How do you even make a protective case for these? Seems like it’s too easy to drop it and crack the screen
I don’t get it. If a larger screen is so important to you, why not just use a tablet? They have tablets that are almost that small. It just seems like it’s not big enough to help with much that a tablet won’t do better. I know it’s an extra device, but I doubt most people REALLY need the extra screen space that badly, and if they REALLY do, a tablet would serve that need much better.
AI is the worst thing to happen to smartphones.
Bootloader unlocking being removed more is the worst thing to happen to smartphones
True. Folding phones are stupid, almost noone will buy them and they will eventually stop producing them.
But not so for LLMS, they don’t function through basic market mechanisms, since they exist through the AI circlejerk bubble. They will keep pushing LLMs, incorporating it into more and more until the entire UI of the phone is just one LLM which you have to interact with to make it do anything.
The worst thing to happen was the boring black rectangle format winning and all other designs disappearing. You don’t have to buy a foldable if you don’t want to. It’s next to impossible to buy anything that’s doesn’t look like every other phone on the market.
You can buy a modern reasonably powerful flipphone that runs android, there just aren’t enough people interested in something that isn’t the brick because the brick is, for most people, the optimal form factor for a phone.
The worst thing to happen was the huge 6’ screen. I just want a small phone with doesn’t rip my jean’s pockets and easy to handle with one hand.
Aren’t there plenty of those? They’re just not flagship models.
Sadly no. unless it’s some nameless knockoff brand.
I miss full slide-out qwerty keyboards.
I loves those. No waterproofing though. That’s how my last one got deatroyed
That was the peak of pre-iPhone cell phone tech imo
Same 😢 I’ve been looking around for one for years but there’s nothing that can run deGoogled android.
No slide out, but unihertz and clicks are both making a BlackBerry style form factor with android and physical keyboard :)
(Clicks one is called the clicks communicator. Figured I’d mention since that might be helpful to know if anyone wanted to look it up)
I’m familiar with both. I think it’s possible to run LineageOS on some unihertz but the support is not solid enough for me to risk it. Clicks is fairly new, I think they open source some stuff but it’s not supported by anything deGoogled yet.
A folding phone isnt inherently unrepairable. Yes it is less durable but if you look some of them the only drawback is that the internal screen scratches easily and are otherwise very stable. Would i get a folding phone to use as a phone? No, but as a mini tablet it is extremely neat. And once again, as all devices, you can make them repairable. But yes they are more expensive but you know you dont have to buy them right? You know you could just buy a fairphone, put linux on it and use that for like 8 years or what the support is?
It’s complete bollocks though, isn’t it?
I’ve had more or less every-other generation of Samsung foldables since the first one - all are still going fine with the exception of the very first (when I buy a new phone, I give the old one to friends or family.)
One of them even got dunked in wet concrete (unfortunately while in my pocket, also dunked head to toe in wet concrete, but that’s a long story.) After hosing it down and drying, it was fine.
It’s fine not to like foldables because you don’t actually want what they offer - but the technology is fine.
That’s anecdotal, the manufacturers themselves admit that the hardware is statistically less durable than brick phones and there’s plenty of 3rd party data to support it.
Less durable is not the same as fragile. All smartphones today are way more durable than any smartphone from 10 years ago.
It’s a tradeoff of a little less durability for a bigger screen when you want one.
If there’s plenty of 3rd party data to support it - link some then. Because I can’t find it.
(Bullshit Youtube videos don’t count.)
The only data I could find more reputable than “Reddit sed” was Which, but since they contradict you I doubt that’s in your “plenty of 3rd party data”.
I mean, here’s one from a manufacturer themselves admitting brick phones are more durable.
https://www.honor.com/my/blog/common-durability-issues-in-foldable-phones/
Honor. Who even the fuck are Honor?
Cheap shit phones are shit. News at 11.
Honor is one of the largest foldable phone manufacturers worldwide, and they have something like 5-10% of the global smartphone market. You not knowing they exist is just you being ignorant of the global market 🙄
It’s me not buying cheap shit, is what it is. But as ever, I can’t find a single source to back your assertion up - every source I found puts them in “others”, below Samsung, Apple, Xiaomi, Huawei, Vivo and Oppo.
You’ll forgive me if I don’t take “China’s 5th biggest mobile manufacturer” as the One Source of Truth.
Anyway, what is this deeply weird thing of yours? Do you want to show us all on the doll where the foldable phone touched you or something?
Sure buddy. I provided sources and info. You decided ‘anything on YouTube is crap’, ‘major manufacturer doesn’t count’, and are now resorting to ad hominems. There’s no winning when the goalposts keep moving, and you’re obviously not interested in civil discussions. Ciao.
These are absolutely a gimmick. A fun gimmick for sure, but not worth the prices for flagship phones these days, especially when cheaper non-folding phones are more durable
I wouldn’t say it’s a gimmick, but I agree with being too expensive for what it is.
I do a lot of reading (books, articles, manga, etc) and I love the idea of regardless of where I am, I can double the size of my screen and get some reading done.
Also, Bloons td 6, I think this game benefits from a bigger screen.
