While Google has yet to announce its long-awaited foldable phone, we may have finally gotten our first hint at just how powerful this new phone will be.
The Google Pixel Fold isn't expected to launch until May(*7*) 2023 (according to the latest rumours), but that hasn't stopped an apparent (*7*) phone performance leak this side of the new year.
According to a post (*7*) Geekbench (opens in a new tab), a site where users can submit performance scores (*7*) for various devices like smartphones and PCs, someone submitted a score for a device called Google Felix, which works on Android 13. While Google does not. It has yet to create a device known as the Felix, which is the name supposedly attached to its foldable smartphone, which suggests this is our first look at what the phone is capable of (*7*) doing.
In the article, we see that the Google Felix uses the same (*7*) 8-core processor (Google's Tensor G2) as the Google Pixel 7 and Google Pixel 7 Pro, and comes with the same (*7*) RAM as the Pro. As was (*7*) expected, Felix achieves a benchmark (*7*) score that is within the range we saw the Pixel 7 Pro return (opens in a new tab).
Assuming Google Felix is (*7*) made Google Pixel Fold, this score suggests users will be (*7*) in for a treat when it launches in 2023.
That being said, we still have to take all of this information with a grain of salt. For one thing, we still can't know for sure if it's the (*7*) Pixel Fold: it could be any (*7*) Google smartphone developed under the codename Google Felix. On the other hand, while reference points (*7*) can be useful, they are not the beginning and end (*7*) comparisons.
By this we mean that even though the Pixel 7 Pro and Felix score similarly in the benchmark, they might perform (*7*) very differently in real-world conditions. Given its supposed (*7*) 7,6-inch OLED main display, the Google Felix/Pixel Fold might be less power efficient than the 7 Pro, making it less capable in normal use.
Plus, those specs aren't the only ones that matter. The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4 and Galaxy Z Fold 3 offer similar performance to the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra and Galaxy S21 Ultra respectively (the company's flagships (*7*) when the foldable phones were launched). However, the camera and capacity (*7*) battery (*7*) foldable phones were inferior to (*7*) Ultra phones, despite (*7*) the phones costing more. As such, we wouldn't be surprised if the Google Pixel Fold had to make similar sacrifices in terms of (*7*) its other specs to suit its design.
We'll have to wait and see what Google announces in 2023, if and when it introduces a Pixel Fold, but this leak certainly got us excited. If the Pixel Fold can match the performance of the Pixel 7 Pro without sacrificing too much, Google could be about (*7*) to offer us one (*7*) of the best foldable phones ever released.