‘Largest screen on a phone’ is a weird Pixel 9 Pro Fold flex, Google, but ok

Google’s Pixel 9 Pro Fold does not have the largest phone display

Nor is it the thinnest foldable phone

Google Keyword, August ’24

Why the potato-patato Pixel 9 Pro Fold description? Saying that the 9 Pro Fold carries the “biggest ever display on a phone,” or the “biggest inner display ever seen on any mobile device” is beating around the bush as it does not. After all, these are the largest phone displays at the moment:

The Pixel 9 Pro Fold ain’t “the thinnest foldable phone,” either, as that record belongs to the new Magic V3. Google’s second foldable handset comes in at 6.11 x 5.91 x 0.20 inches (155.2 x 150.2 x 5.1 mm), while the V3 is just 6.17 x 5.72 x 0.17 inches (156.6 x 145.3 x 4.35 mm) when opened.

The Pixel 9 series carriers the brightest phone displays we’ve tested

That is a flex without caveats

The new Google Pixel 9 phones, however, do indeed come with the brightest phone screens we’ve ever benchmarked. The Google Pixel 9 Pro XL pierced the 2,000 nits brightness barrier in our tests for the first time, while the Pixel 9 came in second with the whopping 1,970 nits brightness.

Google says that its typical 1,800 “standard” brightness is “HDR brightness measured at 100% on-pixel ratio,” while “peak brightness [is] measured at 5% on-pixel ratio,” i.e. it tests the peak at 5% APL while the OnePlus 12 couldn’t hit its advertised 4,500 nits even at 1% APL, but only measures 1,630 nits at a maximum.

In short, Google does have the best phone displays in a certain metric on its Pixel phones, it’s just not the one it advertises as it probably thinks that “largest” or “thinnest” with conditions would be way more impressive as a marketing tool than “brightest” without all the fine print.