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.
I can see getting a Pixel Fold 3 Pro or something like that when it comes out in a few years. That is if Google doesn't lose interest in the product line in the meantime...
I have been using my Pixel 7 Pro for almost a year and it's still perfect so I am not in need of a new device. But I certainly like the pocketable tablet form factor of Fold devices and may very well get one of those next.
Maybe battery life, and I don't want to give up my headphone jack and memory card slot. :(
Cost isn't a real concern for me; Samsung has very aggressieve discount pricing where I am, I could get a Z Fold 4 with the same RAM/memory for about 10% more than the S23 Ultra, so I effectively see it as a freebie small tablet with an expensive phone.
For me, they’re too fat when folded and too big when open. I don’t like the feeling of the crease, and the technology needs time to prove how reliable it’ll be in the real world.
Any next phone I will buy will have to last me more than 5 years minimum. So far the only phone that I can safely assume to do so is whatever the latest Fairphone will be when my pixel 6 dies.
This phone as aged like milk.
My previous one, the OnePlus 5T did last me 5 years. And I want to repeat that.
A foldable won’t even last me half a year if I’m not careful about debris on the screen every single time I fold it.
Durability is a big concern for me as well. I bought a Pixel 2 at launch and had it until June of this year, almost 6 years. It was still in decent shape, but the battery had become unreliable and the cost of paying someone to replace it and fix the cracked screen was almost as much as a new in box Pixel 5. Hopefully my Pixel 5 will also last me a similarly long time.
Reception is awful. It is rare that I actually have a stable connection if I don’t have WiFi. I used my OP5t to check if it really is a device issue and yeah it is. This is only slightly better of I leave 5G on, which is an absolute battery killer.
The battery already barely lasts me a day. If I wake up really early for my standards, let’s say 6am, and I have to commute even just 30 minutes and I spend that time on my phone? Yeah I will have to charge again at like 3pm latest.
The finger scanner is so unreliable that I stopped using it at all. It kept locking my banking app, it never works on login, and even when it does work it never does so on the first try.
The camera produces over sharpened garbage. I have never seen images this heavily processed. I luckily found open camera as a replacement but it’s very outdated and not great to use. One upside of it is that instead of having the blue app icon break the material 3 theme on my home screen, I can hide it in the quick tiles…
The crease is still far too noticable for me. That and the outrageous price that some of these things close when they eventually make it to the shelves with the "Australia tax" applied to it.
I typically buy last generation refurbished. I was able to get the Samsung Galaxy s22 Ultra for sub $800. The last generation Fold is still over $1000. I need the cool-factor to calm down so the old ones are cheaper.
doesn’t provide a benefit for me for the tradeoffs in smaller battery size, screen size, lower water resistence, lower durability, no open source documentation/parts to enable comsumer repairability
Until they make the protective screen durable up to lvl 5 scratches without dmg, ip 68 protection, flat front side without slightly risen bezels so I can comfortably use gestures, even the battery size and camera capabilities with normal flagships and the price of course, it’s a nono for me. 🤔 Otherwise overpriced gimmick…
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