantages of owning a foldable in the AI era 
• How Samsung's Galaxy Z Fold 8 series compares
• The advantages of the Z Fold 8's "passport" form factor
• How Apple's foldable, rumored to launch in September, will compete 

If you're trying to understand how AI is changing what you can do with a smartphone, and what your next phone purchase should be if you prioritize AI, you won't want to miss this episode. 

Subscribe to Deep View Conversations for interviews with the leaders shaping the future of AI, business, and technology: tdv.transistor.fm 

And don't forget to sign up for The Deep View daily newsletter. We don’t just cover AI, we decode it. In a world flooded with hype, we deliver sharp, no-nonsense insights to keep you ahead of the curve and help you put AI to work every day: subscribe.thedeepview.com

Creators and Guests

Host

Jason Hiner

Editor-in-Chief of The Deep View

Host

Sabrina Ortiz

Senior Reporter at The Deep View

What is The Deep View: Conversations?

From frontier labs and enterprise platforms to emerging startups reshaping entire industries, The Deep View: Conversations podcast interviews the brightest minds and the most influential leaders in AI.

Jason Hiner: Welcome to The Deep View Conversations podcast. I'm Jason Hiner and I'm here with my colleague, longtime collaborator, Sabrina Ortiz. Hey, Sabrina.

Sabrina Ortiz: Hey, Jason. I'm super stoked to be here. We have a lot to talk about in terms of phone launches.

Jason Hiner: We sure do. So August, here we are. The, the September sort of getting its early start. This is like the September pregame with Google, the Google made by Google event last week. And you and I have both been testing the Pixel 11 Pro XL and the Pixel 11 Pro Fold. Boy, that last one is a mouthful. I just want to call it the Pixel Fold 11. And then we've also been as a bonus, we've also been testing this little guy. We both been testing this guy, which is the Galaxy Z Fold8. So we'll talk a little bit about that at the end. This is mostly going to be about the pixels because they're the sort of the real AI kind of phones. But Sabrina, you and I have a little bit of a different opinion on this, which is great. This is great for the podcast.

Sabrina Ortiz: What's new? No. Yeah.

Jason Hiner: Yeah. So that's true. So the cool thing is that these devices are more and more focused on AI for our audience, which cares a lot about AI. Last year, you and I both tested the Pixel 10 devices. And our conclusion last year was pretty clear that like, these are the first AI native phones. These are the first like AI smartphones. You still, I still stand by that. You still feel the same? Like that was the first device that really was like all in on AI.

Sabrina Ortiz: I definitely still think the same. I think less of it being all in on AI because all of these different manufacturers are touting that they're all in on AI. And I think they're all trying their best. What I think made the Pixel 10 stand out is that Gemini features are just baked in natively, you know, because it's at the end of the day, a Google phone. And that's really what made it feel like it was an actual finished AI product. And yeah, I stand by that, for sure.

Jason Hiner: It was so native to all the apps, right? To your keyboard, to your Gemini app on the phone, to the Google, the Google apps, Google Docs, you know, Gmail, all of those things. And that's just made it so that like, if you wanted to use AI, it just made it easier to get to it and jump in right from your phone. So that was good. I also wrote about the phone camera in that as well, right? It jumped up with some new AI features. It had this feature that helped you take a good shot, the sort of camera help one. It had, you know, the sort of improved best take and those kinds of things. So it was a phone that really packs some AI. And so you and I were on the very same page about that. It's about this year that we have a little bit of a different opinion, because, you know, I think of, you know, here's the Pixel 11 Pro Fold, no, not Pixel 11 Pro XL, which you've been testing as well. I think that this like takes it to a whole another level, a sort of my thought. And your thought is like, not so much.

Sabrina Ortiz: So is it still some of the best AI smartphones that I've had? Absolutely. For the same reason as last year, it's still baked into Google AI, also known as Gemini. And of course, if you're a Google user, which most people are, it's incredible that I could link and reference to your calendar, which is basically my lifeline and my Gmail, which is again, my other lifeline. But in terms of new features that elevate it, I would say that the only feature that could make an argument for that is Rambler. And Rambler is awesome. But other than that, there's nothing that I find that would fall under the category of supercharging, but would love to hear what other features make that distinction for you.

Jason Hiner: Okay. Yeah. So a few things. One part of it is that Rambler is so good that it is, you know, that is such an incredible improvement. For those who aren't familiar, I think probably most of the audience is familiar with Rambler, but Rambler is the new voice dictation option that's built into the Google keyboard or Gboard. Rambler does essentially what Wispr Flow does for those who are familiar with Wispr Flow. And there are also some other competitors, but basically you hit one button, you just sort of ramble on. You can sort of correct yourself. You can say, so let's do that on Saturday. Let's do that meeting, you know, Sabrina on Saturday at 9am, not that we do meetings on Saturday at 9am, but, and then I could switch it and say, oh no, actually Sabrina, let's do it at Friday at 9am. And it will not do the whole sort of bit that I just sort of corrected. It'll just do the, you know, correction part, right? It gets a lot of the ums and ahs. It's just so good on Wispr Flow, right? People love it. You and I use it all the time. We love it on Mac, especially you hit the function key. You just start talking and it just clears up all your text. I mean, you and I have both like dictated long parts of articles. We've, you know, use it for messages that lots of people do.

Sabrina Ortiz: I can't work. It's really changed how I work. I do not enjoy working from coffee shops or libraries or anywhere else anymore because I can't speak and dictate, especially for people familiar with The Deep View. We include our deep review at the end of articles and that's really based on our analysis. So I like speaking it because I think it makes it more conversational and it makes it really sound like something I would say, for example, to a friend that I was explaining why this article mattered. So it's almost become a must for me to use Wispr Flow for those and it's changed how I work. I can't do it in public anymore. I don't enjoy it as much.

Jason Hiner: Same. It's, I've gotten very much addicted to it as well. Like when I don't have it, I sort of feel a little like, um, like instead of digging with a shovel, I'm like digging with my bare hands. Like, you know, it's, uh, it's, it's pretty wild. So, but on mobile and Wispr Flow does have mobile apps and mobile integrations on iPhone and on Android, but it's just not good.

Sabrina Ortiz: It's like, you don't think it's good on Android? Cause I've heard on Android, the biggest complaint is that the widget floats on your screen. So I'll get in the way for typing and such, but at least on Android, you could just click the button, start talking and get the same effect than you would on Mac. My issue is on iPhone because of all the different ways that Apple, uh, you know, makes it difficult for, for developers to really get down the whole system. Yeah. Exactly. Um, they've made it where you kind of have to jump to three, two or three hoops before you actually get to the dictating part. And at that point, I'm just not interested. I will just use the native Apple version and then correct everything 20 times if I need to. But on Android, you don't think it was good?

Jason Hiner: I don't. So I use it on Android too. And one, there is the floating thing. So it works very different, completely different on Android versus iOS on iOS. It's a keyboard. So it's essentially you just sort of, you have to switch to a different keyboard than when you try to do it. It like flops over to that. And then you have to swipe back. Such a pain on Android. It is this little floating icon. And you sort of then thumb that icon and, uh, and then start talking. But it's one, sometimes the icon gets weird to find it. It's, it's sort of covering part of your screen. And so it's a pain. And so you sort of swipe it over so it gets out of the way. And then you have to sort of swipe it back to like use it. And then when you use it even sometimes it's just, it's not like it is on desktop or on desktop. It's like instant. No lag. It just, you hit the button. It pops up. It starts working on Android. You hit it. And sometimes it's just laggy. Um, for me anyway, even on powerful devices.

Sabrina Ortiz: Um, like I found that, but interesting. I'll keep an eye out for that. Well, I guess they don't have to because now I can use Rambler on Gboard, but uh, yeah.

Jason Hiner: Here's the thing with Rambler, like I just don't even have to like think about is the icon there? Do I swipe it in? Do I swipe it off? Is it going to lag? Rambler, it just works every time. Like it's your keyboard comes up. You just pop it and then you start talking just like on desktop. The, the Rambler feels as good if not better than Wispr Flow on desktop. And that's sort of the thing that you just don't have to think about it. You just can, can use it. It just gets out of the way.

Sabrina Ortiz: Yeah, that's Google's biggest advantage. That's just that native integration. Like it, that's why they keep winning when it comes, or at least in my opinion to AI hardware. Cause like you just said, the ease of not having to worry about it. And I also love that. Like if you're not an AI person, if you're just like, again, a parent or anybody who's clicking the button that they're used to clicking, they might not even realize why it's working so much better. They may not even realize it's now powered by AI models or more advanced ones at that and just enjoy really flawless experience. So yeah, I think you're absolutely hit the nail on the head there.

