The Pixel Fold may skip an important foldable phone feature

The planned Google Pixel Fold may lack a feature you’d least expect to be missing from foldables — or any other smartphone, for that matter. According to a Digital Chat Station rumor on Chinese social media app Weibo (via 9to5Google), the Pixel Fold won’t have a selfie camera on its interior screen.

Digital Chat Station says the Pixel Fold will look a lot like the Oppo Find N, which means we can expect a shorter exterior screen than the Z Fold 3 and a large tablet screen on the inside. Unlike the Find N and Fold 3, however, the Pixel Fold’s interior/tablet display doesn’t have a selfie camera of any kind.

Google is still working on the design of the Pixel Fold with a predictable release date nowhere in sight, but the lack of an internal camera looks like an odd design move. In a world where many people still work remotely, foldables are great for working on the go – and that includes taking Zoom or Microsoft Teams calls. If there’s no camera on the inner Pixel Fold screen, that means all your virtual meetings will have to take place from the smaller cover screen. The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 3 may appear to lack a selfie camera, but it’s slightly veiled under the screen display on the right side.

The Pixel Fold’s lack of an internal camera can give users a hard time taking selfies and conducting video calls with the phone unfolded if that’s how they want to do it. However, they could still do these things with the camera on the outside screen. They can also get some extra help with a special mode in the Google Camera app that will prompt them to flip the phone forward and take a selfie while it’s still unfolded. It might not be a deal-breaker for some people, but when foldables are positioned so perfectly as creativity/productivity machines, removing the internal camera feels like an extremely odd move.

Of course, this is still just a rumor. Whether the Pixel Fold actually comes without an internal camera is subject to change. And with its release date still up in the air, anyone can guess when we can finally find out for sure.

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