When Google announces its new family of Pixel 10 phones next month on August 20, there will likely be one bit of news that will surprise—or perhaps not surprise—everyone. And that’s the fact that its third-gen book-style foldable, currently dubbed the Pixel 10 Pro Fold, will almost certainly still start at a whopping $1,800.
Android Headlines is exclusively reporting that the Pixel 10 Pro Fold will come in three storage capacities, including a new 1TB version. A 256GB model will reportedly cost $1,800; 512GB for $,1919; and 1TB for $2,149. At a time when the cost of everything from eggs to toilet paper has shot through the stratosphere, that’s a lot of bones for a phone that folds in half and opens up to provide an expansive tablet-like experience.
More than anything, the leaked pricing reveals the bleak reality of book-style foldables: they’re not getting cheaper. In the six years since Samsung launched the very first Galaxy Fold, the price for this kind of form factor has only shot up. Samsung’s latest Z Fold 7—the best book-style foldable in my opinion—starts at $2,000 compared to the $1,980 the OG Fold retailed for back in 2019.
Rumors heavily suggest that Apple will finally release its first-ever book-style foldable iPhone next year. It may fall short of being as thin and light as the Z Fold 7, but it’ll run iOS (or will it be iPadOS, or perhaps a hybrid of both?) so there will be hordes of fanatics who will line up. The biggest hurdle to a foldable iPhone’s success, however, might be the price. JPMorgan analyst Samik Chatterjee predicts the foldable iPhone could start at $2,000, according to CNBC. Consumers already hate paying $1,000 for an iPhone 16 Pro, and almost nobody pays $1,600 (before tax) for a 1TB iPhone 16 Pro Max, so $2,000 for a foldable iPhone is going to be a hard pill to swallow even if you split that price up over monthly installments.
Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if Apple sold it for even more. A foldable iPhone would basically be two iPhone Pros bolted together—you get a regular bar-style cover screen and then an iPad mini-sized inner foldable display. And then, there’s the fact that book-style foldables have more cameras than regular phones—usually a hole-punch camera for the cover screen and the foldable display, and then a separate dual- or triple-lens camera system on the backside. Not to mention, book-style foldables often require larger capacity batteries to power the larger folding screen. You pay more for more gadget.
When you break it all down, it’s no wonder prices for book-style foldable phones have not come down in just over half a decade. If anything, they could get more expensive. The OnePlus Open was a hell of a deal for a book-style foldable when it retailed for $1,700, and an even better value at $1,500 if you took advantage of its “trade-in any phone” promo. OnePlus currently sells the Open discounted to $1,500, and you can slash up to $100 off with an eligible trade-in, but outside of this kinda promo, you won’t find a flagship-level book-style foldable that’s available worldwide (and especially compatible in the U.S.) for under $1,500.
I’m suddenly reminded of former Sony PlayStation boss, Ken Kutaragi, infamously telling consumers they should want to “work more hours” so that they can afford a PS3. Maybe we’ll all need second jobs to afford book-style foldable phones. Or just stick to our non-folding ones; they work just fine too.
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