Jason Hiner: It's so, it's so good. As a matter of fact, it puts, and I know I'll get to some of the other features that I think are AI features, but we, it's worth talking about Rambler for, for a minute, because it's, it's so game changing that it's so good that I, it really puts an, I, the iPhone at a disadvantage. Um, and you know me, I, I've carry, I've always carried since 2010, I've always carried two phones and iPhone and Android. iPhone is my personal phone. Android is my work phone, but there's some apps that I have on both, right? Like LinkedIn, like a few other things that are just on, I have them on both phones. I can access it, you know, Instagram, um, those kinds of things there now, it's now to the point where if I have an app that's on both and I have to do any typing at all, I will always use it on, uh, Android because it's just so much better experience because you can use Rambler to just sort of, you know, talk your thing through. To the point you mentioned though, some people who aren't AI enthusiasts will just notice that it works better. There is one caveat to that. So by default, the way Google has it turned on, and I think they should change this, the way Google has it turned on is it has this, uh, essentially there's this new feature that sort of switches conversationally between the traditional dictation and Rambler. And I don't like it because it leaves, it uses the traditional dictation more often. And the way you know the difference is the traditional just dictation just has a regular mic. The Rambler dictation has the regular mic plus the Gemini icon, the little star, you know, there. And so the traditional dictation just does whatever, you know, it tries to say and record exactly what you are saying when you say it. And then Rambler does this thing where it removes the ums and ahs, you can correct yourself, yada, yada, yada. I have turned it, but you have to manually go in and turn off that sort of automatic switcher and just say use Rambler all the time, which is what I've done. And I'm so glad because I just, I'm happy to leave a Rambler on 100% of the time. And I never notice or want to go back to the other dictation.

Sabrina Ortiz: Yeah, that's a good thing because I think I, I must have automatically turned it on as soon as I got the phone, you know, carrying it on, you're looking through the settings. I must have turned it on automatically for only Rambler because they only ever see the mic with the little, you know, Gemini star icon.

Jason Hiner: Yeah. Okay. Good. Then then, but that's a little tip for our readers if they, if they get this phone and they're trying to um do it and they're getting frustrated. Why is just the regular mic coming up and why isn't it doing all of the sort of correction and all of that? That's why. So,

Sabrina Ortiz: Something worth mentioning to users as we wrap up on Rambler is that it is currently only available on the Pixel 11 lineup of devices, but it is built into Gboard. So I suspect that it will eventually roll out to previous year or previous models and then also potentially even to other Android phones that are have already activated, you know, Gboard on them. So there is hope for, for other people wouldn't say is it the only reason to maybe purchase this phone, but for those who are buying this phone, it is a huge, huge advantage. Definitely a feature to check out.

Jason Hiner: Yeah. Huge, huge upgrade. That's one of the reasons I call this such a big upgrade is because of Rambler, but you went right to where I, what I was about to say to Sabrina, which is that like that said, it's only on the Pixel 11, you know, now it will, I have, think we have to expect it's going to be on other phones. I think Google has said it's going to come, I believe actually maybe don't quote me on this, but we should expect that basically this the latest Samsung flagships and the previous Pixels tend to get these leading features eventually too. So I would be shocked if Rambler doesn.t come to previous devices, but definitely sorry, the Pixel 10 devices as well as the Samsung Galaxy, you know, S26 and maybe S25 devices as well. So this isn't a reason like you said, just to upgrade to this phone, but for right now, it being the only phone you can get it on, man, it's such a game changer. Also, we should remember that Gboard is on iOS as well. And so I can't imagine Google putting the Rambler, they could, like there's no reason that they couldn't also put Rambler in the Gboard keyboard that you can run on iOS, but I can't imagine them do it. What do you think, Sabrina? I mean, would you, would you think they would actually do that?

Sabrina Ortiz: No, I don't. I think I've lost hope with both, you know, iOS and Android ever really reaching a good point of collaboration that would benefit users the most because of, you know, the whole green bubble, blue bubble. Even now that I'm phone reviewing and we're carrying each, like for people who are actually watching, I have like just five phones on my desk right now as we speak. And then it's impossible for all my friends who have known me my whole life and I did have an iPhone was my first phone, I got the iPhone 4S. So since then, I've had the same number and I'm on iMessage. And it makes it impossible to ever be able to text anybody on any of my other four other phones, which quite frankly, I enjoy using more and we could get into that. But yeah, because of the lack of interoperability is not a new problem, of course, everybody's aware. But the fact that nobody's worked together to try to, you know, make solve this issue yet, makes me think that that divide is only going to continue with a lot of these AI features and such. So no, I don't think that Google's going to give up their secret sauce there.

Jason Hiner: Yeah, it would be it would seem it would seem almost unwise for them to do it because it I think the feature is that good and that game changing that it's one of the reasons to have an Android. It's funny because you still you've been telling me since 2022. I remember when you when you first slide aside and then I'll finish my list of features. You I remember the first time you used the Samsung flip in 2022. And you were like, I would switch to this if it wasn't for the green bubble thing, like I would I would totally use this phone as my main phone.

Sabrina Ortiz: Absolutely. And it is exciting that Apple's going to have a more, you know, the unique form factors finally launching in September with their own version of foldable, which we could get into when we talk about the Z Fold8, because that's what probably what the proportions are going to look like. But yeah, no, I've been locked in into, you know, a walled garden of Apple just because of all my friends need to reach me and the jump seemed too big. I have converted some of my family members to now and friends message me on Telegram if they need to reach me because I could have that on all my devices and things. Yeah, so that that's a win. But other than that, still still stuck here stuck in my little walled garden.

Jason Hiner: So here's one thing. So you you you, you know, poke a hole in this. But remember that when they announced the glasses, when you and I were at Google I.O. sitting in the good seats, thanks for reserving some good seats for us. And we were both surprised when Google announced that the glasses would also run on iOS, remember? Does that give you any, any hope or any sort of second thoughts that it's possible that if they're running the glasses, if they're going to run these these glasses on Android or iOS, that they bring a feature like Rambler to iOS to?

Sabrina Ortiz: Yeah, you know, once once I was talking out loud, and my initial impulse was to say no, because of this divide. And then if you also think about the whole blue, blue, blue, green bubble, Google's always been on the side of like, hey, we want to work with you, Apple, we would love for our for yeah, for our users to have a good experience and for yours to too. So actually Apple's the more problematic one. Having said that, I think now that I'm actually really thinking through the problem, I think Google would be more open to putting Rambler into Gboard on iOS. I wonder if Apple would allow if they would pull something like they have with Wispr Flow, where it makes it super inconvenient, and it.s not as seamless to use it on there. I don't know how they'd be able to do that. You know, it is baked into Gboard, but I feel like Apple would find a way to be like, actually, yeah, it's you click the button on Gboard, but now you have to swipe into another app and then, you know, activate this feature and then use it and somehow kill it for, for, you know, users.

Jason Hiner: Anyways, it's a good point. It really gets down to the API access. So any developers who are listening to this, if you know, if there, if there is API access that Google could have on the, the Gboard to allow the Rambler feature, let us know, like drop us a line in the comments or ping Sabrina and I on social and let us know. I suspect that you can't. I think you're, I think your instinct is right. I think that probably if, if, if Wispr Flow can't do it, probably Google couldn't do it either, but I think that Google might be, if they could do it and maybe if they partnered with Apple and it might behoove Apple, because I think this feature will be so, I think this will be such a wedge feature that I think it would behoove Apple to work with Google to let them put Rambler in Gboard because Apple's not going to have anything like this. Unless they surprise us, Apple's not going to have anything like this. And I'll tell a funny story about this later, but I mean, they could acquire Wispr Flow, right?

Sabrina Ortiz: Or they could acquire any of the 10 million startups that are doing it.

Jason Hiner: Right where, where I went. So I will tell the story now. Somebody from Apple, you know, when I first came over to, when I first came over to The Deep View, you know, and I was talking, you know, with, with some folks at Apple, one of the things that I said was, you know, one thing that could really make people love AI on, on iOS, on iPhone, is if you acquired Wispr Flow. Like you'd be amazed because on Mac already, everybody I know that's using AI on Mac is using it. And on iPhone, it's not good. But if you acquired Wispr Flow and integrated it in, you'd be amazed at how much the perception of the, how smart Siri is would change immediately.

Sabrina Ortiz: That's true. I, I love the feature. Don't get me wrong. I love, love, love the feature. I love Wispr Flow so much. Maybe it's because I'm just too much in the sauce as you are. And we've been covering these AI features for like, what now, like three, four years.

Jason Hiner: Yeah.

Sabrina Ortiz: It's not the most, you know, groundbreaking of features. Apple could develop this in house. It's not a difficult thing to do. It's, it's really using what natural, you know, language models are built for.

Jason Hiner: Yeah.

Sabrina Ortiz: It's just deploying it. So this is why I also don't think, yes, I still think for sure Pixel has the best AI in, in any smartphone. But I don't think they deserve as much credit for the launches this year as much as Rambler is a fantastic feature. And I love it. Really, it's not the most groundbreaking. It's not the most difficult to build or ship is essentially what I'm trying to say.

