We have seen a few different varieties of fold-able phones pop up over the past few years. What are they and why should we care? Well, the idea of fold-able phones is pretty self-explanatory…they are touchscreen display phones that fold in some way or another, and continue to work as a touch display once folded. Why should you care? Well to be brutally honest, at the moment the results have been quite ugly, and so for the moment being, you have no reason to care. Concept designs that have yet to be truly released, such as the Samsung Galaxy Fold, the Huawei Mate X, the ROYOLE Flexpai, and other let down products are the best to be offered in this category of device, and they have ALL been huge let downs.
Taking the Samsung Galaxy Fold as an example, the phone promises to be innovative and exceptional in its usefulness for having two different size screens that can allow the user a wide range of capabilities, but also be a compact and easily portable phone one second, while having a vibrant and large screen the next. The problem is, instead of succeeding at both (or at least one), its failing in both categories. The small screen isn’t totally fold-able, but instead more bendable. It produces a ginormous gap between the two halves of the inner display, and makes the phone look like a this piece of paper that is halfway through being folded for a piece of origami. When opened up to be used for its larger more impressive display, there is a very obvious line that is splitting the screen in half in a very messy and distracting way, not to mention the worst aspect of the phone, in which its very likely that one half of the large display could simply choose to stop working at any moment and turn into a large white canvas that is completely unresponsive and useless.
These phones are expected to be the next revolutionary product, and guiding the way to a new innovative and creative design future. Instead, it looks like they may just end up being a nearly two thousand dollar paperweight.
What do you think?
https://www.tomsguide.com/us/foldable-phones-release-date,news-28705.html
Samsung keeps reminding us that the Galaxy Fold is a huge embarrassment
There are various advantages and disadvantages to foldable phones and I do not see the good outweighing the bad. The main benefits that foldable phones are supposed to provide is convenience and flexibility, but the price that is needed to pay for such a gimmicky item does not warrant the regular person to invest in this type of device. The phone is also bulkier and heavier to traditional smartphones since the screen is practically double the size of a normal phone screen. Instead of ground-breaking or revolutionary, these phones feel like a fad that is bound to be buried with the myriad of other tech-gimmicks, like google glass or amazon fire phone. Unless the prices go down drastically and the technology becomes simpler and easier to use, I do not see foldable phone gaining any traction any time soon.
Reference:
“Buy Back Pros.” Sell on BuyBackPros, 8 Apr. 2019, buybackpros.com/blog/pros-and-cons-of-foldable-phones/.
https://buybackpros.com/blog/pros-and-cons-of-foldable-phones/
Foldable phones are an interesting idea, but not very practical in the long run. What can a foldable phone do that’s beneficial to our experiences with technology? Sure, maybe the two screens can be doing different things, but that’s easy to do in this modern world with iPhones, tablets, and laptops. You can multitask without it, and it’s easier to do so on two different devices anyway. I heard about these phones before this post, but only because I saw a news article that the screens are breaking pretty early on. Overall, it’s a pretty rough situation, and these phones probably should’ve been tested a lot more. If the screen breaks for so many people early on, it’s likely that the design was not executed well, and this renders them completely useless. Again, an interesting design choice, but the first priority for any phone company should be that the phone works as it should, and then consider the fancy designs. I agree that this product is quite unsuccessful, and if it’s considered it should be built much more carefully.
Reference:
Kelly, Samantha Murphy. “Samsung’s Galaxy Fold Is Breaking for Some Early Users.” CNN, Cable News Network, 18 Apr. 2019, http://www.cnn.com/2019/04/17/tech/samsung-galaxy-fold-break/index.html.
Foldable phones are something we want, not something we need. And do people really even want them, do people really care? When the smartphone was first introduced it was instantly something everyone needed to stay relevant and greatly improve their lives. But a new generation of foldable smartphones simply isn’t needed. Foldable phones, while very cool, increase the price of the device immensely while not increasing the usability by the same factor, and in some peoples’ eyes, it may even lower the usability. Until technology advance far enough that creating foldable tech truly is easy and relatively cheap, foldable smartphones will not catch on, there is simply not enough benefits to it.