Google Pixel Foldable Smartphone Design Spotted on Android 12L Beta

Google's Pixel foldable smartphone has been rumoured to be in the works for a while now. The company is yet to announce any details regarding the smartphone, but the handset was spotted on Geekbench last week with the codename “Pipit” and its performance specifications suggested it could be powered by the company's Tensor chip. After the second beta build of Android 12L was released on Wednesday, a new animation has been spotted which suggests the company's foldable smartphone may resemble the recently launched Oppo Find N.

Two new animations in the recent Android 12L beta build, spotted by 9to5Google, show a foldable device which resembles the new Oppo Find N foldable smartphone. The illustrations show a SIM tray at the bottom and a volume rocker on the right side. It is worth noting that previous leaks and renders suggested that Google's Pixel foldable smartphone could resemble Samsung's Galaxy Z Fold 3. However, when unfolded, the smartphone displayed in the animation appears to sport a wider display than Samsung's offering.

The Android 12L beta animation showing a foldable Pixel smartphone
Photo Credit: 9to5Google

These animations have been added to the second Android 12L beta, and their appearance suggests that the company is still working on a foldable smartphone. According to the report, the illustrations suggest an aspect ratio similar to Oppo Find N (8.4:9) when unfolded, instead of the 22.5:18 aspect ratio of Samsung's Galaxy Z Fold 3.

Last week, a new Google smartphone was spotted on Geekbench with an octa-core processor featuring two performance cores clocked at 2.8GHz, two cores at 2.25GHz, and four efficiency cores at 1.8GHz. The handset, codenamed “Pipit,” has a single-core Geekbench 4 score of 4,811 points, and a multi-core score of 11,349 points. These scores are similar to the Pixel 6, which sports the company's Tensor processor.

The company was previously rumoured to be working on a foldable smartphone in November 2021, when references to a smartphone codenamed “Pipit” were spotted in the Google Camera APK. The 12.2-megapixel IMX363 camera sensor suggests it could feature an older camera setup, unlike the newer GN1 sensors that were used on the Pixel 6 series released last year.

As previous mentioned, Google is yet to reveal any details of a foldable handset in the works, and the new animations spotted on the Android 12L beta build could also be removed in a future release, according to the report.