Jason Hiner: You're right. You're right. And that's exactly where I kind of wanted to end this too. I think just the part of, uh, end of this part on Rambler and, and voice, it is such a game changer. Like make no mistake, as you said, but I think within two years, every phone will have this 100%, every phone will have this, whether they partner with Google, whether they partner with Wispr Flow, whatever they do, this, this feature is so good that every phone will have it. They'll, they'll either just to your point, they'll develop it themselves because this technology is out there. They could license it from lots of other people. Microsoft has lots of voice models. Um, other people have voice models, uh, you know, 11 labs, other folks, they could work with, uh, other, they could partner with it. So I think you look at every phone manufacturer out there by 20, 28, every phone has this. So it's great right now, but it's also not going to be just to this device as we get back to the pixel. You know, it's not just going to be this device. It's just for the rest of this year, this is probably going to be the best phone to do it on. And if you really care about that, you're, you know, this is the phone to get. Let me mention a couple of the other features. So, um, uh, appreciate your analysis on and working through Rambler because it's, uh, that was super helpful. And I think it'll be helpful to the audience, but a couple of the other AI features that I think, um, are, are pretty great. Um, one is, um, is Magic Capture. So this is a phone feature, right? Um, you don't love this but I love it. So we're going to have a chance to, to debate this. Um, Magic Capture, you can, so essentially say like for me, like my cats are doing something and I don't want to like, you know, I don't want to do it. I don't want to like take a bunch of pictures and then have to sort through them and decide which one I like and all that. You can essentially hit Magic Capture. It'll capture the whole scene of them like playing with, you know, something and then it will automatically select, you know, sort of the best clips. A lot of times it'll, it'll find the ones that are sort of the most interesting motion. It'll, um, capture the motion and it'll give you the video. So at the end of the Magic Capture, it gives you the video clip. It gives you the best stills and the stills are not just like screenshots, you know, like we can do with videos. They're like full on captures, like motion, frozen, all of that. And so, and if it's just like you're taking a group photo, it'll give the one where everybody's smiling, right? It'll, it'll pick the, if you do like a quick, a little video and you have a video of people all standing together, it'll just pick the best or it'll pick like three or four best ones and, and gives you, you know, essentially like best take, like it's done before. So it's sort of combining a couple of these things. So I think Magic Capture is a good one. I'll list them and unless we can talk about what the ones you want to talk about. Magic Capture is a really good one. Um, that one is just on this device. I think probably it needs some extra RAM and stuff, but that one could come to other pixel devices, I think too. Maybe Google or maybe sort of Samsung devices too, but it is a software feature. Um, okay. One of the other features, and this one is a small one and, you know, but, but it is really interesting is the teleprompter feature. There's not teleprompter built straight into the video camera. You can just, you know, paste your script in or type it in and do it. So it's really nice for like recording shorts, especially. Uh, this is great not to have to run another app where then, you know, it's doing, um, all kinds of things. There's lots of apps out there, teleprompter apps. And so this is one of those Sherlock things as they call it on, on Apple, which is, you know, the, the, uh, the software building in sort of the features. And then it, that means if you make one of those apps, you just have to do, you have to make more and better features that aren't available in that. But I think for most people, it would be really good. And obviously more and more people create content. So I, so I think, um, it's great. I think you'll also see every phone eventually do this as well, that the teleprompter feature. Um, so, so we have sort of the cameras, like those features are, are better. I'll pause there, you know, Sabrina and get your thoughts on those two things. One sort of, you know, camera feature and one video feature that I think are, um, are pretty smart and, and make it, you know, work pretty well.

Sabrina Ortiz: They're smart. I think, uh, developers and, and all these, uh, you know, companies have, are always faced with this major problem, which is there's so many features that you can include and you can bake in that could help someone. And I think the goal is to include as many features that could help as the most people as possible. The teleprompter feature, I will absolutely use it. I pay for subscriptions. I have multiple teleprompter apps, um, that I use on a, on the daily, but I am working media. So I'm a very rare case for somebody. Like again, I go to a parent, I go to a kid, I go to a teenager, I go like anybody else or somebody who just works a regular office job, it will do nothing for them. So that's why I am very hesitant to include that into any reason that would be like a major AI upgrade. Cause it's just, it's helping such a niche group of people. And if this, uh, capture feature, what is it? Uh, smart capture.

Jason Hiner: Magic Capture.

Sabrina Ortiz: Magic Capture. There we go. Uh, feature, it's, I don't know who it's meant to target. And that's what honestly bothers me the most. Like with the feature last year, which was like, help me take a photo or whatever it was, help me. And it would basically give you prompts, positioning you to take a better photo. I kind of get it. That's like, again, a parent, maybe you're trying to improve. Well, some people just don't know how to take photos. You know, there's the term like Instagram boyfriend and training like girls trying to quote unquote train their, their partners or their boyfriends to take photos the way they want to for Instagram where they're looking pretty, position pretty. So this makes sense to me to some degree. A lot of people take advantage of the feature. I don't know who really needs to, the only, the only thing I could think of is going hands free. And maybe you want it, look, you mentioned a group picture.

Jason Hiner: Yep.

Sabrina Ortiz: But have we really reached a point where I can't hold my phone while I'm taking a video of my dog that's probably going to last no more than a minute anyways. And I can't just take the photos myself or also the thing of taking a video and then taking screenshots from that video. I've always done that. So and that's pretty effective. I don't know if I need AI to do it for me. Ultimately, I just think Magic Capture doesn't target a broad enough amount of people and an everyday use case. And there's about 1000 other AI features that probably would have helped much more people and would have been worth the effort a bit more, in my opinion. But Jason, I know you have some different thoughts.

Jason Hiner: I have one, which is that so all the years my daughter was in dance, I would capture video, sorry, I would capture photos. And there was always moments where it didn't quite get the shot, the pose that I wanted, right? And so this is really good for people who have kids in sports or dance or gymnastics or other things like that. Or yeah, very sort of action photo kind of stuff. It's really hard. And one of the things that I like about this is that you could basically take a video of that moment where they're performing or doing something and it will pick like the best scenes that are really hard to capture exactly the right one. And not only that, you can go so it will automatically pick what it thinks is the best one and is pretty good at it, honestly, the best sort of action capture of stills. And you can go back and sort of try to capture the right one, right? You can actually mess in the settings and of the photo and go and do it. I think that's pretty cool and works pretty well. And I think there are a lot of parents out there with kids in sports and stuff and activities that will find that to be pretty fun. And pets too, I think like if their pet was like at a dog park or something and it was like playing with another dog or jumping or doing something like, I think that's another case. So I think that this one will get used by lots of people in fun ways that they'll really be pretty tickled with.

Sabrina Ortiz: I'm surprised that you say this because you like me. We both like to take photos and we both like photography, the art that is photography. I actually haven't had a chance to pick up my camera and actually do really actual shots of people in a very long time, probably like in a year. But we've talked about one of my favorite things to photograph is people and because there's an art to it, like people feel comfortable. I've done graduation shoots, I've done engagement photos, I've done all those things as you have, I think too. And I think maybe I'm just too sentimental with this, but there's something about somebody grabbing a photo of you. For instance, you mentioned the parent example specifically. There's something that I really think is cute of my mom taking photos at specific moments, taking her and like, you know, a little too zoomed in for my liking or, you know, a little bit just mom style. But I don't know that I would want, because at that point, isn't there always usually a photographer at these events, these sporting events, these the entrecitals, there's always somebody who's quote unquote paid to take those pro shots or pro action shots. And they're going to do it best ultimately, because it is a really big, it's really hard to do. Like whenever I've tried taking action shots or in my photography lessons, it's taken me, you know, weeks to try to get even 1% good at it. I think from from mom or from family or from even boyfriend, what I would want is to see me through what they saw less so through what AI saw. But of course, that's also just me probably being more sentimental and growing up in an era where AI didn't exist. And maybe new kids wouldn't even know the difference. Maybe like, again, a baby born today, they might just grow up where all their photos were taken by AI. But there's something sentimental to me about my parent actually choosing to take the photo when they just take the photo and taking those creative decisions that I wouldn't want to outsource to AI. But we know how I feel about AI and creativity. And we've actually got a piece coming out on that shameless plug. That's right. Soon.

