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.
How would “I already have one” apply to a poll a poll specifically to find out why people who don’t have one haven’t gotten one? If you already have one, the poll isn’t for you.
To contrast some of the comments here from people who’ve clearly never used one of these foldables outside of a display case, I’ve had my Fold 3 (the larger folding tablet style) for two years. I came from the Note and S lines, Windows Phone, and have bounced between iPhones. My Fold 3 is in great shape and has survived many falls. It’s definitely durable enough for me. I take care of it, but I get that some people don’t desire to take care of their devices and expect them to be exceedingly durable. Never had anything under the screen. Never take it to the beach unless it’s in a sealed ziplock. I take care not to put it in dusty environments or let sawdust or shavings get into it (hobbies).
Unfolded, it’s better than any other phone out there. Viewing videos enlarged or widescreen is great depending on video and application. During normal usage, the crease is not noticable enough to be a distraction unless viewed from a severe angle (think the person sitting next to you). Unfolded scrolling of Lemmy, the internet, and reading is a better experience than anything else out there - bar none, no argument. The screen is just huge and viewing websites in mobile or desktop is fantastic. It makes the web actually useable from a mobile device. I never use my Galaxy Tab anymore. Samsung does a pretty good job software-wise adapting apps to fit the foldable aspect ratio if a guveb app doesn’t officially support it. More apps are supporting foldables every day.
I would agree with the sentiment that the Z Flip line likely has a more gimmicky purpose. At least the Fold line functions as a tablet and is a decent phone folded up. At least, that is my experience with a Z Flip 3 before swapping for a Fold 3. But I’ll be buying foldables exclusively from here on out. After using the Fold 3 for two years, I can say it’s folding screen is definitely NOT a gimmick.
The question wether flips/folds are gimmicky or useful is a very personal one: I.e. for me the foldables seem excessive and flip phones finaly a way to get smaller phones.
They’re way too expensive and they’re still early-generation devices. Plus, why would I trust Google to continue with the product line seeing as how they keep killing viable products and services?
If they get to the Pixel Fold 4 or 5 and the price is down to the $500-600 range, then it’d be a very serious contender for me. (Assuming the insane fragility is resolved)
Simple: price. I think that is true for the majority of users. When there’s a $200 foldable out there, people will try it just to see what the fuss is about. But that’s not even on the horizon.
For me personally, they need to come wayyyy down. Like 1/3 of the current price. That would put them in competition with budget flagships like the Pixel 7.
I'm not paying a thousand plus dollars for a phone. I go through a phone every year and a half to two years. I don't want to spend $1,000 a year for a phone.
I don't want to have a never-ending phone payment. I buy inexpensive but good quality phones like Motorola's or second-hand pixels and I'm good.
I spend 160 something dollars a year on average on phones, and use the least expensive prepaid plans out there.
And this is not because I am poor, there's room in the budget for me to have the fancy iPhone and you know the top of the line plan or whatever, I just got better things to spend my money on than a fucking phone.
If a company comes out with a folding phone that doesn't have a lot of bloatware on it and is in the $200 range then the next time I buy a new phone I would consider it.
Yeah I'm shocked to see price ranking so low on their poll. I'm rocking a $200 phone and there's nothing that I need to do but can't. The form factor is nice but it's not an extra $800+ nice.
The fact that there will always be a seam in the folding screen. If I feel it while swiping over it or there’s weird glare because the surface is uneven that would drive me bananas
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.
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
Nobody’s mentioned it, but the main thing for me is that the screen aspect ratio isn’t any good.
I’ve always preferred bigger screens and bigger phones and willing to pay a bit extra for a foldable screen now they’ve been on the market for a while. I doubt they’ll last as long as a normal phone screen, but they generally review well and I get they impression they are more durable than most people expect.
But… the main benefit of a big screen (for me) is for watching videos. If it’s not 16:9 (or close to it) then what’s the point? I don’t need to multitask on my phone, I’ll switch to a laptop for that - I’ve had phones that do split screen for years and it was a cool gimmick for a while, but I’ve never really made good use of it.
If anyone can tell me of a phone with a big screen and 16:9 aspect ratio then I’d be willing to reconsider…
I really just cant stand the weird plastic-looking screens they all have on the inside.
Also yeah being anywhere from double to triple the price for something that I think looks objectively worse than a regular glass phone screen is just… not gonna happen.
I have a galaxy flip. It is a great phone. I do though, have many creases in the center fold which have developed over about a year and a half’s use. They don’t generally inhibit any aspect of its functionality, but as unsightly. When the screen is lit with bright content they are not really visible if I’m not looking for them. If it is dark content I see them and it is bothersome. I have the phone because I want the smallest form factor in my pocket. I’ll probably have to upgrade soon as the creases get worse. I will probably try to get a phone without a folding function. Possibly a dumb-phone so further scale down the size of my mobile device. Increasingly phones have become avenues for direct advertisement instead of functional use. I no longer need a device that buzzes every ten minutes with some esoteric notification. Folding was novel and useful in size, but it highlighted my motivation was to reduce use.
I have the s22 regular for the same reason of wanting a really small phone. The size of the iPad mini would be my perfect phone but I also want the option to take notes these days so I may choose a larger phone in a few years.
I actually just want a very small but very functional smartphone since I currently don’t have a phone at all.
I just use my Tab S7+5G as a phone, been doing that since the S6. I’ve just recently ran into some issues where I might need a smaller device, e.g. to use some store app QR codes or similar stuff where you’d have to present your phone. Well… I can actually do that just fine, but pulling out a 12inch tablet makes you look like a dork.
To be honest, I’d wish someone made a non-folding phone with a the height of a folded folding phone lmao
I used it while traveling for a while and it worked great if you’re ok with how small it is. Very tiny, like forget its there tiny. I’d still probably use it from time to time if I hadn’t smashed it on account of it be so tiny. I was also doing hard manual labor whole traveling so that didn’t help with the smashing.
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