Posted by mgh2 2 days ago
My first hand experience is that I will probably never be able to go back to a non-folding phone. The ability to get a small tablet on demand anywhere (subway, train, bed, couch, etc.) is really the next technological breakthrough we were waiting for.
I think the pricing and the battery kinda suck, android also doesn't have the same polish as iOS, but most of the criticism that I've read is not really relevant (for example, I can't see the crease at all if I look at my phone)
I use it a lot to read PDFs and watch videos, or when U want to multi task with two apps open at the same time (e.g. filling forms with a pic of my passport on the other screen). I also read mangas from it. Oh and the ability to use the back camera for selfies while being able to see myself is so great I use that all the time.
As someone who switched from using Android for many years to iOS for the iPhone Mini, this seems to be all about what you're used to. The lack of polish on iOS for many features, notifications and quick settings first among them, makes me crazy but not enough to deal with a huge phone. Android's had the notification shade with integrated settings since just about day one and it's a killer feature.
But Apple devices take a bit longer to go obsolete, and seem just a tiny bit less invasive as they don't rely on an advertising model for revenue.
But the iOS keyboard was completely unusable for me as a power user, and it cannot be replaced. I was missing so many features of Gboard. I absolutely could not consider an iPhone or any other replacement phone for that matter, if it does not support Gboard.
Gboard is crippled on iOS — why can’t we just have a damn comma on the main screen?! And why can't I just get my keyboard to be at the very bottom of my screen.
It's 2025 and we have gone so far backward.
edit: i can type without looking again! i hate that this was the issue.
The iOS keyboard puts absolute gibberish in there in ways it never did for me before.
The Apple AI predictive text seems strictly worse.
It looks the same but behaves differently enough that I have a hard time believing it shares code. When I turn off swipe, my tap accuracy goes MASSIVELY up, and a lot of the autocorrect screwiness seems to abate considerably. I can go back to blind thumb typing.
That said, swipe is so useful, I’ve left it on, and I deal with the degraded tap behavior. But maybe that’s a trade-off for you to consider.
I assume it's something to do with distinguishing swipes from taps with both active, but it really is a marked difference.
I used to smoothly type without looking on iOS. It was like magic. Now, it's just a mess. I think gboard on Android is the current top experience.
Why DOES everything seem to get worse? I can hear the Doctorow fans coming out of the woodwork to tell me it's "enshittification" but that's a cute conspiracy theory that doesn't explain at all why Google would allow Messages to have a memory leak after working fine for years.
There's no profit motive to making a core application shittier.
We have to dig deeper, because this kind of thing is everywhere and hand waving at capitalism like Doctorow does is a cop out and an unsatisfying explanation IMHO
Of course written by some cheap devs from India or Bangladesh.
If the code was even still written by a human at this point.
If you're still on Android, try FUTO keyboard. I found the voice-to-text feature to actually be on par with Google's, but without the delay of a phone-home.
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/gboard-the-google-keyboard/id1...
I'm not sure of another reason.
Google is collecting data but I do not see adverts in the OS.
I would say, though that in the year of our Lord 2025, largely hardware is good enough that the animations never stutter on android anymore, an android applications have largely converged on similar UI paradigms.
So I think the issue with criticism is that people hold in the heads for a very long time, I mean a clear example is how people think Linux is extremely user hostile, despite most metrics of what makes something user hostile being significantly superior on most widely available in the next distributions except of course the power user focused ones. Whereas Windows 11 and macOS clearly do not give a shit about breaking muscle memory or having UI inconsistency.
Criticisms live longer in our minds than they do in reality.
Maybe most people need more, but it annoys me greatly that it tries to be more than simple misspell fixer.
Entification will only continue from here on both parties since they've achieved duopoly status, so as a customer you can only pick the lesser of two evils.
For me notifications are generally more annoying than they are useful, and this doesn’t change under Android. In fact the emphasis that Android puts on them in the shade really sucks for me because it’d much rather have the quick settings pane fully visible than room for a couple more notifications — having to swipe again to see all the toggles is super annoying. So for me, the split shade that iOS does where swiping down on the top right edge of the screen shows only your quick toggles is preferable.
Some people basically live in their notifications, though. I’ve never been able to understand it, but they do, and so the Android way works better for them.
I think there are also less subjective aspects though, like the choice of animation curves through much of Android feels “wrong” somehow and different from almost everything else else out there, including Windows, Linux desktops, etc.
Just FYI, on Samsung Android Devices this is implemented as you describe.
Useless info: I think the feature was first implemented on Android 3 (Honeycomb) but then abandoned again on Android 4 (ICS)
iOS (and Apple overall) tends to be more opinionated. It says, “Do things our way and you’ll have a smooth experience.” Android, by contrast, has historically been more of a flexible “toolkit.” That gave you room to shape the platform to your liking, though it often meant less guidance and structure.