Jason Hiner: Good. I think both things are true. I think it's really, you know, beautiful, precious, amazing. When you can take those shots very intentionally, especially if you get good at it, right? It takes time to get good at taking the action shots. But I think that it's also true that if you can just take the video with the Magic Capture, stay in the moment more. And then it's like later, I can sort out which ones, I can look through it and see which ones it picked. And if I wanted to pick different ones, also having been to these ones where the professional photographers take, you know, the ones, as you mentioned, in a lot of the sporting events and dance recitals and things like that, they never captured the ones that I wanted, right? Like of my kid, right? They pictured, they captured the ones they wanted. And sometimes I never even saw all the options they had. They might have captured the one I wanted, but I never got the option to like look at all the ones they picked and say, Oh no, could you process that one? You know, they sort of have all the control. And I think it gives the sort of control. So I think this was going to be an interesting one to watch, you know, Sabrina, do we see people using this feature and loving it? I think there's a potential that they could, but you also, it becomes a third camera mode. So there's photo, video, and now Magic Capture. So you do have to purposely, and you and I both know that most people never touch those defaults, right? Like, and so you have to purposely go into Magic Capture as a different mode to do it. And so that I think alone will, will mean a lot of people will never touch it. We know that the Pixel phones themselves are not super widely used, but I think what, what it'll be interesting to see, you know, because your, your points are all really valid. I think it'll be interesting to see, do some people use it and then we know how this will work, right? They'll have to post them on social and people like, how did you get those photos? Like those are incredible. And then they'll say, Oh, I have a Pixel 11, you know, and I use this Magic Capture feature and they'll be like, I want that, right? And then if we start seeing some of that social momentum, then you'll see other phone makers, I think pick it up and do the same kind of feature because there's no reason others couldn't do this one too.

Sabrina Ortiz: Yeah, I'll probably be pessimistic this one a bit against that ever happening, but we'll see. Maybe we'll have this again conversation a year from now and, and it will have blown up, but I don't, I know that's a mistake here.

Jason Hiner: Last one I'm going to highlight, this is a small one too. And so sort of gets to your, gets to your point, but which is that, you know, you and I both, I remember really liking that you like this. I really liked it too, the Circle to Search feature when Sam, when it first came out on Samsung, I was like, this is the first AI, it was the first AI feature on a phone. I was like, I need this in my life. This is great. I love it.

Sabrina Ortiz: I think it was before AI branding too, right?

Jason Hiner: It was.

Sabrina Ortiz: It was way before everything became an AI feature.

Jason Hiner: It was branded as, I mean, it was 23, I want to say, and 2023. And it was branded from AI, but it wasn't like the world's greatest AI feature. It was more just like, check out this cool feature and it's AI, you know, but you and I liked it. But here's how I always use you tell me if you did the same thing. What I would do is I would point at something with the camera. I would, I would have it in the camera and then I would hit Circle to Search and I would circle it, you know, right? So circle search wasn't necessarily meant, it was meant to be like anything that's on your screen, right? But in reality, I did it more like kind of a Google lens sort of thing where I was using the camera to do it. How about you? Did you, did you use it that way?

Sabrina Ortiz: No, I think I stuck more to whatever was on my screen, but create a way to use it though. I like it.

Jason Hiner: Okay. So that's almost 90% of the time when I used it. That's what I was doing. And so the funny thing is now one of the things I like is, and I think other people did that a lot too. That was out there. I knew others that did it. So in the, in this one, there's now a mode in the camera app itself that is essentially Circle to Search. You can just go and do like a visual kind of search. Apple has a version of this as well, you know, they call it visual intelligence. So, but I think that's another, it's like one of these things that it's a lot easier now for me having to do two steps, right? It's like it's just always there in the camera, much easier, simpler to sort of get to that and access it. I think this is one of the features you're just going to see a lot more. This is really what a lot of the glasses are based on. You did some reporting this week on the report that there's going to be cameras and AirPods. And that's all about this same feature, is the visual intelligence feature. It's not about the AirPods recording people the way like Meta Ray bands do. It was all about seeing what I see and asking AI about it, which is all the same of this, this kind of feature I'm talking about. This is coming big time, I think in the future to a lot of different things, don't you think?

Sabrina Ortiz: I do. I was actually trying to look it up just now, because that was one of the several circle of search kind of tiny upgrades that happened. I was trying to not misspeak and properly cite them, but I have found that while using the actual devices I've been reaching out to use Circle of Search more, which is really great, because it's a really handy feature.

Jason Hiner: It is. It is. Okay, so that was the upgrade. So those are the upgrades. One thing we should mention though, before we hop over to the foldables, is all of those are software, right? All of those, and you and I are, I think it's a good, we're kind of representative of people out there too. We sort of have different takes on how valuable they are or not.

Sabrina Ortiz: Yeah, and before I guess we pivot out of the all of the AI features, I think it's worth also noting that every incremental update to Gemini that has happened within the last year come together and are packaged really nicely onto the Pixel phone. For instance, the other day I was searching something up and because I'm on Pixel, like instead of my iPhone, I'm not using Chrome and, you know, their personalized smart search where it uses all of your email and all of your actual account information. It's something you opt into, of course, for to put, keep user control.

Jason Hiner: Personal intelligence, right?

Sabrina Ortiz: Yes, personal intelligence. There we go. And I actually activated it. I was for the first time motivated to actually hand over that much of my data, because it's also natively, again, baked in in a way where I'm like, if I'm using this phone, it makes sense for me to actually make it as seamless as possible. And it worked. You know, my search results have improved and granted I could do that on iOS if I have the Chrome app and still do it. But there's something about it being on the phone on natively integrated. Same thing with the fact that Gemini could reach into all of your, again, if you give it access to your Gmail, your YouTube search history, your past conversations and all of that, I typically would not be inclined to do that. But since Gemini is the native assistant, essentially on the Pixel phones anyways, I'm like, if I'm going to be chatting with this thing the same way I chat with Siri, it might as well have the most contacts I can to make it more helpful. So it's all those ways that I think those are the reasons this is the best iPhone. It's because that already the Gemini that Google already offers is so powerful. And now you have more of a reason and it's packaged so nicely to use it every day.

Jason Hiner: Yeah. And I mean, I think it's worth noting too that people do kind of sleep on Gemini a little bit. It gets especially during 2026, it's gotten very few of the headlines. Certainly, Anthropic and OpenAI have been moving a lot faster and advancing the frontier of AI, you know, faster. What Gemini does do well is some of this integration. It has, there are a lot of capabilities to Gemini. It has a lot of different branding, which gets confusing to users, right? They have a lot of names for different anti-gravity and CLI and there's all kinds of things. And that's getting into a lot of like the coding and other other stuff. But even within this, you know, stuff, there's a lot of brand names for all the different features in Gemini. It can get sort of overwhelming. But it does have a lot of capabilities to your point. And they are really well integrated on the pixel devices. Like you can use those things, you know, really well. And so I think the people using that in those features will also just see, and when I had that interview with Samir Samat, the, you know, ahead of Android ecosystem last week, he talked about the fact that like, we're trying to just talk about these features and what they can do for you and talk less about AI because a lot of people, you know, it's sort of a turn off when you, when you talk about AI too much, sometimes even at all. So that's been their focus. And I think that shows up on this phone pretty well that these, a lot of these capabilities that Android has been building, even if they're hard to sort of figure out all of them and what they do because of the sort of sort of some of branding challenges and the fact that Google does so much and telling the story isn't as easy because of that. There are a lot of things that it can do and it can make sure your life better, whether it's like searching in Gmail, whether it's connecting things between your calendar and other things using Gemini to do that. Now, Gemini has the agent, you know, Spark. So Gemini has its own agent that will sort of do things for you. So that's a good, I'm glad you, I'm glad you highlighted that because it sort of gets back to our thesis from last year too that like, you know, Google's the only frontier lab that has a smartphone and that shows up in this.

Sabrina Ortiz: Absolutely. And when you were talking about the syncing between calendar and everything else, worth mentioning that it doesn't seem like a feature, correct me if you're wrong, that you and I could take much advantage of because we're not necessarily using the native messaging app on the phone, but there's also the proactive suggestions where like if somebody says something to you like, hey, how about dinner at 2pm on Friday, look, there's a little bubble that pops up in the bottom corner, you could click on it and it'll automatically do it for you. Samsung's new lineup does the same also through Gemini in the same way, but it seems helpful for people who are actually moving into the phones in a way that again, as a phone reviewer, we're using different messaging apps and I guess not even as a phone reviewer, if you're a WhatsApp user, which a lot of people are, you still wouldn't really be able to take advantage of these features, but cool for somebody out there.

Jason Hiner: If you're using the pixel, you're getting all your text messages through pixel, which most of us now like that's the text messages, like one of our primary forms of communication with everybody, you know, all our friends, family loved ones. What you're getting at, right? It's like all of a sudden there's a whole bunch of new stuff that's unlocked in this phone. As a matter of fact, they have this, these new thing you mentioned, bubbles. There's now these new cards. So if somebody sends you a place, like it will pull up a card with the directions, you can easily use that to get to things. So messages in this phone have gotten a lot smarter. If you're using it for all your communications, like you're going to be, you're going to be pretty happy because messages now integrates Gemini in a big way. And you're right. Like I, I, most people are texting me on my iPhone. And so I do, I do wish I had some of these features. We'll see. I mean, Apple's already announced iOS 27. And so we know most of what's there and what's coming. They do sometimes surprise us with some extra features. So we'll see, you know, in a couple of weeks when the iPhone event comes, if Apple surprises us at all. But I expect that this to be, you know, again, kind of smarter than anything we have on, on iPhone, you know, through next year until the next round of software updates next year.

