I remain an irreductible fan of the one-hand theory, and therefore stick with an iPhone 13 mini. I might be late at the folding-phone revolution.
Alas it seems we won't see any such phone that fits in a pant's pocket and that can be operated single-handedly. I am afraid that the 13 mini is the last of its kind.
Yet many reports of people dropping their gigantic phones. Maybe that's a business model after all.
The Z Flip is even smaller folded and has been around for years. The cover screen used to be very limited, but the made it larger and added more functionality over time. I think some people use the cover screen for daily messaging, etc.
The goal is that your phone will be your wallet. In EU we will have soon the EUDI Wallet, so why don't just replace your own classic wallet with phone totally?
It's funny that at some point we'll have completely different tech and all those screens would look like old tech :)
Anyway,
I have fiddled with it few times in stores.
* It feels nice form factor for holding. but the folded 'passport' screen still feels it's not yet caught by websites or apps.
* The claims are Apple is suspected of doing this form-factor (and as a display manufacturer I guess Samsung could sniff it...), meaning Samsung tried to be first. like the Galaxy Edge.
I guess the discussion over the form factor would be more valuable in a year or so after Apple drops their product. If enough actors has similar form factor, I'd expect designers to caught up with it.
I just held it in my hands today, its reduced height makes it fit much easier in the pocket. Overall a better form in my opinion, the price tag still too high for me.
I’m hoping that with a supply of the passport-sized front screens it might become a new form factor for non-folding phones. Though again, ideally I’d like something Mini-sized or smaller.
There is a wave of 'blackberry-like' android phones coming soon (4:3 screen + qwerty keyboard) - Unihertz Titan 2, Clicks Communicator, Minimal Phone 2 to name a few.
Not sure if all, but some (Clicks i am sure) will offer touch-sensitive keyboards where you can swipe over keyboard to apply gestures as if was the screen itself, so its not such a dead space if you are not typing.
You can still navigate by interacting with the lower half.
I had the 12 mini (before it I had an iPhone SE, then iPhone X, then the 12 mini), which unfortunately did not work for me because the battery drained too fast.
Really hope you're wrong and we do eventually get some more one-handed phones in the future, especially once battery tech evolves.
I think this problem was unique to the 12 mini. I remember hearing a lot of people complain about it at the time, and I haven't experienced anything like it with my 13 mini (which I upgraded to from a six-year-old 1st-gen SE, so clearly my usage is not typical; YMMV).
Also fan of the smaller phones. I dug up my Samsung Galaxy Ace from many years ago, and was so surprised at how tiny it was, with a replaceable battery as well!
My hope is that Unihertz ends up making a phone that I like enough, they seem to be pretty much the only ones making smaller phones. Their current offering doesn't really speak to me yet, but they're making quick progress.
> I am afraid that the 13 mini is the last of its kind.
Yeah, I thought mine was great but just wasn't up to the job of running the latest & greatest. Ive switch to an iPhone Air. It was a reluctant switch and I would go back in a heartbeat if Apple released a smaller form factor with the latest internals.
I really want something 13 mini sized but the battery life is no good for me. They could fix that with less fat and bloated software but like hell that's going to happen.
The last phone I really liked was my iPhone 6s. Right size, shape and feel. That was incidentally the last phone that had a camera that didn't oversharpen everything too.
> trapped in a shape everyone else seems to be moving on from.
Really not sure if we were ever there. Foldable phones still feel like a novelty that is expensive and fragile, among other tradeoffs. Also moving on to what, exactly? The regular slate form factor is what people buy, and have been for years at this point.
This article is extremely poorly written and has the assumption we all very deep in folding phone lore and can read the writers mind.
I think there's some new folding phone aspect ratio ("passport sized"?) that's more popular but the article never really explains which one they're talking about. Don't think it means moving away from folding in general.
Dunno which country they mean, but my passport is quite big. I would never buy such a behemoth phone. But maybe that's just me, always sticking with the smallest (flagships) available... I also never bought a tablet, so the foldable brings something in which I was never interested.
Folding phones aren't going away; they're becoming more mainstream. The initial versions of folding phones that came out five or six years ago had issues and some aspects that weren't addressed. But we are literally in the sixth or seventh generation of folding phones, and Samsung has basically perfected them. If you think the durability is bad, think again, because they are very, very durable. I use a Z Fold 6, and it is built like a tank. The next ones are even tougher.
In terms of usefulness, they are actually more useful than the bigass phones like the iPhone Max or S26 Ultra, and other comparable ones from various manufacturers. The outer screen is pretty small and very usable with one hand. There are a few multitasking options you can choose from once you unfold them. you can have two or four apps open at once if needed. They are also very good for watching videos. A huge number of smartphone users do spend a lot of time watching stuff on their screens.
The latest Samsung Z Fold 8 has become a huge success... its size appears to be even more ideal for one hand. the thinness and overall size of it once opened has essentially seemed like the perfect form factor for the latest generation of smartphone users.
I'm not sure you can engineer your way out of the fundamental problem: You have a lever with both arms converging into a fragile display fold. Sand and dust can't not be brutal on that.
I don't think it is a big of a problem as it looks. Most of the dust / sand issues were on the earlier models and were related to the hinge mechanism itself.
My Fold 4 at some point started making grinding noises that raise ones blood pressure. I guess it is now solved as the new hinges are waterproof and stuff.
The screen does not really fold completely does it? All hinge mechanisms have a way to allow the screen to have a smooth arc on the fold point, not rubbing on itself. I've not used a foldable since that model so these are second hand info.
I can believe this for Samsung, but Google's hardware is as crappy as one would expect.
I had a Pixel 9 Pro Fold, and within half a year it developed some issue probably related to the sensor that tells it which screen should be turned on, and the screen would randomly stay black.
At least Google replaced it with the newer generation model for free, which I then sold.
And mine is almost 2 years old and in great condition. It's hard to know what is responsible in those cases, a manufacturing defect or a rough user. And knowing what I've seen people do with their non-foldable phone, I'm not sure who to trust.
I'm confused, what is everyone else moving away from, folding phones? The same article said Samsung is still making folding phones and Apple is about to release one.
Moving away from the tall narrow foldables that open to a square, to shorter, wider foldables that open to a rectangle, like the Galaxy Z fold 8 and the rumored iPhone foldable.
The biggest benefit of the passport-style foldable is it might actually fit in your hand. Modern phones haven’t been ergonomic since the iPhone 13 Mini.
This is likely a small side track that emerged recently..... but i'm afraid that's not really the situation. the younger generation utilizes a ton of social media, and they would need to rely on smartphones just for that.
Not really, there are a couple of new products like that but they are fairly uncommon and inconvenient.
I think there is a real movement to want to use social media and phones less, but I think it's is more likely to come from Apple implementing tools to help break social media addiction than buying a flip phone.
I've looked seriously into doing this, and there are just too many situations where I'm expected to have access to a particular app or website on my phone in day to day life. Maps are also a killer feature, and I use instagram messaging with some friends here (expats with unstable phone numbers).
The best I've had was to turn my phone greyscale, which really helped me cut back on any short form video consumption, but my endless reddit scrolling is still there.
I use a thing called Brick. It basically locks all the 'fun' stuff down using the phones built-in features, but you can unlock it by scanning an nfc tag thing.
I leave the brick in my car. I can still scroll if I want, but I have to intentionly get up and move to do it. Most of the time I decide it isn't worth it.
You could get a bad smartphone. For a while the iPhone 6 Batterygate Edition really made sure I'd only use it for essential stuff, cause even typing on the keyboard was a waiting game.
I tried switching to iphone briefly (lifelong nexus/pixel user) because I hate using iphones. I didn't end up holding out very long and I switched back to android after a couple of weeks, and in the switch back, apple screwed up my texting and I wasn't able to receive texts from iphone users for over a month.
Maybe I should go back and do that again. The typing experience on iphone is so poor that it made commenting on reddit (my main vice) painful.
Well it may work, cause at some point Apple permanently messed up how the iPhone keyboard works. I cannot spell anything on the iPhone 12 mini I use every day, but if I pick up my old 5 that's been sitting unused for years, it feels fine.
20 million is a rounding error, 1.3 to 1.5 billion smartphones are sold per year every year since 2013.
I was in the heart of the VR revolution in 2015, they were predicting 150b+ market by 2020, it barely reached 20b... In 2025...
They're always hyping their new gadgets but at the end of the day people are just not buying these in any meaningful amount. They love to take the past 6 months performance and draw a straight line from there.
I doubt that very much. They will always be a lot more expansive than even large (~6.8") single screen devices. I don't see how folds will ever be easier/cheaper to produce than single screen displays.
The same way that smart phones aren’t easier nor cheaper to produce than feature phones. Once the technology and features get good, people’s default expectations shift.
I’ve not been sold on flip phones so far, but the latest “passport” style has made me curious.