Alas, I already have an e-ink tablet and my phone is too recent, so I could never justify buying one of these. But maybe someday
Had folding phones had a good stylus support, they would have been an absolutely amazing piece of tech. I remember only 2 Samsung phones had it, and then it got discontinued. What a bummer.
The fold series still supports stylus
The latest fold doesn’t. I double checked it, fold is now too thin to have S pen inside the body. And it likely isn’t going to be supported in future generations either.
They’ve never integrated the pen with the body afaik, wife and I had the 2/3/4/5,generally we just got a case with the Spen holder.
Still though they function on the inner screen is my point, it is supported functionally.
The outer screen tho doesn’t work with the pen.
Personally I went to a Pixel when I started having hinge issues on my 4, have become increasingly anti-Google so got graphene and homelabbed up.
My wife loves her foldable phone. Why when first one broke I got her another one.
Guess who’s laughing all the way to the bank
Hint: it sure as fuck ain’t me.
Or you!no one was laughing, not even the crickets
Two bricks held together with a hinge is weaker than just a brick… Who would have thought…
From the article:
“I recently posted my take about this on Mastodon and I accidentally rage-baited one of my good friends who daily-drives a folding phone. So he messaged me on Signal passionately defending it. He finds it useful as a phone + iPad Mini replacement, especially since he bought his used for $400”
Therein lies the issue. The future that Apple, Google, et al sees is one where we move towards device convergence. There was a brief period where it wasn’t uncommon for a person to have a phone, tablet, laptop or desktop, etc. if you go back a bit more there were even more devices (iPods, cd players, etc). but the modern context has shown that phones can do a LOT of compute. An iphone 16 pro max from 2 years ago can perform around the level of a GeForce 1050, an aging but still somewhat viable card, except where that takes around 75 watts the iphone gpu takes 6-7 (lol). The iphone 18 pro max is closer to a 1060, which is about double the compute power. And then you have stuff like the m5 ipad which is a bit more powerful.
They’re not top end machine equivalents but they don’t have to be. 80-90% of users (possibly more) don’t do anything that requires such compute power. This has been reflected in consumer spending for years now. Smartphone and laptop sales are still growing, albeit at a slower rate, whereas desktop and laptop sales continue to fall. The future is people using smartphones for everything, tablets for power users, and laptops/desktops for the extreme high end power users. This sucks because it’s an ergonomic nightmare to do everything on your phone, the walled garden approach of all major phones will greatly hasten everything being locked down, mobile browsers are trash and even though the majority of traffic comes through them web designers still ignore making sites work on mobile browsers, etc
Of course the anti corporatist narrative fits in well here: these companies are excited for this convergence because it shifts control away from the user. The pc by nature is an open platform and has to have some degree of openness to work with multiple hardware configurations and peripherals. The phone is consistent hardware (extremely so in apples case) and the precedent has long been set for locked down everything. at the same time the consumer eats this shit up despite tons of people yelling about it so maybe we deserve it. But convergence makes sense from a consumer perspective too; we can’t afford to buy a laptop, phone, and tablet.
This writer clearly hasn’t been to China where we have had generations of foldables. The last two gens are amazing from all manufacturers. The latest Xiaomi 18 fold sold out in one day. Just the usual ignorant western point of view.
You say that like the western market hasn’t had generations of foldables out as well…
I really loved the new razr I had for the last two years. Hella fun to play with…but everyone’s right. It’s a fragile gimmick going after your nostalgia. Folding screens like this just aren’t ready for the abuse we put on them.
I bought a 2023 Razr not long after its successor came out. The phone was only $550 because I wasn’t buying a current flagship (it doesn’t matter whether or not it’s foldable, flagship phones have gotten obnoxiously expensive), and so far it’s held up just fine. There’s creases in the protective layer over the screen where it bends the most, but it’s not anything that really hinders my user experience.
The fact that it actually fits in my back pocket without destroying the fabric is a huge plus for me.
I really like the idea of a tri-fold phone running Nura that can revert to a tablet or desktop. It’s one device for multiple form factors, for different use cases.
I thought people love paying for things that break easily.
/s for those who think at the speed of sloth
For those who buy them, they only need to last a year.
I don’t know what people do with tablet-size phones. I feel like they’re mostly to show off.
A lot of reading (especially PDFs), videos, comics, charts, spreadsheets, even browsing Lemmy when the comments get too indented to read on a narrow screen. It’s just a full color e-reader that fits in my pocket. Sure, people comment on it sometimes when I unfold it to show them something better, but I could not care less about showing off. It’s just really useful for a frequent reader.
I had Flips for years, mainly because of “fits in my shorts pockets in summer” - but this generation I’ve switched to the Fold 8 because the new passport-size is perfect; small enough for the pockets, but also the “tablet size” when unfolded. So I’m still learning a bit on tablet foldables but…
First thing is I have indeed ditched carrying my old eReader, ever. Unfolded it’s perfect for reading books, and newspapers. It’s really nice being able to put two apps side-by-side, whether it’s something mundane like my shopping list on the left and my grocery-ordering app on the right, or more ‘productive’ like a video call on one half and my email on the other. I’m also loving the fact that I can finally use remote desktop or SSH usefully from the phone. And the big screen is good for watching movies and playing games as well - my last longhaul flight was the first time I’ve not bothered packing my ROG Ally and just used three phone instead.