Sabrina Ortiz: Yeah, sounds, sounds about right. We've talked a lot about the software, anything I know this is an AI podcast, or an AI audience, but anything you want to touch on in the hardware side of these, of these new devices.

Jason Hiner: I think what we should, we should mention is, you know, like everything that we talked about with software, and it's not just because it's an AI podcast, and that's our focus. But really, that's where Google put all of its momentum. Because on the hardware side, there's even criticism out there about the hardware, because they haven't, there's not a lot that's new, you know, on the, on the hardware front in these devices. And in fact, there's even some downgrades. So we'd be remiss if we didn't mention, you know, a few of those. The cameras are largely the same, the camera hardware. Meanwhile, you see sort of some of the other, you know, the Chinese manufacturers really pushing the boundaries on hardware, you know, new sensors, bigger sensors, all kinds of things like that, you know, like Oppo and Xiaomi and others, you know, working on kind of more advanced hardware. So you don't really get any of that. The, the, the Tensor G6, the chip is smart, it's good, it's Google's own chip. But it's still, the sense is from some of the benchmarks, is that it still lags behind the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite and Apple's A19 Pro and kind of raw CPU GPU. So, so there's, there's that it definitely prioritizes kind of some thermal improvements, like the devices don't heat up as much. And I found that as well. iPhone still really gets hot, you know, for me at times, it's a lot better than it was, you know, with this new generation. But, but that's one, there's a RAM reduction on the base models. This was a big win. And this is where it's sort of the RAM shortage is starting to show up, right? So the base models of these now have 12 gigabytes of RAM instead of 16. And that's sort of a bummer, right, to have less RAM. I don't know that it shows up and you see them, I mean, you and I are not testing the base models, we're only testing the pros because, you know, it's what we care about and we care about the high end stuff.

Sabrina Ortiz: But, well, in particular, we care about the high end stuff because they have most advanced AI features are always launched on the more pro models because they actually have the hardware to support these AI features other than that.

Jason Hiner: That's right.

Sabrina Ortiz: My everyday carry is a base iPhone 17 for, for just my like personal phone. So nothing against base phones for everybody can't afford these pro models. It's just that for AI's sake, which we're specifically on the lookout for, it makes sense of some of the more higher higher models.

Jason Hiner: Yeah, we're typically daily driving a lot of those, you know, for, for the purpose of testing the features and writing about them. So that RAM, that matters and the fact that they're less like I've never seen it, I've never seen a phone maker downgrade their RAM from one generation to the next. And I think it does, it really gets at this huge RAM shortage because of AI factories, right, buying up all the RAM. It has $100 price increase, right? And, and then it has this new feature, lastly, the HiLight, which is so on the back now, it has the camera bar, you know, is it looks nicer, right? It's just one black piece versus sort of the last one had a little bit of chrome on it. Yeah. But this new thing, this HiLight. So, so this light, which is your, which is your flash, you know, your light, that's the flashlight, it's the light that you do when you run the flash. By the way, if you're using, don't, don't use the flash most of the time, I know what you've said this, like when you're taking photos, like don't use the flash, like that makes your picture so much worse. But, but it is a good to have a flashlight. So this thing goes, turns different colors. Like if, if I had it set, like, you know, to most of the time when I'm in silent mode, right, or in, in a, in a privacy mode, you know, you could have, yeah, D&D, thank you. You could have like the babysitter or your colleague, right? I could set it like, okay, if it's during work hours, and I've gotten him in a meeting, but if Sabrina's trying to call me, you know, how that, how that flash, right? Then I know.

Sabrina Ortiz: Five colors though, which is the problem. So then you're gonna have to repeat. And right now it's only available for calls, which is such a bummer because only calls, most people are not getting calls, right? Like, calls is a dying art. Like I don't think calls exist much anymore. And when they do, it's usually like video calls and you don't really need to be alerted for those. So it's just like a friend being like, Hey, let's sit on FaceTime for three hours. So yeah, bummer.

Jason Hiner: It's not, it's a very underbaked feature. And they've said that they'll let the thing do more over time. So I could see that. And we've seen phones do smart things with this, like some of the, what are the ones? Nothing phones, nothing phones. The glyph. Yeah. With the glyph. So we've seen that there are ways to do it, but they're not going to be able to do anything like the glyph, which is pretty cool, right? Like this is just a light that's going to love the light.

Sabrina Ortiz: I would have, I would really, really, really be using the heck out of this feature if it was not just calls. And if it was able to even do calls from other apps, like, for example, if I imagine I could do like blue for huddle call from Jason, that'd be great. Because sometimes we hop on huddles or even I'd be like, Hey, Jason, can we limit our conversations to huddles now? Because like, you know, I'm on this phone and you'd be like, Sure. Or even like, again, red for my boyfriend, giving me a call from Telegram. So that's a weak communicate. Like that be awesome. If it wasn't just limited to, to the, the actual messaging app, or I mean call it native call app.

Jason Hiner: So native call app. Yeah. It, it, to be, to be useful, it needs to do that stuff that you just mentioned, right? Like it's got to be more of an API, let the apps use it, let us sort of set it the way we want it. Because right now is just not, I don't, I don't use it at all. And I don't really anticipate myself using it much.

Sabrina Ortiz: Worth mentioning, it does activate when you're having a conversation with Gemini, and the screen is closed. I don't know if it's very helpful, other than have you ever like by accident activated Gemini, and it's like running in the background, and you're like, Oh, I didn't even realize you were listening to that. That's bummer. So like, no, see the light, I mean, will be a good indicator. They're like, Oh, you might have, you know, activated Gemini by accident.

Jason Hiner: Yeah.

Sabrina Ortiz: Other than that, just seems a little bit gimmicky, even that use case, but it's a really cool idea. And I really do have to be built on it. I really do like it.

Jason Hiner: Yeah. So they get points for the idea execution, not so much on this one. So we'll see.

Sabrina Ortiz: The good part is that execution can be tweaked, right? With like a software update. The hardware is the hardest part to build, and it's there. So let's hope that a software update comes soon.

Jason Hiner: Yep. That's fair. All right. That's the pixel. Very good. A iPhone. Rambler is such a game changer. It like I use this phone more because of Rambler. Like I said, I carry two phones and iPhone and Android I have for, you know, the past 15 years. And there are things now that I do more on this just because of my own. So that's so good. But that's likely to come to other phones. Like we said, I think every phone will have that in two years.

Sabrina Ortiz: Yeah. More specs. We could dive more into specs on our on follow us individually on our socials, where we'll do more of that. But I will say I do like the fact the fold is a bit lighter than last year is not by a ton. And if you're comparing it to the Z Fold8 Ultra, it is still much heavier than the Z Fold8 Ultra much, much heavier. But it is, I think they said 10% lighter. So, you know, that is helpful.

Jason Hiner: You feel it. It feels clearly lighter to me.

Sabrina Ortiz: Yeah, from the year before, absolutely. The colors are very nice. I'm actually happy with the colors that they really sit in, which is a minor thing. But yeah, I've gotten compliments from carrying the pixel. The pixel fold.

Jason Hiner: Yeah, you have the green one, the olive.

Sabrina Ortiz: Yes.

Jason Hiner: And I have the matte black, which is the first time they've done a matte black, first time they've done an olive.

Sabrina Ortiz: Exactly. I've already gotten compliments for frontment because I think my roommate was like, Oh, I like that. It's like a matcha color. And I was like, Yeah, it is. Whereas like again, the I think it's called violet, but the Z Fold8 Ultra, like they're like new, swanky colors, like a pretty dull, boring one. Other than that, I'm happy so far with using the, at least I'm really, I was really the most interested in the fold in the pixel fold, because I think all these form the foldable form factors are the best for AI just put out a piece on it at the D view, which we could, you know, give you give a read. But I think anything that's enables for hands free communication with AI is going to win in this AI or foldables are doing it are the best ones. The most proven one, of course, is crazy ones like the honor robot phone, the crazy robot arm. I don't know if those are necessarily going to take off, but I do like the thinking process there of having more hands free interactions for your phone.

Jason Hiner: Yeah. Yeah. You know, it's, it's interesting because when I was made by Google event, the thing that surprised me most, I tried the Magic Capture. That was what sort of convinced me like, okay, this feature is pretty good. I tried the teleprompter features like, Oh, wow, this is, this is also really good. Rambler, I knew would be good. Like I didn't even have to try it. I tried it briefly. It was like, it's, it's, it's everything I expected to it to be great. It's, it's great. It's fine. Like you said, the technology has been there to do it. It's the integration that makes it sort of so simple. And I knew Google would do that part, right? And it would just be, it'd just be the new mic on your keyboard. What surprised me the most when I, you know, immediately started working with the devices was the fold. The fold, it's clearly lighter. The thing about this device, and we'll talk about the Samsung too, is it's now at the point where closed the, what we will call the cover screen in the past, what you might just call the sort of the main, even like the main screen or what I think it was the main screen, it just looks like any other device. Like it's pretty close to, here's the XL. You can see like it's a little shorter. It's like half an inch shorter, an inch shorter, maybe. But it essentially just looks and feels like a flagship phone, you know, like a flagship sort of phablet. Well, he used to call phablet. We don't even use that word anymore, but basically a big phone. And you can use this all day. It looks, feels mostly just like a regular phone. And so that is such a win because, you know, it's taken a long time for them to get like this in the Samsung that you, the other, the Galaxy 8 Ultra. It's still thin. It's like a candy bar phone, right?