The original iPhone cost $500 and adjusting for inflation that is about $800 today. I don't remember phones costing $300 since before the smart phone era. Even Walkman phones cost $500 in the early 2000's.
You do know the modern smartphone is the most technologically advanced consumer good that has ever existed? Like at no point in history has there ever been something so small, complex and intricate in the hands of so many people. The new iPhone is going to be very expensive - it’s a luxury item and marketed like that.
They can definitely make phones for $300 and you can buy a smartphone that is more powerful than the original iPhone for $50. It probably will be a bit slow running modern apps but it may possibly still be workable for a while.
I picked up a Z Fold 8 for a test device, in order to optimize my app for folding phones (also in anticipation of Apple's folding phone), and the squat form factor really seems like something out of the future (certainly something different), I like it way more than I thought I would, the front is convenient for a lot of quick scrolling, checking things, and the wide 4:3 inner screen is really great for content viewing and web surfing. Even the front screen alone is better for content viewing then the traditional slab phones.
I like it so much I'd consider a non folding phone in the squatter form factor as well.
Nice looking phone im seriously interested in but they don't say what US carriers I'd be able to use anywhere I could find which seems odd with the off the shelf chipset.
My mother uses it for everything. The small phone screen is hard for her eyes, she doesn't really need a laptop and the tablet is just right. She still carries a phone with her but I can imagine if she replaced both tablet and phone with a single foldable she'd be happy. On the other hand, she'd want it to last 5+ years and she'd never spend €1800+ on it.
someone said "tablet". When I use a tablet I personally don't just notice it, I literally can't stand any uneven surface under stylus or uneven reflections.
So the unfolded state of the folded phone is not a "tablet" to me. Maybe a tablet with a glaring defect... definitely not a tablet I could use as an actual tablet.
What a strange question. I guess we no longer need monitors because a phone display is all anyone should need? Why do I need two devices when one would do? I get we are not there yet but I can certainly imagine having just one device and virtual displays in my glasses / contacts. Those displays will not be phone sized
Also, bad eye site, large fonts, suck in small screens
Well, the way I use a device with a monitor is a different kind of UX though. Usually it involves a keyboard and mouse, not a touch screen, and I can do certain things better through that kind of input. For that reason I personally like having different devices that are specific to different use cases, as I can express myself better then through the mechanical intuition that I have built up, instead of shoehorning one generic way to do everything. Phones I mostly use to quickly check things such as news, sometimes to watch videos, and messaging/calling, I don't need a large screen for that because at some point it compromises my ability to hold and operate the phone with one hand. Having a virtual environment that responds to your body/hands of course allows you to emulate all types of things, when it gets to that point I think I agree that having one device is the future.
Bad eye sight is a good one, but I don't think it explains the popularity of large screens fully, are there really so many with bad eye sight to the point that they need a larger screen?
ROTFL! I can't wait until you kids get old enough to have to put readers on to use your devices like most older people do. And while I am yelling at the kids on my lawn, let me add every UI/UX person at apple - the idiotic and unnecessary choices they make for the sake of "cool design" infuriate me on a daily basis.
If you look at Google's Android phone market share (currently 1.1% according to https://www.appbrain.com/stats/top-manufacturers), and consider that the foldable version is probably the least popular model in this not-really-popular phone family, it becomes understandable that they're not investing heavily into R&D for it...
I drop my phone a lot, I have a great case for it so not a scratch after 6 years. I am interested in getting the foldable but apparently the cases don't protect the hinge or let dirt get in? Anyone have experience with this? Maybe I'm not the right audience, too clumsy
I think the clumsiness can be improved. I always make a conscious effort when I grab my phone or put it away, so that is is always secure. No "I thought it slid into my pocket but apparently it was still outside it and then dropped". I would grab my phone with both hands in a lot of situations that are risky etc.
It's a bunch of small habits to change, then you may be ready for a fragile foldable. Until then, yes, probably not the target audience!
At least for Samsung, when you first turn it on, you get a nice big warning that says the phone is not dust or water resistant, and that you can damage the screen with sharp objects, like your fingernail. [1]
I tried one and permanently dented it on accident with the stylus. Can't image what would happen if you did something crazy like go to a beach.
Among other manufacturers Spigen has cases that protect the hinge. I've owned a foldable for 3 years and never had anything get into the hinge thanks to that, though some amount of dust did gather inside the hinge cover over time.
But I would be nervous about spending that much on a phone if you expect to be dropping it a lot, honestly.
I'm tempted to get one to replace my very cracked Pixel 9 Pro XL. With all the incentives Google offers for Google Fi customers it's not all that expensive. Comes out to about $1100 after trade-in and includes a free Pixel Watch 5.
I'm foldable-curious and Samsung just includes too much overlapping bloat "features". Gemini is bad enough, I don't need Bixby and whatever else. Not to mention I would have to pay full price.
> Samsung just includes too much overlapping bloat "features"
Yep, that's a major drawback. My partner has a Samsung phone and seeing all of the included bloatware, plus the terrible updates and add even more, made me not even consider one of their devices last time I bought a phone.
At work we bought a used tablet off eBay to replace a customer device where they really wanted an identical (obsolete) model.
OMG the amount of extra crap that Verizon branded tablet had pre-installed was agonizing.
All system apps so you couldn't get rid of it.
It's worth mentioning that on most Android phones and tablets, you can uninstall apps from the user partition even when they are system apps with adb or a UI for it like UAD-ng.
i take the position that it's all dog shit and i dont care whos fault it is, all of these people need to be put in front of a tribunal and justice done
I'm on my last Samsung for this reason. Just way too much bloatware, need to agree to a new privacy policy once a week, and every time it updates I find a few new apps on my phone I didn't want.
Gonna hold out for the Motorola/Graphene phone though. One of the models is supposed to be a flagship foldable.
imo just get a pixel. unlockable bootloader and almost guaranteed support from pretty much every major privacy-related android fork. and many of them are building support for the titan chip if they dont have it already
I also have a Samsung phone besides a Pixel with GrapheneOS and I just ripped out Gemini, most of Bixby, etc. using UAD-ng. It's very clean now, but I still have all the customizability of OneUI, Good Lock, etc.
Unless you really have a large ethical problem with paying for any google product, I'd just recommend to get one of the previous-gen pixel devices. They are a lot cheaper than the Motorola smartphone coming out.
it's crazy how normalized spending 1k+ on a phone has become. I can't imagine paying that for a phone that is almost identical in features I care about to something 1/3 the price.
Just be careful about what your actual use case is.
For example, this form factor of foldable doesn’t give you significantly more screen real estate for 16:9 video content since it’s such a square aspect ratio.
They also generally aren’t large enough to take advantage of tablet layouts, while tri-fold designs fold out to be almost identical to a tablet size.
You have to really want to use two apps side by side in my opinion.
That’s in the eye of the beholder. Folding phones are unique devices and the best tri-fold designs can legitimately replace a tablet.
A whole lot of people use their phone as their primary and most-used device. I don’t think a high price is insane, it’s just that folks who consider them a utility and a side-device to a desktop computer tend not to feel that way. Many millennials and older who grew up with desktops and laptops probably can’t comprehend the idea of a phone being the only device or primary device.
My iPhone was something like $1300 and I feel like it was worth every penny, and that a cheaper model did not meet my needs and wants.
The other thing I would say is that Pixels are just not high end hardware and they masquerade like they are. They get these insane launch sale deals like we are seeing now and the whole reason for that is because they aren’t competitive with true flagships.
It’s just not really a flagship phone in terms of processor performance.
I know Samsung has a lot more of their garbage software on it but I think if I was in the Android market I’d probably be inclined for a Samsung device over a Pixel. If I lived in Europe or Asia I’d be looking at something Chinese that’s not sold in the US market. Companies like Xiaomi and Huawei make way better phones than Google.
> It’s just not really a flagship phone in terms of processor performance.
I'm curious to know which apps/use-cases you feel are hobbled by the non-flagship processors on Pixels. It feels like most peoples top 3 activities on phones are infinite scrolling inside apps or a browser, taking pictures, and playing games, which Pixels seem to be great at. It's been many years since I felt that a phone that is slow enough to notice - even the midrange ones, and I (used to) write and debug code on my phone.
Sure, 4 years later anything can run Genshin, but the point is that the next new hit game is just around the corner and gamers appreciate the extra performance.
My understanding is also that the pixel’s tensor chip series is not very “flagship” in terms of battery stamina/efficiency when you’re doing heavy tasks such as gaming.
So it’s not always about having the faster processor, you can also benefit by your processor being the most efficient on the market and making the most use of the battery in your chassis.
Video comparison of last year’s phones head to head where the Samsung phone lasts nearly 8 hours longer on video playback:
Samsung also has these kinds of sales. A bunch of people on a forum I frequent had some Z Fold 8 just north of 1000 Euro with a trade in and by stacking coupons.
