Foldable smartphones have reached their fifth major generation, as heralded by Samsung’s Galaxy Z Flip 5 and Fold 5…
For me it’s definitely the durability concerns. I’ve valued my phone’s water and dust resistance since getting an ip67 phone years and years ago. My brother had a flip and a grain of sand in his pocket got under the display; when he closed the phone the display died. And they expect me to pay more for the privilege.
Paying more for a less durable device is not what I prefer to do.
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My current phone still works.
The phrase “what’s stopping you” implies we’re all interested, but hesitant.
This is a really, really bad assumption.
Why the fuck would I want mechanical stress?
Generally, I love mine, I like reading the paper on mine. No issues with durability, I take mine downhill mountain biking in the PNW, skiing in Canada, the works. The only issue I have with mine is that the made for foldable apps suck ass and you must avoid them like the plague. Who wants a permanent hamburger menu that takes up half the screen permanently while the other half of the screen (which is smaller than a normal phone) is used to display content, messages, and pictures?
Imagine the ribbon at the top of microsoft word taking up 50% of your monitor, lmao.
The high price also has to go. I’d like to see foldables for $750, though I know that’s a pipe dream.
Smart analogy too; I just can’t see these replacing regular smart phones until the technology makes them sufficiently thin. Because of this I doubt we will see them lower much in price. I would also want an s pen built into the phone.
Price, that’s it.
Love flip phones, love small phones, 'ate expensive phones
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Uhh the price tag? I just bought a new phone after 6 years of honoured service from my old one, payed the new one a whopping 300€ and it already felt like a rip off. Ain’t no way I’m paying four digits for a phone.
First, the price point is stupid
Second, I don’t trust a folding monitor to last
Third, every other time I’ve gone to a platform that’s different from what 99% of apps are written for, I’ve felt frustrated because the apps didn’t take advantage of that and here I was with support for that but no benefit to me.
My clothes have pockets
I like my phones to be lightweight, thin, and durable.
Ya know, so I can have my phone at-the-ready when under a car, upside down trying to fix my sink, or when I only have half a hand while scarfing down some lunch.
Turns out a heavy-ass foldable doesn’t lend itself to doing any of that without risking permanent damage.
So Samsung, when your foldables are less than 200g, less than 72mm wide, fully ip68, and less than $1000 in today’s dollars, I will consider them. Otherwise, I’ve already got a perfect phone.
They’re way too expensive. Moving parts such as the folding screen are just a focal point for stress, which is unacceptable given how expensive they are. I hate hearing that people can get dust in the hinge without anyway to clean it out.
You’re also paying for extra screens such as the one on the outside and the folding inner screen. This is just added unnecessary cost when you’ll never use both at the same time. I’m guessing the outer screens were added to reduce the number of times people unfold the phone over its lifetime, which gets back to my other point that adding moving parts just adds more issues than it solves.
Overall, I see it as a novelty at best. From the prices I’ve seen them sold at for the phones that turn into a tablet like device when unfolded, you can just buy a phone and a tablet separately for less. I think their purpose is to create a product more expensive than what the current flagship phones run, giving rich people something to spend additional money on to to show they have a lot of money and enough novelty for tech reviewers to discuss during reviews.
The fact the most of them are made by Samsung and I can’t stand the amount of bloatware Samsung put on their devices.
I do like the idea of them, same size phone takes up half the space in a pocket etc. But my current phone (that I’ve had since 2017) still works mostly fine.
I do think they’ve missed a trick by going all in on the foldable plastic display rather than two bezelless screens that folded out to look like one screen. I’m not phone designer but I think it might be more durable to not have the actual screen bending.
two bezelless screens that folded out to look like one screen
You’re just never going to get that to align perfectly and you’ll still have the folding plastic, so you’ll still have the seam
If you think there’d be folded plastic in the design I’m talking about then you must be misunderstanding me.
Well good luck getting a smooth and/or sealed seam then
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