Technology

I love the foldable idea, but it's well beyond what I'm willing to pay for the novelty.

Once they are cheaper and more durable I'll buy one. Its still a new form factor that hasn't been perfected yet, but that doesn't mean its wrong for manufacturers to keep at it

Well then maybe don't charge me 3 months' rent for one?

I've been daily driving a folding phone for about 3 years now, and honest to God I'll never buy a normal phone again. It's a laptop, tablet, phone, and notepad (stylus) all in one. I couldn't imagine going back.

Also, being able to open two full screen apps side by side becomes essential after you start to rely on it for work.

I get that they are expensive, but the price will come down eventually and the form factor is game changing from a usability perspective.

I wish they would put a proper keyboard on a phone again. There's dozens of people like me who misses those things, why is nobody doing it?

I'll trade you my 3D TV for one.

I don't give a flying fuck about foldable screens, give me a real keyboard. The bottom half of one of these flippable screens could totally fit rows of physical buttons!

I'm on a Fold 4, never going back. There are certainly a few tweaks here and there that could improve it, but a tablet that you put back in your pocket when you are done is the perfect phone so far. I don't know what they would have to do to make something better than this, but I'm sure something will come along. Until then, not going back to a phone that can only be bar shaped.

I've been using the z flip 4 for over a year now. I think that is what it's called... I won't go back. The foldable phone is awesome.

Honestly, there's a completely unfulfilled market for smart phones with physical keyboards right now and fuck capitalism for not meeting this need more efficiently

Man I just want a FOSS version of the DS.

Clamshell dual screen has so many advantages.

Even sliding keyboard was great

You can take my foldable out of my cold dead hands!

I love my flip phone. I'd love a phone with a hardware keyboard even more, but at least a folding flip phone is interesting in a sea of rectangles.

Thinking of that one guy that lost their foldable to a grain of salt after eating something in the train while watching a movie on it and then closing the phone... I hope they never get a real thing

I still haven't seen a legitimate use case for a flip phone that is 100% screen on the inside.

I think foldables have found a niche market at the moment. People buy them, just not in the quantities the companies might want.

The main reasons for this are Samsung being stagnant on its innovation with foldables (Z flip 5 notwithstanding), much of the competition being limited to China only or aren't being marketed at all, and the book style foldables all being overpriced (they still MSRP for $1700-$1800 plus 1000% storage markups, they should be aiming for a $1200-$1300 MSRP).

Here in the US, we have:

The usual Samsung foldables: The Z flip 5 which is a great device at on okay price, and I've seen a few of these (or the previous gens), notable because 85% of the devices I see are iPhones. The Z Fold 5 is stagnant and overpriced.

Pixel Fold: Hahahahaha it can't even last a week before the screen dies lol lol haha

Moto Razr Flip 40 and its variations: Nobody knows that these phones exist, and the ones who do struggle to even find a place to buy the phone. On Amazon listing for the US version is blended with the international listings and is often out of stock, and Motorola's website gives me an error when I try to get to the buying process on its phones. Also there's like 3 different versions of this phone Real shame, because they are good phones for a great price if you can stomach the poor battery life.

OnePlus Open: Possibly the most innovative phone of 2023, this phone 1-ups the Z Fold line in nearly every way, although it's still pricey. But again, basically nobody has even heard of this brand, much less this phone. They just believe Samsung is the only one that makes foldables while they choose to buy the latest iPhone.

This article seems to only talk about the ones that fold like a book, and not on the ones that fold like a clam. I don't get the fixtation on that design - at this point it's more of a tablet than a phone, and for a tablet it's pretty small. When opened, the Samsung Z Flip has the dimensions of a smartphone - which means you can put it to your ear or operate it with one hand. You can't do that with the Z Fold - it's too wide. Also, the Samsung Z Flip costs half as much as the Z Fold - which is still not cheap, but it's not that much more expensive than Samsung's regular flagship phone with the same specs. So I assume affordable flip smartphones should be possible - maybe not this year, but probably soon enough.

Z Flips sell twice as much as Z Folds - all while Samsung is spending most of the marketing effort on pushing the Fold. Maybe if they focused on the Flip instead they could have made this one "a thing"?