Heck, even flagships like the S26 Ultra, which was introduced in March and still dominates the CPU, GPU, etc. charts are currently 500 Euro off in my country.
Even discounted, Pixel have pretty bad prices compared to the competition. The primary reason to buy a Pixel is to run GrapheneOS. Otherwise, just get an iPhone or if you are willing to remove the bloat with UAD some Samsung phone.
From Europe, at this point I don't even look at Pixels because of their sad excuse of a battery. Just buying directly from China better phones for half the price. Oppo, Vivo, Xiaomi are all good, others probably too, Huawei has nice hardware but due to US ban no usable Android.
Huawei has their HarmonyOS but still releases Android phones too for international markets - but these can't use Google Services, so they have their own services. If it's possible to somehow install google services I have no idea.
Personally I would perhaps like to use or at least try Pixel's software (I've had some Google-software phones years ago, a Nexus I think? Maybe even some Pixel. And they were fine), but not on that HW.
I'm on fi and got the fold 8 through fi for a pretty steep discount. It was cash off immediately + fi credits. I can pull up exact details if you care but it was several hundred dollars off split pretty evenly between instant discount and fi credits. Coming from nearly 10 years of pixels/nexus the transition hasn't been that bad. I miss a couple pixel exclusives, but nearly all the samsung bloatware can be disabled or removed entirely. I haven't bumped into bixby once.
One genuine nice Samsung feature is DeX. Been using it + moonlight (when needed) to make the phone basically a secondary computer when hooked up to USB-C monitor. Honestly I think this phone may end up replacing several other devices - kindle, gaming portable (eg: steamdeck, replaced by phone + GameSir G8 + controller), laptop, tablet. I think it can only replace laptop in my use case because I can remote into my desktop from it if I need extra compute - so if you are laptop only I don't expect it to be a straight replacement.
Honestly, best phone I've ever used - but I hope next year either google gets off the sidelines and adopts passport form factor + gets its shit together on the crease, cpu and dex equivalent so I can get my pixel exclusives and vanilla OS back, or alternatively Samsung makes the wide form factor the "ultra" and gives us better cameras, speaker placement, s-pen and IP68.
You mostly hear about the bad ones. Mine has been doing great for almost 2 years now. I use it in a clean environment, I'm very careful and not clumsy, so that helps.
They have been for years. Almost all smartphones have roughly the same set of features, with fashion-like differentiators. You pay more for a premium one and it lasts a bit longer before the never-ending app bloat inevitably renders it obsolete.
The real question these days is: how badly does the software stack screw you over?
Really depends on what you do with the open phone. I can understand it being a huge distraction when watching video with the seam right in the middle. EBook reading? Apps in tablet interface mode? Might as well complain that using two monitors on your desktop is unusable because of the bezels. Doesn't matter in practice.
> Might as well complain that using two monitors on your desktop is unusable because of the bezels.
There's a pretty important difference there - monitors don't draw content on the bezels.
If what you're doing is reading an ebook, what advantage is a folding phone supposed to have over a non-folding phone? Reading isn't an activity where you can use more than a small part of the screen at once.
Show multiple pages at once. Makes it easier to go back and forth. It's actually a huge QOL improvement such that I can't stand reading books on a normal phone anymore.
It's not that noticeable when you use the device. It will depend on your ambient lights usually and how you hold it. It's a lot easier to see when someone else is holding the phone too, so if that was your reference, you may want to use them a bit more first.
Does anyone use one of foldables for more than a year? I know a couple of people who have them and the massive creases seem like they’d be really hard to get used to.
you get used to it almost instantly like within 1 hour of use. But I also have the OnePlus Open which has probably the best hidden crease you can buy besides Oppo which is just the company OnePlus came from
I have pixel 10 Pro Fold. Formfactor: for Pockets. The slim when folded is great for most pockets. I think it's great and I use it in folded and unfolded mode every day depending on what I want to do. Not sure how well the wider one would work with pockets when folded. It's an important feature for me at least.
While the form factor does seem nicer for the pocket, and perhaps better when using the cover screen, I fear I would miss the screen real estate of the tall foldable.
Not having to rotate the phone to view either portrait or landscape content is more convenient than I thought.
I just don't see why you would spend more than double (almost 2K USD!) for the fold phones though. I have large screens in my home to watch high quality video content. I do like the Pixel Pro XL series with 6.8" screens though, but they are a lot cheaper.
While they are more expensive, if price is the only concern, you could get last year's Z Fold 7 for a price similar to the launch price of an iPhone 17 Pro Max.
Sadly, I can't read this article due to the hard paywall. Is The Verge actively trying to shrink their readership? Why would I want to subscribe to yet another monthly subscription if I can't even get a taste of what this one is offering?
I think a lot of people pay their phones off with a contract over several years.
Signing up for a new phone contract, you start looking at a $600 phone. Thats $25 a month plus $15 for your calls and data, so $40 a month. Then you see the next phone next to it thats only $1200, it's so much better, and you're only paying $65 a month for it.
And then they flash this one in front of you, only $67 a month (just ignore the fact it's now over 3 years instead of 2)! 5 minutes later, you are in.
I did buy flagships few times and to be honest I did not regret them.
I kept them longer and I was able to do more... but that was few years ago when phones were getting more powerful for a reason.
Cameras were getting more megapixels to get on par with non digital photography (arguably, if you are not an artist at least) and everything needed to come along, memory, storage, processing and of course screen resolution.
... but again once that was done, which varies for everyone but still, and that is the key part of the argument, reaches a plateau of usefulness for the average user, then everything "more" was really a technical specification d*ck measuring contest. Unless you have superhuman vision, current screens are "good enough" to check your family photos and your work email.
Long story short I went from flaghships to 2nd hand few generations olds Pixel 8 (cheapest I could try GrapheneOS on) and I don't regret that decision at all.
TL;DR: I did, I don't anymore.
PS: before someone argues I don't know what I'm missing as I'm probably not using my phone for much, I do quite a lot on my phone including programming on it (directly on it, not via ssh), streaming videos on video projectors, running qemu for other architectures, etc. I'm not a casual user.
Texting is the single most important feature on a phone.
Also it's not Apple's fault that MMS was terrible for years and now RCS is still terrible. Google also tried to make their own proprietary chat and failed... like 10 times. But more importantly, I don't care, this is not my battle. I'd use WhatsApp if that's what people did here, not that I like it any better.
The iMessage app does both SMS, and the iMessage protocol. Apple could have released an android app to let you have blue bubbles on android and communicate securely without any of the constraints of SMS by simply releasing "iMessage for Android".
Somehow Signal, Whatsapp, Telegram, Discord, WeChat, LINE, KakaoTalk, etc etc all manage to have both iOS and Android apps that can message each other, but for some reason the richest company in the world, Apple, cannot manage to port its chat app to one additional platform?
It is 100% Apple's fault that messaging between iOS and Android has had so much dumb "green bubble" friction.
Apple's conflation of the SMS and iMessage protocols has also made it harder for people to realize what's happening. Frankly, Apple should have had two apps from the start (Text Message and iMessage), one of which only spoke SMS, and the other of which only spoke iMessage.
Sure they could've provided a solution, but they didn't create the problem. And they're not a charity. It's like blaming Nvidia for not giving away CUDA for free/cheap.
Btw everyone knows whether they're using iMessage or SMS, that's the whole bubble color thing.
> Btw everyone knows whether they're using iMessage or SMS, that's the whole bubble color thing.
Everyone sorta knows, but because iMessage "feels" like it's just the native messaging app on the phone, it makes people feel like the issue is android (why don't android phones come with this super-sms built in?) rather than apple for not making the app available broadly.
If it were a separate app, then perhaps the EU would have regulated "when setting up iOS, you must get a default option between iMessage, Whatsapp, Telegram, Signal, etc, you must be able to change the default messaging app", and forcing people to install it would make it more obvious that this is Apple implementing a proprietary chat protocol, not Apple just doing SMS better than android.
> they didn't create the problem. And they're not a charity.
Apple did create the problem by creating a walled garden messaging app, banning beeper for implementing the iMessage protocol for android, and tying some of the phone's core functionality to this built-in app in an anti-competitive way.
A certain amount of industry interoperability should be expected. If you make a browser, it should be able to load competitors websites (which nice, safari can load google.com, good work). If you make a computer that can install arbitrary software, you should allow anyone to install software they wrote freely (oops, apple missed that one). And if you make a messaging app or social media app, you should make it support all major operating systems people use so that people can switch their operating systems and phones without losing touch with their friends. I should still be able to facetime my grandma even if I switch to linux because gosh knows she's not going to learn a new video call app.
