This has been one of the trends of the last few years and around a month back I jumped in purchasing a Galaxy Fold 3. I was curious as to whether anyone else has a foldable and what people think of the whole category.
Overall I like the phone a lot though it does have its limitations. Obviously it’s rather large and I have added a fairly large case along with a digital pen. Somewhat to my surprise I have gotten used to the bulk and carry it in my shirt pocket which I didn’t expect to do. These phone are also rather expensive though I managed to get a decent price for the Fold 3 which is more than a year old.
The upside is the huge inner screen which is a delight for most content consumption which is my chief use . In particular it’s absolutely fantastic for any kind of web reading which is my number one use. There is a crease through the middle which is sometimes visible though it often disappears especially when viewing the phone head on. It’s a nuisance but mostly I have gotten used to it.
The camera is decent enough though not on par with the best smartphone flagships. However using the large screen as a viewfinder is great and it’s also great to view your photos on. These are the first portable devices ever created where you can take decent photos and view them instantly on a decently sized screen.
I am still a bit worried about the long-term durability of the folding hinge but overall I don’t think I can go back to a “normal” phone after getting used to the big screen. I look at my old phone with a 6.3 inch screen, once considered huge and it now feels almost tiny.
The Fold phones and other similar ones have an outer screen of normal size which you can like a regular phone. You are probably thinking of the “flip” form factor where the outer screen is much smaller and with limited functions.
This link shows the two kinds of phones:
Personally I don’t find the flip phones particularly compelling but many do like them.
What I’d like to know, is the screen going to look like a convertible top window after a while, with a fading crease down the middle? Or does the tech work?
Or am I missing something, like no one keeps their phone more than 6 months?
These devices have been around for more than 3 years now and sold millions. I have read some complaints of screens breaking in the folded area after 1-2 years but I don’t get the sense this is very common. Still it’s something I do worry about and I will just have to wait and see how my device fares.
CNET did a test a few years back with the original Fold and it lasted for 120000 folds which would be around 3 years of use. The newer models probably have better, more durable designs.
The Pixel Fold is about to be launched soon which will add some welcome competition to the category. From the leaks it appears it will have a shorter, wider front screen compared to the Galaxy Fold which should be more comfortable while closed. It will be interesting to see how good the camera is with Google’s computational magic. However I don’t know if it will have pen support which is a must-have feature for me.
Reading thru the thread I’m thinking I’m going to post about the just announced Pixel Fold, not realizing it was an older thread (at what age do they become zombies?) & that is why @Lantern2 posted. I’ll also add in case you didn’t click on the link that reports state that the Pixel Fold will start at $1,700.
As someone who’s phone literally died in my hand (they think it might be the motherboard but I’m not spending $250…& maybe more to find out) the other day & am waiting for a new phone to come in I gotta say $1700 is a hard no for me. While they might be durable for what they do, they’re not that relatively long lasting.
No question that it is a lot to pay for a phone. Though the Fold3 is available for much less especially on sale; I got mine for around 1100 which is still more than I would normally pay for a phone but within my tolerance limit and so far I am happy with it.
In principle there is no reason why the premium on these phones should be more than $200 above a comparable smartphone and you can get excellent Android phones for around 400. So in a few years once the Chinese handset makers have entered this segement in a big way there should be decent foldables for well under 1000 and that is when they will start to become more popular.
I think these four things could fit under 200 especially with economies of scale and learning by doing. Smartphone components aren’t that expensive for manufacturers. For example a high-end display might cost $80 and you can get an OK display for half of that.
My point still stands if the premium is 300. Say a good mid-end phone costs 500 there is no reason why you couldn’t sell a decent foldable for 800 and that would be an attractive price point for many users. It may take a few years to get there but I think it will happen.
It seemed that way for a while, and I attribute that to two reasons. First, they weren’t nearly as expensive as they are now. I know I paid twice as much for my iPhone 11 pro Max than I did for my iPhone 7. Second, I don’t think the advancements are nearly as dramatic as they used to be, at least not in the areas in which I’m interested. I’ve had my current phone for 5 years now, and it’s still working like a champ, and it still does everything that I want or am interested in.
The prices will keep coming down, but they aren’t there yet. The number of foldable units sold still needs to increase to bring the costs down. Couple that with the fact that foldable technology is still improving and requires fixed, up-front investment. There’s only a handful of display manufacturers and only a subset can do foldable.
The other thing to keep in mind is that the material costs are the starting point and many of the other costs are multipliers of the material costs – conversion costs, warranties, retail markup, etc. Your $80 display doesn’t bump the phone price by just that much.
A bunch of Pixel Fold previews have dropped on Youtube and overall it seems to be a very solid device. I like the aspect ratio which makes the front screen more usable than the Galaxy Folds and Google seems to have added some nifty software features too. There is a 5X zoom which should help make this the best ever camera on a foldable.
On the negative side it does cost 1800 and it will be competing with the Galaxy Fold 3 at much lower prices and the Fold 4 should also get some strong discounts soon. And no mention of any pen support which is something that works really well on the bigger foldable screens.
Overall the Pixel fold is probably good enough to push the category forward even if it doesn’t sell too many units. And that’s good because I think foldables are the most interesting trend in smartphones and indeed all of electronics right now.
I would like a folding phone, but not one with a folding screen. I just don’t believe it would be durable enough in the long term. Not just the fold resistance, but the scratch resistance of the screen itself.
I’d rather just have a phone that has two tough glass screens that fold open like the pages of a book - like the Microsoft Surface Duo Phone (but with decent hardware spec instead please). Maybe a little OLED screen on the outside for notifications, clock, etc.
A regular-to-large smartphone screen is plenty enough for me for video media consumption, so I would never really feel the need to use the two screens as one for media consumption, but there are plenty of situations where I might want a video playing on one screen while I peruse the comments, or something else, on the other screen, or where I might prop it up like a tiny laptop in order to have the touch keyboard on one part and the whole of the other screen dedicated to the document I’m interacting with, or composing something in one screen while I go looking for links and stuff in the other, etc.
LG had a few phone models like this a couple of years ago before they exited the business. I think there aren’t enough customers that want that form factor to make it work.