Sabrina Ortiz: It is thinner. And actually, I went on a very fun deep dive yesterday, which I think it will make a separate video about, but it's just me nerding out about random things that I've ended the night while I'm laying in bed and can't sleep. But me, I've been using within the last couple, well last month, both the Galaxy Z Fold8 and the Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra, which is the closest thing to the Google Pixel 11 Pro Fold. And for some reason, even though both companies claim Samsung and Google claim that their inner display, which is what you see when it's open, are both eight inches diagonally, I felt like the Google Pixel Fold screen was much larger when open.

Jason Hiner: Yeah.

Sabrina Ortiz: And basically, it all comes down to the fact that this is a perfect square and that is not. So, and if that green theorem, yada, yada, much, much smarter people in me, geometry, you get a bit more of surface area when it is a perfect square. So I love using the Pixel Pro Fold as the inner screen more. It feels truly like a tablet. And I love everything. That's my dog. I love everything about people watching using this, the inner screen on this. And like you mentioned, it is closed. It feels, I like the fact that it feels like a regular big phone. I have the Pro, the XL Pro, the Pixel XL Pro. So the screens are essentially the same.

Jason Hiner: Essentially the same. Yep. Same. So it just feels like I'm using the Pixel XL Pro. Like 90, 95% just feels very similar to using the Pixel.

Sabrina Ortiz: Exactly. Whereas with the Z Fold 8 Ultra, I do feel like I'm using a thinner phone. I don't really like that much.

Jason Hiner: The pain to type with when it's thinner like that on the keyboard comes up. It's like so hard to type, I find.

Sabrina Ortiz: And this is not to dog on Samsung at all though, because I'm absolutely in love and obsessed with, as most people are, the Z Fold 8 Ultra. Yeah, the Z Fold 8. The little, yeah, the little seven-year-old.

Jason Hiner: The little passport guy.

Sabrina Ortiz: Exactly. So not to dog on them at all. They still have a really great line of the foldables and that Z Fold 8 form factor, which was unique. Well, not really. Some other companies did it, but I guess unique in the US market.

Jason Hiner: It's pretty unique. The passport photo. We're talking about the smaller one, the squares one. It's really unique. We'll talk about that. We'll talk about it compared to the Pixel, but the Pixel is so impressive. Like I, the other ones were pretty impressive, but they were heavy. I mean, it's still heavy.

Sabrina Ortiz: It will bring your pocket down, but it is lighter than the prior year to your point. And that does matter because of how heavy the prior year's model is.

Jason Hiner: It's closer to a regular phone. Here's the other thing that, this is the other sort of sleeper thing about this that I noticed that I didn't, until I got my hands on it, I didn't realize how good it was. They made a case for this that is so good. So Google made their own case for the Pixel 11 Pro Fold. And the case is great. Like it's light. It's not too bulky, but it's very protective. It feels solid in the hand. It's like grippy. And I feel like, okay, it's really solid. And I, I have no problem you know, walking around with this phone because it's good. My problem with, is that with all of the foldables, one of the worst things about it is the case. The cases are not great. And so I never quite feel solid like carrying it around because I'm sort of afraid I'm going to drop it. Or if I drop it, it's going to crack or that. So the fact that Google built what I think of as the best case I've ever seen for a foldable is another thing that makes this much more like a daily driver phone.

Sabrina Ortiz: So I personally don't use phone cases like ever. So that, but I will if I have to use it for MacSafe to activate MagSafe on my phone. And thank goodness that is the biggest advantage I think of the Pixel phones is they have MacSafe. But for some reason, Samsung has still decided to not, not give us. So that's a huge advantage. I loved being able to plug in my phone last night onto the charger. I'm sorry, place it on top of the charger and have it just snap onto the back instead of having to like carefully align and see if my phone will stay in place so that I can charge all night as I have been doing with my Samsung foldables.

Jason Hiner: That's one of the big advantages to this one. So it has this great case, which you know matters for me, not for you. It has Pixelsnap, which is their MagSafe, you know, built in. You have to add a case to get it for the for Google. This one also has for sorry for Samsung. Thank you. This one also has a zoom lens. So it has a 30 X zoom. The Samsung doesn't have a zoom.

Sabrina Ortiz: And this is really essentially modeled after what Apple's building to keep in mind to you set the Samsung's have a zoom you mean the little passport boy doesn't have a zoom.

Jason Hiner: Thank you. I'm talking about thank you. I was holding it up. But for listeners, the Galaxy Z Fold8, which is really nice. We'll talk more about in a minute, but he doesn't have a zoom.

Sabrina Ortiz: Which I don't think is the equivalent though to the Pixel Fold. I think that the closest thing that Samsung's offering to the Pixel Fold is the 8 Ultra, I would argue.

Jason Hiner: Yeah, although I think not as fun. I think in practice, and we've already seen Samsung is selling a lot more of the Fold 8.

Sabrina Ortiz: Oh, absolutely.

Jason Hiner: Then the then the Fold 8 Ultra. This is essentially their foldable now, which is which is basically modeled to look after all the reports to look like all the reports we've seen of Apple's upcoming foldable next month, which is interesting. So but Google's still doing a different thing. They didn't make their theirs more like a passport. They kept this they made their pixel. And I think this is going to come out in the end to be a good decision. They made their pixel more like a regular Pixel 11 Pro XL that just folds out. And here's the other thing. So we talked a little bit about the hardware. Here's why I think this is if you're an AI builder, I think this is the best phone you can buy right now, the Pixel 11 Pro Fold. And I'll say why. Two reasons. One more and more, you know, we've seen that, you know, if you're an AI builder, you're using lots of agents, typically agents and sub agents, building code, you know, doing running tasks for you, all of that. If you're doing that, you're seeing this funny phenomenon where where people are actually like carrying their laptops around in public like open because in Silicon Valley, especially and New York, because they their agents need to keep running, right? They need to have their keep their laptop open. It's the goofiest thing, but it is a thing. And now what we've seen is you can you can leave your laptop at your desk. And now a lot of these have made it so you can control your agents from your phone, right? So chat tpt you can do that in the chat tpt app, you can control codecs like at your laptop or your desktop while it's running, which is great. So you're not tethered to your desk as much, right? You can control your agents mobile. That was the original reason why open claw took off so much was that you could sort of chat to it, you know, from from WhatsApp or text or whatever slack. So but but that's like a real thing. Like for people who are building AI, being able to control your agents, well, nothing is better than this. So the pixel fold, when you have it open to the inner screen, and you have like the chat tpt app or the cloud app or the Gemini app, you can control your agents and you can see sort of in the left side, you can see all of the like settings and your, you know, last tasks running tasks and that. And on the right side, you have your chat, you know, window open. So being able to have that like full experience from a mobile device is huge. Like you can

Sabrina Ortiz: do how is it? How is it different than and I'm generally asking because I don't use agents quite the same as you do. You're much more advanced in that realm. How is the Pixel 11 Pro Fold any different than the experience on the Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra for agent running like specifically?

Jason Hiner: Yeah, it's just that it's a little bit. So it's a little thinner, you know, because of that screen because of the screen, like you said, this one is more square. You just have more screen real estate.

Sabrina Ortiz: Right. So you're talking about the screen real estate. Okay, gotcha.

Jason Hiner: Yeah, yeah. You just have more screen real estate and a little more natural kind of screen real estate. But it is still to be fair, it's still good doing that doing what I'm describing is still good on both Samsung fold eight and the fold eight ultra same phenomenon that I'm talking about now is this is really still good on both of those devices. Here's the one thing that this has and obviously you're not going to be surprised when I say it is that you've also got Rambler on this device. So now you essentially are you have essentially like Wispr Flow like capabilities on your phone. This has it the Samsung devices don't have it. So you have Rambler so you can speak to it and you've got you know this sort of much nicer sort of agent full kind of view of your your agents and everything on this device. So if you're an AI builder right now and this is the story that I'm you know writing for The Deep View, there's nothing beats this and I don't think anything Apple's going to announce will beat this either because of those two because of those two factors.

Sabrina Ortiz: I really like that for different reasons and from different complete different perspectives somehow you and I have both landed on the fact and I say somehow because I don't think previously would have said this or a year ago would have said this maybe you would have so correct me but that if you're an AI enthusiast whether that's because you use AI a lot as a like consumer or even if you're on developer side having a foldable with a wider screen specifically so not like a lippy boy but like an actual foldable foot with a bigger screen is almost a must so yeah I believe we got here.