I get if you want it that way with all social apps being cross-platform, but Apple didn't make the rules. And if it were like that, they'd probably not have invested so much in iMessage, and SMS would be the thing, which would at least be cross-platform.
Android users still go on WhatsApp for group chats instead of using RCS. I'm in an RCS group chat with some Android users, and they're always missing messages even between each other. So no I don't buy it. Same with MMS, Google and other phonemakers always blamed Apple, but nobody actually wanted to use MMS even in a full Android group chat.
Maybe RCS between Pixel phones is ok, because that's not the same thing, it goes through Google's servers only. And that was also the only way you got E2EE in RCS until very recently.
I have zero interest in folding phones and only read to kill time while eating, but this review is incredibly irritating. "This isn't exactly like another phone, with a bunch of subjective design differences, therefore it's dated and bad!" I hate this way of thinking so much. Products should be different. There should be small phones and large phones, thin phones and thick phones, rather than scoring them all against the latest fad in order to try to force the market to conform. I hear small phones don't sell well and that's why nobody makes them anymore, but I can't help but wonder if small phone sales are artificially deflated by shitty reviews like this one that punish companies for manufacturing outside the media's anointed design trend.
Reviews like this like to exaggerate certain things in order to get a punchy headline ("feels like the end of an era") and to create a matching narrative for the article. To keep readers engaged. Pretty typical for The Verge.
But as far as reviews go, this one is just as bad as most. They didn't do any standardized measurements of the battery life including comparisons with similar phones, or performance benchmarks, or charging speed measurements, or any camera measurements that go beyond vibes. They are just reporting what anyone who bought the phone could also tell you: subjective impressions and a few out-of-context sample photos.
Listen to each person who says he wants a small phone. Is he the kind of person who would even buy the smaller phone if it got released, rather than holding onto an old working phone? Is he also going to spend more money on apps, AirPods, etc, maybe a iPad too? Sometimes yeah, usually not. I'm in that group, I understand why Apple doesn't cater to me.
Also don't think anyone makes buying decisions based on these reviews. It's more entertainment than anything else.
Work on alternative input mechanisms and display options. This gimmicky, look we can fold the phone is a mess and just plain ridiculous. The manufacturers are on this very strange, bullshitty innovation trajectory, where everyone eyes the other and copies everything in an instant.
I hope Samsung (Royole) does a 180 and introduce something groundbreaking soon, of course, after everyone copied their shit.
Well. I, for one, picked up Moto Z Fold, as soon as it has been out, and can't get enough of it. Won't be moving back to candybar phones. Content consumption feels so much more natural, and context window I'm able to see while reading is dramatically larger. And I'm not talking about Youtube etc; regular work or family chats, browsing sites, reading books with Kindle , that kind of stuff. When I was deciding to pick this formfactor, I wanted to read more books. I can't read on a regular phone, too small of a page being displayed is somehow a blocker for me. Not anymore; I'm unfolding my MoFo every now and then.
Even in this article, they repeat the same: what everyone always gives as the advantage of Pixel phones has nothing to do with form factor or even hardware in general. Presumably also because there's not much special about Pixel form factors, but the plusses are almost always the software, features, and "cleanest android" with occasionally the camera mentioned (mostly because people are repeating what phone reviewers say). With the iPhone people sometimes respond that the hardware is a plus, but for Pixel I have never even heard that. For Samsung it's the opposite. People buy Samsung phones for the new and powerful hardware, and on a hardware-capabilities-per-dollar they are fantastic, with occasional mention of the pen integration.
Pixel phones are "great software with a frankly boring phone built around it".
I think this even works for Google: if the hardware ceases to be the differentiating factor as we go on in time, it seems to me Google's position would keep improving over time, certainly over Samsung.
I kept hearing how Pixel is the clean Android software experience, then I got one as a work phone. It honestly felt pretty unintuitive, and I thought that was just how Android is, but then it broke and I got a Samsung replacement... The Samsung UI is surprisingly better. Down to the clock settings.
Idk, mine has it. You must have some kind of alarm/clock functionality somewhere. The time picker is normal scrollable hh-mm-ss, right? On a Pixel, it's something like an analog clock but also not.
I also can't look on the Pixel anymore, but I remember there were weirdly two different control centers that always got me.
Yes, but this a medium-length "I tested this phone a few days" article with the intention of getting affiliate revenue. That's the joke. What's next, "Look at this Amazon product listicle" behind a paywall?
This is the same site that ran a front page saying if you vote for Trump you are literally a racist. I liked it better when it was just headphone reviews and holiday gift guides to pump their affiliate revenue. XD
I remain an irreductible fan of the one-hand theory, and therefore stick with an iPhone 13 mini. I might be late at the folding-phone revolution.
Alas it seems we won't see any such phone that fits in a pant's pocket and that can be operated single-handedly. I am afraid that the 13 mini is the last of its kind.
Yet many reports of people dropping their gigantic phones. Maybe that's a business model after all.
I'm a fan of the iPhone Mini as well. It turns out though, I'm a bigger fan of USB-C.
Samsung is testing the water with their new passport-size fold phone. Looklike enough people demanded for smaller size phone.
Granted it is still considerably bigger than ip13mini, but it's step in right diretion
The Z Flip is even smaller folded and has been around for years. The cover screen used to be very limited, but the made it larger and added more functionality over time. I think some people use the cover screen for daily messaging, etc.
There were suggestions that they went this way as the intel suggested Apple might release one soon with a similar form factor.
The goal is that your phone will be your wallet. In EU we will have soon the EUDI Wallet, so why don't just replace your own classic wallet with phone totally?
It's funny that at some point we'll have completely different tech and all those screens would look like old tech :)
Anyway, I have fiddled with it few times in stores.
* It feels nice form factor for holding. but the folded 'passport' screen still feels it's not yet caught by websites or apps.
* The claims are Apple is suspected of doing this form-factor (and as a display manufacturer I guess Samsung could sniff it...), meaning Samsung tried to be first. like the Galaxy Edge.
I guess the discussion over the form factor would be more valuable in a year or so after Apple drops their product. If enough actors has similar form factor, I'd expect designers to caught up with it.
I just held it in my hands today, its reduced height makes it fit much easier in the pocket. Overall a better form in my opinion, the price tag still too high for me.
I’m hoping that with a supply of the passport-sized front screens it might become a new form factor for non-folding phones. Though again, ideally I’d like something Mini-sized or smaller.
There is a wave of 'blackberry-like' android phones coming soon (4:3 screen + qwerty keyboard) - Unihertz Titan 2, Clicks Communicator, Minimal Phone 2 to name a few.
I was ready to say that they were all too big, but looking at a comparison they’re surprisingly reasonable in size?
https://comparesizes.com/comparison/Unihertz-Titan-2-vs-Clic...
Not sure I’d want a physical keyboard, but it’s nice to have an option potentially.
Not sure if all, but some (Clicks i am sure) will offer touch-sensitive keyboards where you can swipe over keyboard to apply gestures as if was the screen itself, so its not such a dead space if you are not typing.
You can still navigate by interacting with the lower half.
I had the 12 mini (before it I had an iPhone SE, then iPhone X, then the 12 mini), which unfortunately did not work for me because the battery drained too fast.
Really hope you're wrong and we do eventually get some more one-handed phones in the future, especially once battery tech evolves.
> the battery drained too fast
I think this problem was unique to the 12 mini. I remember hearing a lot of people complain about it at the time, and I haven't experienced anything like it with my 13 mini (which I upgraded to from a six-year-old 1st-gen SE, so clearly my usage is not typical; YMMV).
> battery drained too fast.
Battery-saver on all iOS devices.
Also fan of the smaller phones. I dug up my Samsung Galaxy Ace from many years ago, and was so surprised at how tiny it was, with a replaceable battery as well!
My hope is that Unihertz ends up making a phone that I like enough, they seem to be pretty much the only ones making smaller phones. Their current offering doesn't really speak to me yet, but they're making quick progress.
> I am afraid that the 13 mini is the last of its kind.
Yeah, I thought mine was great but just wasn't up to the job of running the latest & greatest. Ive switch to an iPhone Air. It was a reluctant switch and I would go back in a heartbeat if Apple released a smaller form factor with the latest internals.
I really want something 13 mini sized but the battery life is no good for me. They could fix that with less fat and bloated software but like hell that's going to happen.
The last phone I really liked was my iPhone 6s. Right size, shape and feel. That was incidentally the last phone that had a camera that didn't oversharpen everything too.
I love my iphone SE (all gens)
> trapped in a shape everyone else seems to be moving on from.
Really not sure if we were ever there. Foldable phones still feel like a novelty that is expensive and fragile, among other tradeoffs. Also moving on to what, exactly? The regular slate form factor is what people buy, and have been for years at this point.
This article is extremely poorly written and has the assumption we all very deep in folding phone lore and can read the writers mind.
