Ok, perhaps victim is a strong word, and actually, it probably has nothing to do with yoga. In fact, I can’t really say there is a yoga craze happening, but here you are reading this anyway. As promised last week, I’m going to use this week’s blog to focus on what could be the next phone craze: folding phones. No, I’m not referring to that 10 year old clamshell you have in your desk, but modern, touch screen phones whose screens can bend to conform to your desired type of interaction. If you really need a full crash course in folding phones and where the market may be heading, I recommend this video from MKBHD.
So what Marques just left you with was the tease from Samsung about their then-upcoming foldable smartphone. Since that video was uploaded, Samsung has made their official announcement of the brand new, gen 1, Galaxy Fold. And, oh boy, is it rough. I want to send you over to Samsung’s official page like I did last week before I skew you too much though. So, this is a very large landscape-oriented phone (7.3”! practically a tablet) which folds down the middle to a well awkwardly tall and thick brick with a seemingly puny and weird screen in the middle. I know this is the first generation, and as it was with Nvidia and ray tracing, it had to happen, but it is frankly not what we want as far as a folding phone. It gets worse, though. This phone is going to sell for $2000! I fully expect and hope that this phone doesn’t sell. I think Samsung expects that, too. I don’t think they want too many of these atrocities out there, but they want a bit of a return on the copious amounts of research and development I’m sure they are pouring into this concept.
Soon after Samsung unveiled the Galaxy Fold, Huawei clapped back with their own take on the new aesthetic. I will point you to this article to read more about the Mate X. As the Verge reports, the Mate X will sell for over $2300, so they evidently are angling similarly to Samsung. I will note, though, that Huawei earns that money much more than Samsung even at the higher price. The Mate X looks like what I think most people want a folding phone to look like, it has thin bezels all the way around in both states, and just seems to have better proportions than the Galaxy Fold. The one caveat to Huawei’s design is that it has this ridge on the back when it is it’s tablet orientation since it does not fold down the middle. This helps with the proportions I mentioned before, and actually might not be that annoying, it can kind of serve as a grip. It does deviate from what has become standard for flat and thin phones/tablets. All in all, I still don’t think Huawei’s phone is somehow buyable, is still costs well over 2 grand, but it is cool to see something that feels more like the renders of ideal folding phones.
I’m happy to see companies branching out when it comes to smartphones. Remaining stagnant is never good, and I’m a sucker for some cool engineering that allows something like this to happen. Some people may question whether these are a good idea at all, but I think the market is where that will be determined, after all, if no one buys them because they can’t think of any use or if the prices never come down, then companies will stop making them. It is never a bad thing to see companies innovating and trying to better serve their customers’ needs and desires. I am very excited to see the future of the folding smartphone because like I said some of the renders are very very cool. If you want to get some other opinions, check out these videos from, of course, MKBHD and Dave2D.
