Smartphone manufacturers still want to make foldables a thing

L4sBot@lemmy.worldmod to Technology@lemmy.world – 251 points –
Smartphone manufacturers still want to make foldables a thing
arstechnica.com

Smartphone manufacturers still want to make foldables a thing::Foldables are barely 1% of the market, but that's not stopping anyone but Apple.

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To add to this my wife got the Samsung Flip or whatever, the one that folds like an old flip phone.

Every year she's had to have it replaced because the screen cracks in the middle. Fortunately we have the insurance so it's only $5 to replace it. She just got her third phone this week.

Yes! This! (For now) foldable phones are not a good idea imo. The consumers are using it casually and a lot of designers tend to forget that. It's not about how it is intended to be used but how the majority is using it. Same with the stylus and the Note 5 in 2015. People inserted the pen backwards and broke the phone. Is it supposed to go in backwards? No. Will people do it accidentally if they are using the phone on a daily bases? Yes. It seems as if the durability tests aren't adapted enough for new features.

Until phones with a foldable screen are robust enough for the average Joe(-anne) to use, I will not consider buying one, even though the concept seems very useful.

Based on this article consumers overall agree with you. I'm not a fan. But my wife has a real good reason. Pockets in women's clothes suck as they are tiny or non existent and modern smart phones even the small ones never fit. But her phone when folded does.

I imagine we'll go through this dance of yearly replacements until T-Mobile gets sick of it šŸ˜‚

I miss the days of tiny phones. I still use an iPhone 12 mini and itā€™s nearly impossible to find modern Android phones with less than a 6ā€ screen. I donā€™t understand the obsession with enormous screens. Sure the flagship models could have big screens to pack in bigger batteries and more powerful componentsā€”but why is no one making a 4ā€ phone?

Yeah I wonder as well. My wife would rather have that but there are no choices like that anymore. What we used to consider ridiculously huge, because tablets started at 7" became the norm. To think my phone is almost the size of an entry level tablet not that long ago is wild.

Your wife must be doing something wrong. My Fold 3 has been pristine without a case since I purchased it on day one.

Wait, the screen cracks? Or the screen protector? The protectors are known to crack in about a year, but those are cheap and easy to replace, or if you aren't worried about scratches, just peel it off when it cracks and don't replace it, screens feel much nicer without the protectors.

Yeah just the protector, Samsung says not to replace it yourself but have a professional do it and since we have the warranty we just can T-Mobile. We keep expecting them to send us to a store to have an employee fix it but they just keep replacing the phone instead. So weird.

I had that issue with mine, turns out there's a screen protector on the screen when you get it. once I peeled it off I was good as new, although now the screen itself is starting to wear.