I think there's some new folding phone aspect ratio ("passport sized"?) that's more popular but the article never really explains which one they're talking about. Don't think it means moving away from folding in general.
Dunno which country they mean, but my passport is quite big. I would never buy such a behemoth phone. But maybe that's just me, always sticking with the smallest (flagships) available... I also never bought a tablet, so the foldable brings something in which I was never interested.
Folding phones aren't going away; they're becoming more mainstream. The initial versions of folding phones that came out five or six years ago had issues and some aspects that weren't addressed. But we are literally in the sixth or seventh generation of folding phones, and Samsung has basically perfected them. If you think the durability is bad, think again, because they are very, very durable. I use a Z Fold 6, and it is built like a tank. The next ones are even tougher.
In terms of usefulness, they are actually more useful than the bigass phones like the iPhone Max or S26 Ultra, and other comparable ones from various manufacturers. The outer screen is pretty small and very usable with one hand. There are a few multitasking options you can choose from once you unfold them. you can have two or four apps open at once if needed. They are also very good for watching videos. A huge number of smartphone users do spend a lot of time watching stuff on their screens.
The latest Samsung Z Fold 8 has become a huge success... its size appears to be even more ideal for one hand. the thinness and overall size of it once opened has essentially seemed like the perfect form factor for the latest generation of smartphone users.
> The outer screen is pretty small and very usable with one hand.
Cool. I want one like that, just without the inner screen.
I'm not sure you can engineer your way out of the fundamental problem: You have a lever with both arms converging into a fragile display fold. Sand and dust can't not be brutal on that.
I don't think it is a big of a problem as it looks. Most of the dust / sand issues were on the earlier models and were related to the hinge mechanism itself.
My Fold 4 at some point started making grinding noises that raise ones blood pressure. I guess it is now solved as the new hinges are waterproof and stuff.
The screen does not really fold completely does it? All hinge mechanisms have a way to allow the screen to have a smooth arc on the fold point, not rubbing on itself. I've not used a foldable since that model so these are second hand info.
I can believe this for Samsung, but Google's hardware is as crappy as one would expect.
I had a Pixel 9 Pro Fold, and within half a year it developed some issue probably related to the sensor that tells it which screen should be turned on, and the screen would randomly stay black.
At least Google replaced it with the newer generation model for free, which I then sold.
And mine is almost 2 years old and in great condition. It's hard to know what is responsible in those cases, a manufacturing defect or a rough user. And knowing what I've seen people do with their non-foldable phone, I'm not sure who to trust.
I'm confused, what is everyone else moving away from, folding phones? The same article said Samsung is still making folding phones and Apple is about to release one.
Moving away from the tall narrow foldables that open to a square, to shorter, wider foldables that open to a rectangle, like the Galaxy Z fold 8 and the rumored iPhone foldable.
Oh. Well that removes the one reason I might care for a foldable, to fit in my pocket or hand.
The biggest benefit of the passport-style foldable is it might actually fit in your hand. Modern phones haven’t been ergonomic since the iPhone 13 Mini.
I want an ultra wide foldable with the hinge on the short side. Like a flip phone
The younger generation is moving back to 2000s style flip phones with no smartphone features.
Which honestly I support. I still have my LG VX8100 and wish it would work on modern networks.
It's like 0.01% of the younger generation doing that
This is likely a small side track that emerged recently..... but i'm afraid that's not really the situation. the younger generation utilizes a ton of social media, and they would need to rely on smartphones just for that.
Not really, there are a couple of new products like that but they are fairly uncommon and inconvenient.
I think there is a real movement to want to use social media and phones less, but I think it's is more likely to come from Apple implementing tools to help break social media addiction than buying a flip phone.
I've looked seriously into doing this, and there are just too many situations where I'm expected to have access to a particular app or website on my phone in day to day life. Maps are also a killer feature, and I use instagram messaging with some friends here (expats with unstable phone numbers).
The best I've had was to turn my phone greyscale, which really helped me cut back on any short form video consumption, but my endless reddit scrolling is still there.
I use a thing called Brick. It basically locks all the 'fun' stuff down using the phones built-in features, but you can unlock it by scanning an nfc tag thing.
I leave the brick in my car. I can still scroll if I want, but I have to intentionly get up and move to do it. Most of the time I decide it isn't worth it.
It cut back usage like 99%.
You could get a bad smartphone. For a while the iPhone 6 Batterygate Edition really made sure I'd only use it for essential stuff, cause even typing on the keyboard was a waiting game.
I tried switching to iphone briefly (lifelong nexus/pixel user) because I hate using iphones. I didn't end up holding out very long and I switched back to android after a couple of weeks, and in the switch back, apple screwed up my texting and I wasn't able to receive texts from iphone users for over a month.
Maybe I should go back and do that again. The typing experience on iphone is so poor that it made commenting on reddit (my main vice) painful.
Well it may work, cause at some point Apple permanently messed up how the iPhone keyboard works. I cannot spell anything on the iPhone 12 mini I use every day, but if I pick up my old 5 that's been sitting unused for years, it feels fine.
> it's is more likely to come from Apple implementing tools to help break social media addiction
What have they implemented?
Screen Time probably
It's feels like 3d TVs and AR headsets, they're trying to find a new customer base to milk but it just isn't here
> Global foldable smartphone shipments have grown from roughly 2.8 million units in 2020 to an anticipated 20–25 million units in 2026.
Foldables will slowly become the standard phones, probably over a decade or so.
20 million is a rounding error, 1.3 to 1.5 billion smartphones are sold per year every year since 2013.
I was in the heart of the VR revolution in 2015, they were predicting 150b+ market by 2020, it barely reached 20b... In 2025...
They're always hyping their new gadgets but at the end of the day people are just not buying these in any meaningful amount. They love to take the past 6 months performance and draw a straight line from there.
I doubt that very much. They will always be a lot more expansive than even large (~6.8") single screen devices. I don't see how folds will ever be easier/cheaper to produce than single screen displays.
The same way that smart phones aren’t easier nor cheaper to produce than feature phones. Once the technology and features get good, people’s default expectations shift.
I’ve not been sold on flip phones so far, but the latest “passport” style has made me curious.
I think everyone lost their damn mind, possibly during Covid.
New iPhones used to be $199 and when they went to $299 the decision was seriously questionable.
Now they cost like a used car, everyone buys $1000+ iPhones without batting an eye, insane.
This one is $2000, I wouldn't get it if I had a billion on principle.
The original iPhone cost $500 and adjusting for inflation that is about $800 today. I don't remember phones costing $300 since before the smart phone era. Even Walkman phones cost $500 in the early 2000's.
800$ for a total novel technology vs 1800$ for a small iteration of the technology. I don't think so many people in the world can afford that.
Many android phones are under $300, not iPhones obviously.
You do know the modern smartphone is the most technologically advanced consumer good that has ever existed? Like at no point in history has there ever been something so small, complex and intricate in the hands of so many people. The new iPhone is going to be very expensive - it’s a luxury item and marketed like that.
They can definitely make phones for $300 and you can buy a smartphone that is more powerful than the original iPhone for $50. It probably will be a bit slow running modern apps but it may possibly still be workable for a while.
> New iPhones used to be $199
With a 2-year contract with your carrier in which you pay the cost of the phone gradually each month
Look up the figures for inflation, your money is worth a fraction of what it was before COVID, then we have component shortages on top of that.
The $199/$299 prices were never real. Those were on carrier-subsidized plans.
they did, significants parts of it, and "during Covid" is ongoing
https://www.cbc.ca/radio/quirks/long-covid-brain-1.7171918
I picked up a Z Fold 8 for a test device, in order to optimize my app for folding phones (also in anticipation of Apple's folding phone), and the squat form factor really seems like something out of the future (certainly something different), I like it way more than I thought I would, the front is convenient for a lot of quick scrolling, checking things, and the wide 4:3 inner screen is really great for content viewing and web surfing. Even the front screen alone is better for content viewing then the traditional slab phones.
I like it so much I'd consider a non folding phone in the squatter form factor as well.
This is a square screen BB KB style Android phone: https://www.unihertz.com/products/titan-2-elite
Nice looking phone im seriously interested in but they don't say what US carriers I'd be able to use anywhere I could find which seems odd with the off the shelf chipset.
The crease makes it look cheap and fragile, like with many of the foldable phones.
I'm curious what people need the huge screens for on phones? Is it mostly for watching videos?
When you open it, it becomes a tablet not a phone. And therein lays your answer.
That might explain my naivety here, I've never really gotten into using tablets for anything.
And I've never gotten into using my phone for anything outside of calls messages and navigation. The web is the worst on tiny vertical screens.
My mother uses it for everything. The small phone screen is hard for her eyes, she doesn't really need a laptop and the tablet is just right. She still carries a phone with her but I can imagine if she replaced both tablet and phone with a single foldable she'd be happy. On the other hand, she'd want it to last 5+ years and she'd never spend €1800+ on it.
