Smartphone manufacturers still want to make foldables a thing::Foldables are barely 1% of the market, but that’s not stopping anyone but Apple.
You can take my foldable out of my cold dead hands!
which one do you have?
Fetch.
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!
That’s just Flip Phones with more steps.
We have come full circle to what smartphones we’re like 10 years ago.
https://sg.news.yahoo.com/top-smartphones-qwerty-keypad-152557008.html
I love the foldable idea, but it’s well beyond what I’m willing to pay for the novelty.
Same! I had the LG v60 dual screen case, and loved it. Thats the farthest I’m willing to go, though. It was unwieldy, and almost impossible to use a popsocket with, no way to use a wallet case, et cetera. It’s not worth that price tag for less options just for the occasional use of a bigger screen.
Now, foldable tablet? That’s something I’d be down for (in theory. I am poor.). Closes up small enough for a pocket, folds out when you use it. Only screen on one side, so it can tossed in a bag without worrying about it, because it’s closed up and the screen is protected.
So…a touchscreen laptop?
Yes. But smaller, and with a screen where the keyboard should be, and no bezel between the screens. Media consumption device, not something for any real productivity. Very lightweight, good for watching youtube or hulu, but clamshell so it protects the screen.
What pockets do you have?
Jokes on you, I’m a loony toon. /s
Totally missed the pocket bit. Disregard my previous comment, lol.
You telling me you don’t rock South Pole?
Not even those could fit a laptop 🤣
Yeah, the flip phones especially seem like a good form factor if they can make the price go down.
They already have. I think the Razr can be had at a reasonable price.
AUD 1400 is not a reasonable price to me.
Ah, sorry about that. Seems like all electronics gets way expensive in Australia. Motorola has em for sale for $499 USD (~$739 dollarydoos) here
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Foldables, which have a screen that opens like a book or compact mirror, barely exceed a 1 per cent market share of all smartphones sold globally almost five years after they were first introduced.
“We will continue to position our foldables as a key engine for our flagship growth with the clear differentiation, experience and flexibility these devices have to offer,” said Samsung.
Other handset makers such as Motorola, China’s Huawei and its spin-off Honor are also pinning their hopes on the product helping to revive a market that suffered its worst year for more than a decade.
Every other big smartphone maker has followed Samsung into the market, including Google’s Pixel Fold and Chinese alternatives from Huawei, Oppo and Xiaomi.
“We believe foldables are the future of smartphone devices, just like electric cars were to the auto industry,” said Bond Zhang, UK chief executive of Honor.
Counterpoint Research estimates about 16 million foldable phones will be sold this year, just 1.3 per cent of the 1.2 billion smartphone market total.
The original article contains 357 words, the summary contains 171 words. Saved 52%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
I hope all these big companies pump billions into this tech and lose it all.
Saw this on mastodon yesterday and it got me to thinking… Does anyone know of a dual-screen phone (not the foldable style discussed here) that has something smaller like 4" screens? The only models I found had either a 2.5" or 6" screen, neither of which would work for me. I prefer something that can fit in my pocket and a dual screen might be a nice solution for me since a keyboard in landscape mode takes up so much of the screen.
I love the idea of big screen foldables. They are just way too expensive for me to justify. I’ve used the one plus open and man I really wish I could afford it. I do a lot of my mobile computing on my phone instead of a laptop and the foldables make it much more enjoyable.
I’m willing to buy one if:
- Main screen will be harder than LVL 2-3
- Have better battery life
- Cheaper
Literally none of those things will be true.
They definitely will be, question is how long it’ll take
100% yes.
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
I’m waiting for them to find a better spot on durability, weight /bulkiness and hardware like cameras.
They’re still too big and bulky for me, the other components are usually a bit behind, and the screen durability seems a bit too eeh still.
Which is to say, I’m interested in one, but they’re not there yet for me.
Honestly, unless they come out unlocked for like sub $300 I’m unlikely to want to get one as I have had no problem using sub $300 new phones for 4 years now. And no interest in spending more for a tablet - I’ve gotten tablets for sub $250 for like 8 years now and they are good for my needs.
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?
Totally agree. The smartphone market is wayyy to homogenous. All they compete over is price and what alphanumeric digits the chips contain. Give us foldables, sliders, cheap phones, high end phones, phones full of ports, small phones, and big phones. This is what the phone market used to be about until the mid '10s
And what about phones with a removable battery? Would be real nice to keep a couple spares instead of a big power brick I have to charge it from.
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.
I have a Pixel Fold and I hate it. It’s heavy, almost no third party apps are compatible with the square aspect ratio of the inner screen, and when you consume media there are massive black borders due to said aspect ratio that makes the viewable space the same as a regular phone. There’s literally no point to these things.
I see why Apple never jumped on board. I can’t wait until August when I can get rid of this damn phone.
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.
In a few years apple will release one, act like they invented it. The fanboys will pay whatever price apple is selling it for and foldables will be mainstream.
Apple products aren’t that good but their marketing is second to none.