In recent years, Android has shifted toward more out-of-the-box convenience, closing some of that gap. But ultimately, it comes down to what you value: iOS offers a cohesive, guided experience, while Android gives you more leeway to adapt things if you don’t agree with the defaults. Neither approach is inherently better—it’s about what fits you.
The only, literally only thing she liked was the seamless integration of airpods with phone, hated literally everything else about the hardware and mainly iOS/software. Too dumbed down for her, some trivial things she does often are simply not possible on iOS and that's it, no way on earth to change that without voiding warranty, if at all.
So now she bought Samsung S24 and couldn't be happier. The switch made airpods pro basically useless or more like supremely annoying to use (there's an anti-competitive case or two against Apple in this, degradation is very obvious and on purpose), so she gave them away and happy with whatever plugs she picked up from ocean of available and good enough hardware for her use.
My boss is same story - bought into Apple ecosystem with some older pro max variant maybe 5-6 years ago, then of course airpods and watches followed. The very definition of power user. Switching now back to android (pixel 10 pro), hates the products at this point.
These are people who don't care about price much but want best usability and convenience for them. From opposite side of spectrum of users. Me, I never had A device and probably never will, but I respect them for success and innovation they bring to the whole industry. Good competition literally helps everybody in long run.
I like a lot of Apple's hardware, and as of now I'm still "all in" on their ecosystems. I have the phone, watch, AirPods, iPad, macbook both for work and personal use, even an Apple TV box.
I can't stand iOS, but the only reason its "better" for me is just because I take advantage of all the other Apple devices and proprietary protocols + I prefer Apple Music over Spotify.
If third parties were allowed to also use AirDrop, shareplay/airplay, clipboard sharing, etc. then I'd dump my iPhone in a heartbeat. But, I love my apple silicon macs too much to get rid of those, and KDE connect isn't great on it, so I'm effectively "stuck"
"But for the most part, it seems like third-party Android apps don’t even try to achieve the look-and-feel comfort, fun, and panache of iOS apps." (referring to Android Mastodon clients vs iOS Mastodon clients)
Is nobody allowed to make any subjective judgement about apps?
Also, how Apple seems to deliberately avoid including a shortcut to the full settings anywhere in the control center or the shade. It honestly feels like one of those stubborn Apple things where at one point they decided Android including a settings shortcut (gear icon on the shade) was somehow an admission that its quick actions were poorly designed and iOS is above that.
To clear all, swipe down on the top left to show Notification Center. You should see an X button right of the words “Notification Center”.
If you want to launch an app from control center, open control center (swipe down from the battery icon), press and hold on a clear area until you’re able to edit it. Add a control. Scroll down until you see the Shortcuts controls and pick Open App, then pick Settings.
2. This is actually helpful thanks, don’t think of using a shortcut and making one myself!
I'm 99% convinced that the iPhone Air is the crippled child of Apple's intention to make a foldable.
They couldn't nail the foldable part (for the time being at least) so they just launched the Air with the things they nailed about the design.
> android also doesn't have the same polish as iOS
Could you provide examples here? Don't get if this is a "feels" thing.
The things that imho iOS really nails better are: - integration with devices (in the same Apple ecosystem) - battery life when browsing
What else?
Foldables are just so nice; the flip style for me is especially convenient since it is more compact in a pocket. I also feel like we're almost to the tipping point where we can consider folding displays solved to the point that new generations start having marginal iterations (as opposed to "wow, the crease is so much smaller!" and "Oh look, they finally got foldables IP68 rated!").
Here's part of the list of warnings I saw when I setup a Samsung Fold for someone else:
> Don't press the screen or under display camera with a sharp object such as a pen or fingernail. Doing so can result in scratches, dents, or damage to the screen.
> This phone isn't dust-proof. Exposure to small particles such as sand may cause damage.
I live close to the beach, so very often have a bit of sand in my pocket. Seems like these phones wouldn't last a weekend.
When you get sand in the hinges, it's pretty annoying and difficult to clean out. I was always nervous about taking my phone out on the beach.
That's tough living in Florida, the whole state is basically a giant sand bar.
I also actually didn't like the fold part. Most of what I do on a phone is read Kindle or browse the web.
For Kindle, the phone was uncomfortable to hold with one hand for long periods to read.
Web browsing was worse than a normal phone because many common sites like weather.com have responsive design that get very confused and unusable with that "in-between" size. The display on the outside of the phone that you can use while it's closed was so tiny and narrow it was unusable as well.
The whole thing was heavy and clunky feeling. (This was the most recent galaxy fold, the pixel one may be better)
I was pretty happy to go back to a normal form factor.
And it does increase the size of videos somewhat, compared to using the outer screen in landscape orientation.
Probably because of all the AI integration stuff. You don't get something for nothing. Turn on battery saver, data saver, and decrease brightness (and refresh rate if possible). Still, You have three screens worth of volume taking away space for a larger battery. That's the deal with folders.
After a little bit digging, it turns out, I wasn't the only one. A lot of people had complained about the lagginess around iPhone launch dates. This is an old graph from Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd....