I am a tablet user but crease is a non starter. However I know people who like foldables in different ways, like financial stuff, they don't care
For most, if not all users, the crease is not something one notices during regular use. You just forget it's there when you look at content.
That said, with the Pixel's enormous crease you feel it if you touch the middle of the screen.
Depends on your use. If you draw or want high quality display with no weird reflections from your tablet then it's a non starter.
a tablet with a crease right in the middle of a screen (FTFY)
You really don't notice it while you're using a folding phone.
someone said "tablet". When I use a tablet I personally don't just notice it, I literally can't stand any uneven surface under stylus or uneven reflections.
So the unfolded state of the folded phone is not a "tablet" to me. Maybe a tablet with a glaring defect... definitely not a tablet I could use as an actual tablet.
Turns into a small tablet which is great for reading, for impromptu client demos, and for playing some games like puzzles.
It also enables multitasking by having applications side by side which can be very useful on a phone too.
You don't have to use it all the time, but it's nice when you need it.
What a strange question. I guess we no longer need monitors because a phone display is all anyone should need? Why do I need two devices when one would do? I get we are not there yet but I can certainly imagine having just one device and virtual displays in my glasses / contacts. Those displays will not be phone sized
Also, bad eye site, large fonts, suck in small screens
Well, the way I use a device with a monitor is a different kind of UX though. Usually it involves a keyboard and mouse, not a touch screen, and I can do certain things better through that kind of input. For that reason I personally like having different devices that are specific to different use cases, as I can express myself better then through the mechanical intuition that I have built up, instead of shoehorning one generic way to do everything. Phones I mostly use to quickly check things such as news, sometimes to watch videos, and messaging/calling, I don't need a large screen for that because at some point it compromises my ability to hold and operate the phone with one hand. Having a virtual environment that responds to your body/hands of course allows you to emulate all types of things, when it gets to that point I think I agree that having one device is the future.
Bad eye sight is a good one, but I don't think it explains the popularity of large screens fully, are there really so many with bad eye sight to the point that they need a larger screen?
>are there really so many with bad eye sight
ROTFL! I can't wait until you kids get old enough to have to put readers on to use your devices like most older people do. And while I am yelling at the kids on my lawn, let me add every UI/UX person at apple - the idiotic and unnecessary choices they make for the sake of "cool design" infuriate me on a daily basis.
Makes it easier to use enterprisey management console type UIs on the go. Also nice for reading large diffs.
I actually develop software on my phone with Termux. I want the biggest screen that still fits in my pocket.
I read PDFs on my foldable phone.
Something is broken on the site. I scroll a bit and then a nag screen locks further reading.
Thats deliberate, heres the archive link: https://archive.ph/3ql6b
http://archive.today/3ql6b
If you look at Google's Android phone market share (currently 1.1% according to https://www.appbrain.com/stats/top-manufacturers), and consider that the foldable version is probably the least popular model in this not-really-popular phone family, it becomes understandable that they're not investing heavily into R&D for it...
I drop my phone a lot, I have a great case for it so not a scratch after 6 years. I am interested in getting the foldable but apparently the cases don't protect the hinge or let dirt get in? Anyone have experience with this? Maybe I'm not the right audience, too clumsy
I think the clumsiness can be improved. I always make a conscious effort when I grab my phone or put it away, so that is is always secure. No "I thought it slid into my pocket but apparently it was still outside it and then dropped". I would grab my phone with both hands in a lot of situations that are risky etc.
It's a bunch of small habits to change, then you may be ready for a fragile foldable. Until then, yes, probably not the target audience!
The Google foldable seems to be the only one with dust and water protection. It has an IP68 rating. Which imo puts it above every other foldable.
You can get covers that shield/protect the hinge
At least for Samsung, when you first turn it on, you get a nice big warning that says the phone is not dust or water resistant, and that you can damage the screen with sharp objects, like your fingernail. [1]
I tried one and permanently dented it on accident with the stylus. Can't image what would happen if you did something crazy like go to a beach.
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/GalaxyFold/comments/1vhhow0/because...
I've taken my OnePlus Open to the beach and it was fine. Multiple times. I don't use any case for my phone
Among other manufacturers Spigen has cases that protect the hinge. I've owned a foldable for 3 years and never had anything get into the hinge thanks to that, though some amount of dust did gather inside the hinge cover over time.
But I would be nervous about spending that much on a phone if you expect to be dropping it a lot, honestly.
I'm tempted to get one to replace my very cracked Pixel 9 Pro XL. With all the incentives Google offers for Google Fi customers it's not all that expensive. Comes out to about $1100 after trade-in and includes a free Pixel Watch 5.
I'm foldable-curious and Samsung just includes too much overlapping bloat "features". Gemini is bad enough, I don't need Bixby and whatever else. Not to mention I would have to pay full price.
> Samsung just includes too much overlapping bloat "features"
Yep, that's a major drawback. My partner has a Samsung phone and seeing all of the included bloatware, plus the terrible updates and add even more, made me not even consider one of their devices last time I bought a phone.
how about any time the system updates it automatically installs gambling apps on my phone?
Are you sure it's not some carrier install? (Which are apparently a thing in the US.)
I have never seen anything like that on a flagship Samsung, nor our daughter's A series.
At work we bought a used tablet off eBay to replace a customer device where they really wanted an identical (obsolete) model. OMG the amount of extra crap that Verizon branded tablet had pre-installed was agonizing. All system apps so you couldn't get rid of it.
It's worth mentioning that on most Android phones and tablets, you can uninstall apps from the user partition even when they are system apps with adb or a UI for it like UAD-ng.
i take the position that it's all dog shit and i dont care whos fault it is, all of these people need to be put in front of a tribunal and justice done
I'm on my last Samsung for this reason. Just way too much bloatware, need to agree to a new privacy policy once a week, and every time it updates I find a few new apps on my phone I didn't want.
Gonna hold out for the Motorola/Graphene phone though. One of the models is supposed to be a flagship foldable.
imo just get a pixel. unlockable bootloader and almost guaranteed support from pretty much every major privacy-related android fork. and many of them are building support for the titan chip if they dont have it already
I also have a Samsung phone besides a Pixel with GrapheneOS and I just ripped out Gemini, most of Bixby, etc. using UAD-ng. It's very clean now, but I still have all the customizability of OneUI, Good Lock, etc.
Unless you really have a large ethical problem with paying for any google product, I'd just recommend to get one of the previous-gen pixel devices. They are a lot cheaper than the Motorola smartphone coming out.
>Comes out to about $1100 after trade-in and includes a free Pixel Watch 5.
Thats expensive :/
it's crazy how normalized spending 1k+ on a phone has become. I can't imagine paying that for a phone that is almost identical in features I care about to something 1/3 the price.
Just be careful about what your actual use case is.
For example, this form factor of foldable doesn’t give you significantly more screen real estate for 16:9 video content since it’s such a square aspect ratio.
They also generally aren’t large enough to take advantage of tablet layouts, while tri-fold designs fold out to be almost identical to a tablet size.
You have to really want to use two apps side by side in my opinion.
The ability to get server-side checks to clear me for tablet mode of PWAs is worth any price, honestly.
I’ll never go back to tiny thin rectangle.
If you run GrapeheneOS on it and use it as your full machine while wired to a display or three, sure.
Otherwise, in no world is $1100 for a cell phone anything but expensive.
Yes, iPhones are also expensive.
It’s $1800; they are applying trade-in and some sort of GoogleFi discount to get it down to $1100.
Nearly $2000 after tax for a phone is fucking absurd.
That’s in the eye of the beholder. Folding phones are unique devices and the best tri-fold designs can legitimately replace a tablet.
A whole lot of people use their phone as their primary and most-used device. I don’t think a high price is insane, it’s just that folks who consider them a utility and a side-device to a desktop computer tend not to feel that way. Many millennials and older who grew up with desktops and laptops probably can’t comprehend the idea of a phone being the only device or primary device.
My iPhone was something like $1300 and I feel like it was worth every penny, and that a cheaper model did not meet my needs and wants.
The other thing I would say is that Pixels are just not high end hardware and they masquerade like they are. They get these insane launch sale deals like we are seeing now and the whole reason for that is because they aren’t competitive with true flagships.
It’s just not really a flagship phone in terms of processor performance.
I know Samsung has a lot more of their garbage software on it but I think if I was in the Android market I’d probably be inclined for a Samsung device over a Pixel. If I lived in Europe or Asia I’d be looking at something Chinese that’s not sold in the US market. Companies like Xiaomi and Huawei make way better phones than Google.
> It’s just not really a flagship phone in terms of processor performance.
