Will the Pixel Fold ever exist? There is an increasing chorus from the rumor mill saying that Google's first foldable phone will launch at Google's I/O conference in May. The latest rumor is from CNBC's Jennifer Elias, who says the device will be announced at I/O and go on sale sometime in June, with a price that's "upward of $1,700." An earlier report from WinFuture also pegged the Pixel Fold with a June release date.

The report is based on internal photos and documents seen by CNBC and details many of the specs we've seen in previous rumors: There's a 7.6-inch inner display, a 5.8-inch outer display, and Google's Tensor G2 chip. The phone reportedly weighs 10 oz, or 283 g, which is heavier than a Galaxy Fold 4. One surprise spec is water resistance, which no foldable vendor other than Samsung ever attempts.

The report quotes an internal document saying that the phone has “the most durable hinge on a foldable." Durability is the primary problem with foldables, but most worries center on the display, so focusing on the hinge would be an interesting marketing strategy. Even Samsung, which is on its fourth generation of these devices, can't stop the display from dying right along the display crease. Complaints about the hinges do exist, though. At any given time, the front page of the Galaxy Fold subreddit is about 50 percent complaints about broken displays and 10 percent about broken hinges.

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OnLeaks made a render of the device in December, and it included a few interesting details. The render had the camera bar design motif from earlier Pixels, of course, though it was modified slightly to not go edge to edge on the back of the phone. To the left of the camera stick was a noticeable cluster of holes with an unknown purpose. They appear to be part of a speaker grille, but that would be an odd location for a speaker, and the accompanying report has the speaker locations in a normal place. There is usually one hole near the rear camera array for a microphone, but that should be one hole—this is 19. Why?

The other interesting bit in OnLeaks renders is the return of our old friend the display bezel. The inside of the foldable features big blank areas above and below the display. The top houses the inner camera, and the rest of the bezel appears to be simply taking up space. The normal Samsung design would include a hole-punch camera and a much better internal display.

The Pixel Fold has been rumored for years now, with several different models being referenced in Android code yet never seeing the light of day. Google is generally not terrible at keeping its devices under wraps; it's normal to see detailed hands-on posts of unreleased Pixel prototype devices that were left at a bar, put up for sale on eBay, or "borrowed" from a testing facility. We haven't seen a single shot of the Pixel Fold in real life, while images of the other Google I/O devices, the Pixel 7a and Pixel Tablet, have leaked several times. If the release date is really in June, we would expect somebody to start snapping pictures any day now.