Slim might be the flavor of the season, but there’s no denying that the best foldable phones are the pinnacle of modern smartphone engineering prowess and design. These smartphones push the very idea of form factors and what a phone can do, with a focus on portable productivity, and give us an obvious glimpse at where the future of computing might lead. Simply put, foldables are basically every smartphone company’s opportunity to innovate and flex. In fact, it’s the one smartphone category that still feels fresh to me despite the first foldable phone releasing almost six years ago.

Foldables are the one smartphone category that still feel fresh to me despite the first foldable phone releasing almost six years ago.

It’s also why the Pixel 10 Pro Fold matters so much, despite being relatively late to the game, Apple notwithstanding. Google controls Android, so its approach to foldables sets expectations for how the platform should evolve. While the phone is yet to be released, we’ve had an opportunity to spend some time with the Pixel 10 Pro Fold, and its clear that Google has corrected some obvious mistakes from its first attempt. Compared to the Pixel 9 Pro Fold, the cover display is finally wide enough to use without tiptoeing around the keyboard, the hinge is smoother, and the new IP68 rating is a genuinely useful feature to have in a daily driver. Add brighter screens and the new Tensor G5 chip, and on the surface, the Pixel 10 Pro Fold looks like the most complete Pixel foldable yet.

But here’s the problem. Even with all these improvements, the Pixel 10 Pro Fold still feels like a device riddled with tradeoffs. At a time when Google’s foldables should be setting benchmarks, Google’s entire hardware approach lags behind the competition. Some of it can be attributed to Google’s software trumps hardware mindset, but there’s more. The battery capacity falls short of expectations, the design remains bulky, and the cameras lean heavily on computational tricks rather than hardware capabilities. And for a phone that costs $1,800, I’m not sure I want to deal with the compromises. So, I’ve been using the next best, actually, scratch that, arguably the better product — the vivo X Fold 5.

The original promise of smart speakers was to revolutionize our daily lives by shifting tasks from manual input on our phones and computers to simple, hands-free voice commands. However, they largely failed to live up to this promise. In fact, some smart speakers, including those in Google’s Home ecosystem, have even seen a significant decline in reliability.

This decline raises the question of what, if anything, tech companies are doing to reverse the trend. Google’s answer is to bring its Gemini AI into the smart home. Unveiled this week, Gemini for Home upgrades the conversational experience in Google Home smart speakers, displays, doorbells, and cameras with AI, while also introducing smarter media controls, improved alerts, and more intelligent search capabilities.

Earlier this year, I searched for a new Android calendar app to replace Google Calendar. I tried Business Calendar 2 and Digical, and both presented viable alternatives with plenty of value adds. However, and this is important, neither of these apps is an independent platform — they both still rely on Google Calendar to save and serve events. To find a true G Cal alternative, I’d have to look elsewhere. That’s where my curiosity about Proton Calendar comes in.

Perhaps best known for its VPN and mail clients, the Swiss-based company Proton offers users a complete calendaring platform independent of Google Calendar. Proton Calendar is one of the front-running contenders for those who want to deGoogle their devices and their lives. But is it any good? Well, I tried it, and I have mixed feelings.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTVa8ShZWuo

This week, Mishaal Rahman and C. Scott Brown dive into a treasure trove of One UI 8.5 leaks, revealing a slew of new features potentially coming to the Samsung Galaxy S26, including a new “private display” mode. They also discuss Google’s work on an Apple Handoff competitor for Android and evidence that a hypertension alert system is coming to the Pixel Watch.

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The Authority Insights Podcast is a new weekly show from the Android Authority team hosted by Mishaal Rahman and C. Scott Brown. In each episode, we’ll break down the latest exclusive reports, app teardowns, and leaks from the Android Authority team.

What is a photo? I see that question on my timeline more and more, and as phone makers begin to introduce AI-enhanced photos, the question is valid. When Google announced 100x Pro Res Zoom on its new Pixel 10 Pro lineup — which uses AI to enhance a very digitally-zoomed-in photo — that question of what makes a photo a photo rang loudly in my mind. Does it really matter how the photo is created if you like the end result and it looks like what it’s supposed to look like? Well, that depends, and we’ll get to that, but first let’s dive in and take a look at what this 100x zoom looks like in real-life use.

As far as the eye can see…and then some

I was shocked the first time I scrolled all the way to the right on the zoom slider, snapped my photo, then watched the sparkles dance around on my screen as Google’s artificial intelligence worked to recreate and enhance what I only saw as a grainy, pixelated scene on my screen. Within a few moments, the dancing pixels dissolved to reveal the final result: an incredibly detailed and very accurate photograph of a scene that I could hardly see with my own eyes. Consider me mind-blown. That moment truly felt shocking.