I'm curious to know which apps/use-cases you feel are hobbled by the non-flagship processors on Pixels. It feels like most peoples top 3 activities on phones are infinite scrolling inside apps or a browser, taking pictures, and playing games, which Pixels seem to be great at. It's been many years since I felt that a phone that is slow enough to notice - even the midrange ones, and I (used to) write and debug code on my phone.
Gaming is a very common use case where a true high end chipset can help.
4 year old video, but Genshin Impact ran better on the Exynos chip of the time compared to Tensor:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=IG5eTHJfM5U
Sure, 4 years later anything can run Genshin, but the point is that the next new hit game is just around the corner and gamers appreciate the extra performance.
My understanding is also that the pixel’s tensor chip series is not very “flagship” in terms of battery stamina/efficiency when you’re doing heavy tasks such as gaming.
So it’s not always about having the faster processor, you can also benefit by your processor being the most efficient on the market and making the most use of the battery in your chassis.
Video comparison of last year’s phones head to head where the Samsung phone lasts nearly 8 hours longer on video playback:
https://youtube.com/shorts/R_zYmUkafew
Samsung also has these kinds of sales. A bunch of people on a forum I frequent had some Z Fold 8 just north of 1000 Euro with a trade in and by stacking coupons.
Heck, even flagships like the S26 Ultra, which was introduced in March and still dominates the CPU, GPU, etc. charts are currently 500 Euro off in my country.
Even discounted, Pixel have pretty bad prices compared to the competition. The primary reason to buy a Pixel is to run GrapheneOS. Otherwise, just get an iPhone or if you are willing to remove the bloat with UAD some Samsung phone.
From Europe, at this point I don't even look at Pixels because of their sad excuse of a battery. Just buying directly from China better phones for half the price. Oppo, Vivo, Xiaomi are all good, others probably too, Huawei has nice hardware but due to US ban no usable Android.
Interesting, I didn’t realize that the ban went that far — Google can’t even put Google Play on it for European customers then?
I’m now recalling that Huawei does have their own OS that is not based on Android.
In any event, your exact sentiment reflects my feelings. Honor, Xiaomi, Oppo, Vivo, etc etc, what is the Pixel really getting you over those options?
Huawei has their HarmonyOS but still releases Android phones too for international markets - but these can't use Google Services, so they have their own services. If it's possible to somehow install google services I have no idea.
Personally I would perhaps like to use or at least try Pixel's software (I've had some Google-software phones years ago, a Nexus I think? Maybe even some Pixel. And they were fine), but not on that HW.
Google software has changed - a lot. It used to be very strong. Not today.
This is another good point. When the pixel first came out its camera app was industry-leading. I don’t think that is true anymore.
just a heads up, the gpu is actually terrible. it is not even the actual gpu that is the issue but the software
> free Pixel Watch 5.
Personally, I find smart watches a gimmick but maybe I havnt looked into them enough.
I'm on fi and got the fold 8 through fi for a pretty steep discount. It was cash off immediately + fi credits. I can pull up exact details if you care but it was several hundred dollars off split pretty evenly between instant discount and fi credits. Coming from nearly 10 years of pixels/nexus the transition hasn't been that bad. I miss a couple pixel exclusives, but nearly all the samsung bloatware can be disabled or removed entirely. I haven't bumped into bixby once.
One genuine nice Samsung feature is DeX. Been using it + moonlight (when needed) to make the phone basically a secondary computer when hooked up to USB-C monitor. Honestly I think this phone may end up replacing several other devices - kindle, gaming portable (eg: steamdeck, replaced by phone + GameSir G8 + controller), laptop, tablet. I think it can only replace laptop in my use case because I can remote into my desktop from it if I need extra compute - so if you are laptop only I don't expect it to be a straight replacement.
Honestly, best phone I've ever used - but I hope next year either google gets off the sidelines and adopts passport form factor + gets its shit together on the crease, cpu and dex equivalent so I can get my pixel exclusives and vanilla OS back, or alternatively Samsung makes the wide form factor the "ultra" and gives us better cameras, speaker placement, s-pen and IP68.
Foldable phones still feel like a solution in search of a problem to me. Like, what is the actual usecase?
like all folding phones it is just too expensive for me to justify.
Yeah, you can almost buy two phones for that price. There you go, wireless foldable
I can buy at least my 3 last phones with this price
Need bordless phones and a frame to clip them together
Congratulation, you just made Surface Duo.
For me the biggest issue, frequently hearing and reading about broken inner screens, is that it makes the screen a consumable, which socks.
You mostly hear about the bad ones. Mine has been doing great for almost 2 years now. I use it in a clean environment, I'm very careful and not clumsy, so that helps.
Target is probably people only use phones, no note PCs. If you use note, its generally better to tether by phone and view and input from note.
I feel like smartphones are just evolutionary items now, there will be ups and downs in terms of upgrades and that's it.
With google the added question though is, are they losing interest again?
They have been for years. Almost all smartphones have roughly the same set of features, with fashion-like differentiators. You pay more for a premium one and it lasts a bit longer before the never-ending app bloat inevitably renders it obsolete.
The real question these days is: how badly does the software stack screw you over?
I cannot understand how people can tolerate the crease. It's so visible on every foldable. And it's simply not acceptable to my eyes.
Really depends on what you do with the open phone. I can understand it being a huge distraction when watching video with the seam right in the middle. EBook reading? Apps in tablet interface mode? Might as well complain that using two monitors on your desktop is unusable because of the bezels. Doesn't matter in practice.
> EBook reading?
> Might as well complain that using two monitors on your desktop is unusable because of the bezels.
There's a pretty important difference there - monitors don't draw content on the bezels.
If what you're doing is reading an ebook, what advantage is a folding phone supposed to have over a non-folding phone? Reading isn't an activity where you can use more than a small part of the screen at once.
Show multiple pages at once. Makes it easier to go back and forth. It's actually a huge QOL improvement such that I can't stand reading books on a normal phone anymore.
It's not that noticeable when you use the device. It will depend on your ambient lights usually and how you hold it. It's a lot easier to see when someone else is holding the phone too, so if that was your reference, you may want to use them a bit more first.
Dunno. Crease almost invisible when screen is on and not pitch black ( using Honor V3 while actual generation is V6).
Does anyone use one of foldables for more than a year? I know a couple of people who have them and the massive creases seem like they’d be really hard to get used to.
you get used to it almost instantly like within 1 hour of use. But I also have the OnePlus Open which has probably the best hidden crease you can buy besides Oppo which is just the company OnePlus came from
I have pixel 10 Pro Fold. Formfactor: for Pockets. The slim when folded is great for most pockets. I think it's great and I use it in folded and unfolded mode every day depending on what I want to do. Not sure how well the wider one would work with pockets when folded. It's an important feature for me at least.
> A great foldable with IP68 and a reliable triple camera, trapped in a shape everyone else seems to be moving on from.
I never even considered buying a foldable phone, and they're already moving on from that shape.
They aren't moving on from foldable, they are moving on from the shape to a shorter and fatter shaped foldable.
While the form factor does seem nicer for the pocket, and perhaps better when using the cover screen, I fear I would miss the screen real estate of the tall foldable.
Not having to rotate the phone to view either portrait or landscape content is more convenient than I thought.
For me personally, the only valid use case for a foldable phone would be Nintendo DS/3DS emulation. Other than that.... meh, they suck.
I just don't see why you would spend more than double (almost 2K USD!) for the fold phones though. I have large screens in my home to watch high quality video content. I do like the Pixel Pro XL series with 6.8" screens though, but they are a lot cheaper.
While they are more expensive, if price is the only concern, you could get last year's Z Fold 7 for a price similar to the launch price of an iPhone 17 Pro Max.
tbh, too expensive to buy, I would rather buy a samsung with that price
Sadly, I can't read this article due to the hard paywall. Is The Verge actively trying to shrink their readership? Why would I want to subscribe to yet another monthly subscription if I can't even get a taste of what this one is offering?
Who is paying $1900 for not an iPhone?
$1900?
Wow wth
I think a lot of people pay their phones off with a contract over several years.
Signing up for a new phone contract, you start looking at a $600 phone. Thats $25 a month plus $15 for your calls and data, so $40 a month. Then you see the next phone next to it thats only $1200, it's so much better, and you're only paying $65 a month for it.
And then they flash this one in front of you, only $67 a month (just ignore the fact it's now over 3 years instead of 2)! 5 minutes later, you are in.
Enough people that even great Apple got FOMO after this market.
I did buy flagships few times and to be honest I did not regret them.
I kept them longer and I was able to do more... but that was few years ago when phones were getting more powerful for a reason.
Cameras were getting more megapixels to get on par with non digital photography (arguably, if you are not an artist at least) and everything needed to come along, memory, storage, processing and of course screen resolution.
... but again once that was done, which varies for everyone but still, and that is the key part of the argument, reaches a plateau of usefulness for the average user, then everything "more" was really a technical specification d*ck measuring contest. Unless you have superhuman vision, current screens are "good enough" to check your family photos and your work email.