Jason Hiner: I know you're right it is sort of a surprise I think the way that it happened is like AI AI power tools have gotten more mobile and then the foldables have gotten more capable and so they've sort of met in the middle this is another sort of story that I've been working on as you as we've talked a little bit about and so I think the combination of these two and both of these devices are really good for that you know and we'll talk about the you know Galaxy Z Fold8 a little bit more next but both of these are great devices if you are like an AI developer if you're an AI enthusiast if you're really into agents because for the reason you just mentioned that now you can like just have this much bigger view of all your stuff from your phone and you're just not tethered to your desk as much and that's pretty awesome right because right now I mean you and I both have seen like a lot of people who are in AI they're like working longer hours they're working more you know touch grass enough and so this device lets you get out and touch some grass because you can control you know all your stuff that's a that's a win I

Sabrina Ortiz: also think too that the rise of AI and actually this is a whole different conversation which I would love to write about and also get your thoughts about so I should just talk to my boyfriend about it I don't I think nowadays productivity is hand in hand with AI if somebody says like we're focusing this product is geared towards increasing productivity I don't know if just because I'm in the AI space as much as I am I'm like oh cool so what AI features does it offer or how does it make AI better or like how does it improve that and I think the foldable is a perfect encapsulation of the traditional version of productivity because it is great you mean you get to look at your gmail on a bigger screen you get to do very basic quote-unquote productivity things on a bigger screen and multitask and and again more traditional definition of productivity but in what I consider the new definition of productivity which is like if you're going to tout that something's for productivity in my opinion it better have some good AI features to help you or at least enable them in some way it also accommodates for that because it's better it reduces a better experience in using those AI features too so

Jason Hiner: yeah appreciate that and I think that here we could kind of substitute what you're talking about we could almost substitute automation for the for AI in what you're talking about like I do it better have some AI automation features that's going to do some stuff for me and not just me about me like going faster or

Sabrina Ortiz: something like that

Jason Hiner: yeah yeah no that's that's a great point so that there it is I think because this is sort of the most phone right sort of big phone like experience closed and then open it just does so much and as you said too in the comparison to the other devices it's just a little bit bigger fuller you know um screen but I I think what separates this from the other two at least for now still is Rambler I think probably those Samsung devices are going to get Rambler I suspect like even within the next six months they may get Rambler we'll see but for now I think the combination of those things make this like the best the AI enthusiast phone and I think that I probably am going to daily drive this for a while for that reason and and continue to probably write some more about it or at least

Sabrina Ortiz: you mentioned that because I also like you and I actually adopt this philosophy from Jason it was a great one I try to always carry my iPhone and then one Android as well yeah and I'm currently very torn between whether I'm going to make it the Galaxy Z Fold8 or make it the Pixel 11 Pro Fold the argument for the Galaxy Z Fold8 again to our fellow listeners these are the passport looking phones so they're like stout and small and they fit in your hand really nicely it's the portability it is so light it is so small and you get the big screen I love everything about that you can argue with that also it's just so cool looking I get compliments from from my friends who would typically you know gen zers they're they're kind of glued to their iPhones for the most part so I probably get like what is that whenever I'm like you know on a more traditional slab looking android phone but from these it's like I want that to the point that my roommate actually is like Sabrina I love this phone so much I would almost consider buying it except that he's stuck in the blue bubble yeah and when I told them that Apple's releasing a similar form factor or his room were to be releasing a form factor in the fall he's like I'm saving up I'm gonna say that he's like how much money do you think it's gonna cost he's saving up because he cannot imagine not having this form factor because it's not good it's not amazing so anyways torn between this and the Pixel 11 Pro Fold we shall decide I guess as I daily drive both a bit more but you make you make a great point Jason

Jason Hiner: I I love it and you know you and I have both been kind of full skeptical too like we

Sabrina Ortiz: have this is why I can't believe we've arrived at this conclusion this is insane

Jason Hiner: it is I mean we would when we've used them before like we would test them for the testing you know period two three weeks be like oh yeah there's some interesting things about his there's some some good ideas here I could see it and then it went into drawer with all the other one then you went back to sort of a regular I mean we both went back to the regular sort of Android slab phone

Sabrina Ortiz: absolutely and even in the situations where I was like okay actually this is kind of cool it would always be the flip I feel like if anything I would always talk about that's

Jason Hiner: right yeah you were more interested in the flip than

Sabrina Ortiz: the fold and I found that the flips are my argument for them was the fact that like it's so much more compact and then you get a regular phone so I'm like for portability purposes this makes so much sense well now I don't have to sacrifice portability with the galaxy z-fold 8 because it is so tiny it's smaller than like you know my iPhone base iPhone 17 and then you open it you got this massive screen that's a perfect productivity so I will mention that it does sacrifice camera that you wouldn't have to sacrifice if the 8 ultra the z-fold 8 ultra or the galaxy but that makes sense there's more real estate on there it's you have more space to play with and to put the cameras and all that

Jason Hiner: stuff but it's a big drawback okay so let's talk about this little device for a minute so just to give a so for those who are visual this is the the fold 8 and the with the XL it sits under the camera bar so I'm holding it up and it's under the camera bar and then it's essentially you know at the bottom you know it's they are the same so that's how much smaller this device is right so it is doing a little bit of this combo of the flips which are sort of so small and and very satisfying and then the and I think that's what Apple did really I think we have to we have to give Apple credit for this they came up with this design and this has been floating out there for like a year that this is what Apple was going to do and say on someone of course just move so quickly that they are just like great that's a pretty good idea let's do one just like that and they got theirs out first like they've done in other ways before so Apple is rumored if you if you hadn't heard right to to produce a device and we've seen different mocks and and case designs and other things that essentially indicate that this is what they're going to do they're going to do a passport style foldable that will be called the iPhone Ultra that will come out and could be expensive it could be up to $2,500 for Apple's version but Samsung has sure given us a really charming version of this Sabrina like this device is I remember the fold seven last year it was so thin and it was so right

Sabrina Ortiz: everybody obsessed this yeah the fold seven it

Jason Hiner: was incredible and I was too I mean I still put it back in a drawer when I

Sabrina Ortiz: was it lasted as your main Android driver for a while much longer than other that's true I've lasted for

Jason Hiner: you yeah that's true you're right I did I it wasn't just two weeks it was like a couple months and so last fall and I was so charmed by the thinness and lightness of it really enjoyed it well this has the the same thinness and lightness as that one but like this new charming form factor and you've been using it longer than than me so I would love your your thoughts on daily driving it because I am really just as you said I'm pretty charmed by the form factor of how light it is of how you know much like you know the cover screen even it's just a it's just slightly wider than our than like the iPhone 17 Ultra or the Pixel 11 Pro and that little bit of wideness and because it's really square also means like on the cover screen even though it's smaller I really like typing on it because it types really nice because of that too it's like that little bit little bit wider is nice whereas it's the opposite on the the ultra the Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra it's a little thinner and it makes it harder to type on so I I'm really interested in this device want to hear your thoughts because you've been using it for like a month a little bit longer

Sabrina Ortiz: a little bit longer yeah so actually and as brand safe as possible I'm saying this too like I think the Galaxy Z Fold8 is like the perfect foldable gateway drug and the reason I say that is because usually having that bigger screen meant also being okay of carrying a bigger phone if you're someone like me I've never had the plus versions of anything if never had the excel versions of everything as a matter of fact yeah I loved the se version of the iPhone because it was so much smaller lighter um I was a mini enthusiast right like so I've always wanted to shrink so I've never want and that again that's why I also always like the flips I've never wanted to compromise that and I'm like and I'm never going to use the big screen as a matter of fact I remember at the unpacked launch being like hey I love how this looks I love how it looks closed it's nice and tiny again talking about the Galaxy Z Fold8 and but I remember sitting with my boyfriend and us just having our casual like nerdy tech debates and being like the problem is I don't think I'm ever gonna open it I don't think I'm ever gonna need the big screen but the reason I was able and willing to give that a try was because it's so compact and so small and I've actually found to his point he was like no trust me you're gonna find a ton of use cases I found so so many almost an endless amount of use cases for the inner screen and that's why I say I think this is the first the best beginner form factor for a foldable for somebody because you don't have to compromise compactness or weight to have a bigger screen and even if you never want to use the bigger screen you still have a really cute fun form factor it's very useful the outer the cover screen but I've enjoyed using it I really was concerned about the camera because as much as I do enjoy smaller phones and I have compromised it the camera for them in the past like with the sce I usually carry the 17 pro or carried it for a long time because of that excellent camera and you know Jason I have collaborated on in-depth camera reviews before on phones because like we both you know I've ran out of storage on all my phones a million times for taking so many photos I haven't really run into that many issues other than the obvious like zooming in zoom um and honestly how often are you really zooming in that much I missed it less than I thought and I'm willing to compromise that for how compact this is so that's my these those are my thoughts I I found a lot more use cases I think it's perfect if you've ever considered one and I think it's so smart with that that apple apple usually likes to target you know as many people as possible and it makes so much sense that they made they thought of this form factor first because I do think it's the best for the most people