Long story short I went from flaghships to 2nd hand few generations olds Pixel 8 (cheapest I could try GrapheneOS on) and I don't regret that decision at all.
TL;DR: I did, I don't anymore.
PS: before someone argues I don't know what I'm missing as I'm probably not using my phone for much, I do quite a lot on my phone including programming on it (directly on it, not via ssh), streaming videos on video projectors, running qemu for other architectures, etc. I'm not a casual user.
$1900 for green bubbles is crazy. My wife's iPhone 6 still trumps this.
What a shallow way to judge a device. Especially when bad bubbles are Apple's fault.
Texting is the single most important feature on a phone.
Also it's not Apple's fault that MMS was terrible for years and now RCS is still terrible. Google also tried to make their own proprietary chat and failed... like 10 times. But more importantly, I don't care, this is not my battle. I'd use WhatsApp if that's what people did here, not that I like it any better.
Yes it is Apple's fault.
The iMessage app does both SMS, and the iMessage protocol. Apple could have released an android app to let you have blue bubbles on android and communicate securely without any of the constraints of SMS by simply releasing "iMessage for Android".
Somehow Signal, Whatsapp, Telegram, Discord, WeChat, LINE, KakaoTalk, etc etc all manage to have both iOS and Android apps that can message each other, but for some reason the richest company in the world, Apple, cannot manage to port its chat app to one additional platform?
It is 100% Apple's fault that messaging between iOS and Android has had so much dumb "green bubble" friction.
Apple's conflation of the SMS and iMessage protocols has also made it harder for people to realize what's happening. Frankly, Apple should have had two apps from the start (Text Message and iMessage), one of which only spoke SMS, and the other of which only spoke iMessage.
Sure they could've provided a solution, but they didn't create the problem. And they're not a charity. It's like blaming Nvidia for not giving away CUDA for free/cheap.
Btw everyone knows whether they're using iMessage or SMS, that's the whole bubble color thing.
> Btw everyone knows whether they're using iMessage or SMS, that's the whole bubble color thing.
Everyone sorta knows, but because iMessage "feels" like it's just the native messaging app on the phone, it makes people feel like the issue is android (why don't android phones come with this super-sms built in?) rather than apple for not making the app available broadly.
If it were a separate app, then perhaps the EU would have regulated "when setting up iOS, you must get a default option between iMessage, Whatsapp, Telegram, Signal, etc, you must be able to change the default messaging app", and forcing people to install it would make it more obvious that this is Apple implementing a proprietary chat protocol, not Apple just doing SMS better than android.
> they didn't create the problem. And they're not a charity.
Apple did create the problem by creating a walled garden messaging app, banning beeper for implementing the iMessage protocol for android, and tying some of the phone's core functionality to this built-in app in an anti-competitive way.
A certain amount of industry interoperability should be expected. If you make a browser, it should be able to load competitors websites (which nice, safari can load google.com, good work). If you make a computer that can install arbitrary software, you should allow anyone to install software they wrote freely (oops, apple missed that one). And if you make a messaging app or social media app, you should make it support all major operating systems people use so that people can switch their operating systems and phones without losing touch with their friends. I should still be able to facetime my grandma even if I switch to linux because gosh knows she's not going to learn a new video call app.
I get if you want it that way with all social apps being cross-platform, but Apple didn't make the rules. And if it were like that, they'd probably not have invested so much in iMessage, and SMS would be the thing, which would at least be cross-platform.
RCS is not terrible. Apple's implementation of RCS is terrible.
Android users still go on WhatsApp for group chats instead of using RCS. I'm in an RCS group chat with some Android users, and they're always missing messages even between each other. So no I don't buy it. Same with MMS, Google and other phonemakers always blamed Apple, but nobody actually wanted to use MMS even in a full Android group chat.
Maybe RCS between Pixel phones is ok, because that's not the same thing, it goes through Google's servers only. And that was also the only way you got E2EE in RCS until very recently.
I have zero interest in folding phones and only read to kill time while eating, but this review is incredibly irritating. "This isn't exactly like another phone, with a bunch of subjective design differences, therefore it's dated and bad!" I hate this way of thinking so much. Products should be different. There should be small phones and large phones, thin phones and thick phones, rather than scoring them all against the latest fad in order to try to force the market to conform. I hear small phones don't sell well and that's why nobody makes them anymore, but I can't help but wonder if small phone sales are artificially deflated by shitty reviews like this one that punish companies for manufacturing outside the media's anointed design trend.
I didn't read the paywalled article, but this phone looks exactly like the Pixel 9 Pro Fold I used to own.
And that is to say that it looks dated and ugly, particularly compared to Samsung's square phones.
Google's design comes with larger bezels, more weight and thickness, and a bigger crease.
The rounded corners are subjective I guess.
Reviews like this like to exaggerate certain things in order to get a punchy headline ("feels like the end of an era") and to create a matching narrative for the article. To keep readers engaged. Pretty typical for The Verge.
But as far as reviews go, this one is just as bad as most. They didn't do any standardized measurements of the battery life including comparisons with similar phones, or performance benchmarks, or charging speed measurements, or any camera measurements that go beyond vibes. They are just reporting what anyone who bought the phone could also tell you: subjective impressions and a few out-of-context sample photos.
Listen to each person who says he wants a small phone. Is he the kind of person who would even buy the smaller phone if it got released, rather than holding onto an old working phone? Is he also going to spend more money on apps, AirPods, etc, maybe a iPad too? Sometimes yeah, usually not. I'm in that group, I understand why Apple doesn't cater to me.
Also don't think anyone makes buying decisions based on these reviews. It's more entertainment than anything else.
Work on alternative input mechanisms and display options. This gimmicky, look we can fold the phone is a mess and just plain ridiculous. The manufacturers are on this very strange, bullshitty innovation trajectory, where everyone eyes the other and copies everything in an instant.
I hope Samsung (Royole) does a 180 and introduce something groundbreaking soon, of course, after everyone copied their shit.
Well. I, for one, picked up Moto Z Fold, as soon as it has been out, and can't get enough of it. Won't be moving back to candybar phones. Content consumption feels so much more natural, and context window I'm able to see while reading is dramatically larger. And I'm not talking about Youtube etc; regular work or family chats, browsing sites, reading books with Kindle , that kind of stuff. When I was deciding to pick this formfactor, I wanted to read more books. I can't read on a regular phone, too small of a page being displayed is somehow a blocker for me. Not anymore; I'm unfolding my MoFo every now and then.
Even in this article, they repeat the same: what everyone always gives as the advantage of Pixel phones has nothing to do with form factor or even hardware in general. Presumably also because there's not much special about Pixel form factors, but the plusses are almost always the software, features, and "cleanest android" with occasionally the camera mentioned (mostly because people are repeating what phone reviewers say). With the iPhone people sometimes respond that the hardware is a plus, but for Pixel I have never even heard that. For Samsung it's the opposite. People buy Samsung phones for the new and powerful hardware, and on a hardware-capabilities-per-dollar they are fantastic, with occasional mention of the pen integration.
Pixel phones are "great software with a frankly boring phone built around it".
I think this even works for Google: if the hardware ceases to be the differentiating factor as we go on in time, it seems to me Google's position would keep improving over time, certainly over Samsung.
I kept hearing how Pixel is the clean Android software experience, then I got one as a work phone. It honestly felt pretty unintuitive, and I thought that was just how Android is, but then it broke and I got a Samsung replacement... The Samsung UI is surprisingly better. Down to the clock settings.
I have a Samsung S23 Ultra (for the CPU for emulation + the 5G modem). It doesn't even have a clock/alarm app.
Idk, mine has it. You must have some kind of alarm/clock functionality somewhere. The time picker is normal scrollable hh-mm-ss, right? On a Pixel, it's something like an analog clock but also not.
I also can't look on the Pixel anymore, but I remember there were weirdly two different control centers that always got me.
Lol at the verge paywalling
It's in the spirit of the subject matter. Really emphasizes the Fold.
i mean it started nearly 2 years ago...
Yes, but this a medium-length "I tested this phone a few days" article with the intention of getting affiliate revenue. That's the joke. What's next, "Look at this Amazon product listicle" behind a paywall?
This is the same site that ran a front page saying if you vote for Trump you are literally a racist. I liked it better when it was just headphone reviews and holiday gift guides to pump their affiliate revenue. XD
I put those words into google and found nothing, care to point at the article you mean?
> Apple is expected to enter the market with a foldable iPhone
Is it time to bring Jony Ive back?? Have some backbone, Apple...
> that, rumor has it, includes all of the above and adds iOS too.
Ok, this snippy comment is for The Verge - what crack reporting got you the scoop that Apple would be releasing an iOS phone?