Jason Hiner: talk about some of those use cases what are your favorite things to use when you open it up and you use the the inner the inner screen

Sabrina Ortiz: gmail I love being able to sit there on email and just be able you know how it opens and then you have one on desktop you have one side for all your emails and then you get to actually preview the emails of course you don't get to do that when you're like on a smaller screen on the big screen you could do use both sides in that way um of course when I'm like doing anything on one tab like let's just say I'm like on Instagram and see something I love being able to open a second tab particularly for ChatGPT that's still my go-to AI chat bot so I like being able to be like oh I wonder chat chat has to say about this actually one of my favorite things too is that if I highlight anything on here it automatically hit like ChatGPT and it'll open it in ChatGPT so that's great for me as a ChatGPT user

Jason Hiner: like another window side by side yeah ah so you have it on one side of the screen you have Instagram or something else open you highlight it and then you hit ChatGPT and on that second side it'll open it you

Sabrina Ortiz: can yeah it's a little bit just in ChatGPT and then I will merely toggle it for them to be side by side but I still like that it sends it straight up what you highlighted I don't have to re-type in or like even I don't even have to copy and paste so if you just hit the ChatGPT thing it opens it in a ChatGPT text box um yeah I those two things um browsing on social media it's so much funner to do on a bigger screen though I will say this another thing why I love the Galaxy Z Fold8 is that you could flip it you know from like being in this like more landscape mode to like the other yes

Jason Hiner: yes

Sabrina Ortiz: there we go and um the other when it's like when you open it like a hamburger

Jason Hiner: from landscape to portrait and then now you've got like this phone at this size this is far bigger than any phone you have like so I'm so I'm opened up and then I flipped it to to portrait mode and so now you have a phone that this this or screen that's bigger than anything even close to any other phone like a big phone out there but but now you've got a device in a but it's in a device that's a lot lighter and thinner than to fit in your pocket so that's a pretty cool that's a pretty cool thing

Sabrina Ortiz: exactly and I also enjoy using it again for the foldable sake as almost like a hands-free like tripod right like I I went to the arcade with my friends and her and me were playing guitar hero and like I was like oh this would be cute and I just like kind of open it and left it on the chair I'd had it record with the back camera that was fun

Jason Hiner: yep

Sabrina Ortiz: Um, yeah, there are so many ways that I've used this now. Writing in Google Docs is a perfect example where I wish I had Rambler. For that, I will have to flip over to the Google Pixel Fold. My biggest complaint when I'm on a plane or a train is that, as a writer for The Deep View, sitting on my iPhone 17 or 17 Pro and trying to type means I have to toggle around on a tiny screen. Now, with a bigger screen, you can actually do work on your phone. The biggest appeal is that you don't have to sacrifice by having a brick in your pocket or a big, bulky, tall thing. It's so tiny, and it fits in your hand so nicely. I could definitely see myself using this as my Android. If the Pixel 11 Pro Fold hadn't come out, I would have been ready to use this as my device.

Jason Hiner: And what's the one big thing? Is Rambler the biggest reason you're going to stick to the Pro Fold over the other one?

Sabrina Ortiz: I think I will use the Pro Fold for two reasons. One is Rambler, by far. As we've talked about ad nauseam at this point, it is such a game changer. The other is just that it operates like a normal phone to me when it's closed. When I don't need the big screen, I can just act like I'm using a normal phone. Can I add some randomness and chaos? When the iPhones come out, knowing the lineup we think it's going to be, do you think you'll switch your mind on the form factor? Do you think your main Apple carry will be the Fold, or do you think you'll go for the regular phone because you like the regular form factor?

Jason Hiner: I will go for the regular one for one reason: zoom photography. I take so many photos with the zoom lens. I love zoom photography. To be clear, I love the zoom on the Pixel 11 as well. This one goes up to 120x, so the zoom is even better. I don't necessarily need zoom on both cameras, though I like having it on both because there are some things that are better on one versus the other. When I've carried Samsung phones as my Android phone, some zooms I liked better on Android and some I liked better on iPhone. But I'm willing to give that up and just have one of my phones—the iPhone, which I take most of my pictures with—have zoom. If I'm honest, I still prefer it, and I think it is a little better for most things, but there are some specialty cases that Google does better.

Sabrina Ortiz: Also, to caveat, it's interesting—and this is why Jason and I have tag-teamed phone camera reviews before—Jason loves to do photography of nature, landscapes, and things that are farther away. Most of the photos I take are things that are very close: what I'm eating, myself, me and my friends, myself, and then myself.

Jason Hiner: So, yeah, when we've collaborated on several iPhone reviews and other camera reviews, it's good because we take pictures of different things. You can really get a wider gamut of what the phone camera can do. It'll be interesting to see if we do that this year. Maybe we'll do it on social. That would be a fun collaboration.

Sabrina Ortiz: Yes, it would. We should do it.

Jason Hiner: All right, let's do that. But that gets back to Apple. I will definitely try the phone. I'm sure I'll be just as charmed by its little passport foldable, but I don't think I will daily-drive it because of the zoom photography. I will be interested to see if I can do some of these same things, especially these AI use cases, and see how well they work. It is interesting that you and I are both on the verge of going foldable with our secondary Android work phone. I would not have expected that going into this phone season.

Sabrina Ortiz: I would have never expected it either. After all the reasons you talked about, the bigger-screen AI era has made us focus on productivity in a way we've never done before, so it just makes sense to have the bigger screen. I will miss some things about the Galaxy S26 Ultra, including the privacy screen. I wish they had brought it to the foldable, though I understand why they didn't. There are some things I will miss from a normal flat slab phone, but not enough to make me commit to my Android carry being the slab phone. It's going to be a foldable for sure. It's just a matter of which one: the Galaxy Z Fold8 or the Pixel 11 Pro Fold.

Jason Hiner: Interesting times. The AI tools keep getting better and more mobile, and the foldable is the most productivity-heavy phone. The last thing I'll say as we're wrapping, Sabrina, is something I'm going to try. Are you familiar with those little Bluetooth keyboards that fold in half and fit in your bag? I think I'm going to try one on a flight, because you and I are going to a lot of events in the next two months. We have a huge fall schedule, so stay tuned to The Deep View.

Sabrina Ortiz: And our socials for all the behind-the-scenes.

Jason Hiner: That's right. I'm going to get one of those little Bluetooth keyboards, then use one of the little things you can put on the back with Pixelsnap or MagSafe that lets you use the phone as a stand. I'm going to try it on a plane with a full little Bluetooth keyboard. It's maybe two-thirds the size of a regular keyboard. I'm going to see if I can use it almost like an iPad Pro with a keyboard. Do you think that's a crazy idea?

Sabrina Ortiz: I'm giggling because I've heard this idea before, and I've had to live the embarrassment of sitting next to somebody on a plane who's doing it all the time. No, I'm kidding.

Jason Hiner: I thought you might.

Sabrina Ortiz: Yeah, my boyfriend is a phone reviewer on YouTube, and he's always been on the foldable wave—probably as early as it can be. He's always wanted to test out the whole portable-PC situation, having your phone become your portable laptop. He has every foldable keyboard, foldable mouse, and foldable kickstand for your phone. He's done videos on them several times. He actually did it with the Samsung tri-fold.

Jason Hiner: That makes perfect sense.

Sabrina Ortiz: Exactly. He was carrying around his portable keyboard and his mouse. It's worked for him somewhat. I'm excited to hear your thoughts.

Jason Hiner: Yeah, I'll try to find the right keyboard. I like using the iPad Pro with the keyboard for this reason: sometimes it's nice to have just one app open, whether that's Slack, email, or a document. When you're on a plane, it's nice to do that. I don't think I will like this as well as the iPad Pro, which is also really nice for watching downloaded videos on a long flight, but I want to try it.

Sabrina Ortiz: I can't wait for your thoughts.

Jason Hiner: Yeah, we'll see. Very good. Well, thanks, Sabrina. This has been great. We covered a lot of ground, and we're excited to get it out there and see what our audience thinks. Let us know in the comments: Are you interested in the Fold? Do you think the Fold could help untether you and let you touch grass a little more if you're an AI builder, so you're not tethered to your machine and babysitting agents all day? These devices are also just getting smarter, even if you take the AI out of it—features like Rambler and Magic Capture. Let us know what you think, and find Sabrina and me on social. Tell us what else you'd like to see us cover. We'd love your feedback and to hear how we can help you navigate this crazy world.

Sabrina Ortiz: Yeah. Are AI hardware reviews helpful? Do you want to see more of them or fewer of them? Give us your thoughts below. You can also reach out with more product-specific or spec-specific questions on social media or by email. We're happy to help.

Jason Hiner: Yeah, excellent. All right.

Sabrina Ortiz: Well, thank you for having me on, Jason. This has been a fun convo.

Jason Hiner: Good stuff. Thanks for joining us. Thanks, everybody. Bye.