This is actual data from Google trends: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=iphone%2...
You can clearly see a spike in as recent as September 2025. But, the camera data was the last straw for me. As a photographer who paid $1000+ for the iPhone Pro Max - supposedly their latest and greatest phone of the time, only to get screwed over by greed 2 years later, I had enough.
I sold the iPhone at a loss, got myself a Samsung Note and I actually took pictures of the same hotel again and the difference was stark. That really told me everything I needed to know about Apple's ethics. In contrast, I also have a Samsung S10+ from ages ago and it still functions flawlessly. The trade off clearly is privacy with the Android eco-system, but until we have a decent Apple alternative that's also privacy focused, I'm forced to accept this trade off.
Funnily enough, my iPad and Macbooks never get slowed down, even if it's 5+ years. It's only for the iPhones. I guess they view the iPhone as fast fashion or something, but the ethical component is not acceptable to me.
The .0 releases of iOS have been getting worse lately and are not great, but usually by .2 or .3 it's fine if not better on the older devices.
I think the annual release schedule is too much for Apple to the point that now the .0 release is effectively a public beta. Especially if there are any big changes. iOS 26 RC is laggy on my 16 Pro Max, which without a doubt can absolutely handle it, it's just a buggy mess still. I'm sure that by .2 it'll be fine.
only if I cannot reasonably access a computer will i use a thumb-typing touchscreen device to do serious work. as computing devices, they are sub-par when compared to desktops. as telephones, they are subpar compared to dumbphones
How do you go back on iOS? Oh yeah it depends on which app and sometimes even where you are within one app. On android? Use the navigation bar or the same back gesture, every time all the time.
Polish is also about visual consistency and Android is behind on that front.
It is the most obvious though, having to tap right at the top left (usually) of the screen for the most frequently used action is incomprehensible.
For what it's worth, I don't have the navigation bar at the bottom. I just use gestures, so anywhere I swipe off screen to on screen, it's considered a back gesture. Which, once you get used to it, you cannot go back. Well, you can. By swiping. ;}
Its like wearing a thong or being locked in chastity.As a male I dont understand why people people wear those things.
If that’s close it’s not why Samsung‘s market share increased so much. That was for ALL foldable phones of all brands. That wouldn’t make statistical sense.
There are people who like foldable phones. Apple does not have them. And Samsung‘s market share went up.
Thats all we know. The rest is a catchy headline.
I also bet the numbers will change now that the 17 is out. These things are cyclical, and whomever releases first in a year typically gets a small boost. Samsung releases phones twice a year, Jan/Feb and July typically, while Apple is once a year in the fall.
These numbers are also only for one quarter.
Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see Android's market share increase in the US, and I say that as an iPhone user. Apple's marketshare, especially amongst young people in the US is not beneficial at all, it's effectively a monopoly, and with iMessage popularity here it causes a communications lock-in effect. But, I'm doubtful without seeing a full years worth of numbers or a more consistent increase.
Or maybe people are finally tired of Apple stagnating and are finally open to trying the other side.
It would give the idea of foldable phones a big visibility boost so more people would know they exist, thus perhaps more would buy them.
Think about how popular MP3 players were before the iPod, and how popular they were after even for non-Apple ones. It raised a lot of awareness.
It’s an interesting idea. Personally I have a hard time seeing a foldable phone being something I would be interested in. But I’m curious to see Apple’s take.
I'm still skeptical on that happening though. I don't think the screen tech is ready for an Apple quality device yet, and Apple is historically very into device separation - they try not to blur the lines between their products. iPad will never be a mac, macs will never have touch screens, I have a hard time seeing them making a phone that effectively becomes an iPad mini.
Better than 1.7%? Sure. Better than 5% I doubt it.
Here are some things to know about folding phones
1. They're like expensive cars. Do not own one without a warranty
2. As soon as the new model comes out, swap it in
3. If you're into smaller phones, they're a good option
4. They are not for the financially conscious. Those things are kind of a status symbolCurious to hear more about this. I don't mind thickness so much. How small are they? If I can get a decent phone with a <= 5" screen, I'd be ecstatic.
May have to get my hands on one some time and see how it feels.
I look at the prices and wonder how some of the people I see with them can afford them. But using them is probably many people's favorite hobby at this point?
I doubt many are dropping $2,000 cash on the new phones but are more likely getting it financed as part of their phone plan.
Funny I saw someone who's phone was so zoomed in the letters were massive in the messaging app, I thought they mistakenly did that but it was on purpose.
And yeah, being able to make the letters huge is a big deal. Also being able to dictate texts or emails was also huge for a lot of the people there. Much more convenient for them.
[1] Reviewer comparison: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45209164
[2] Specs: iPhone Air: 5.64mm, 165g vs. Samsung Edge: 5.8mm, 163g, 200MP camera, stereo, larger battery
https://www.facebook.com/theapplehubofficial/posts/galaxy-s2...
[3] Demand by young man: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44678489
https://www.canalys.com/newsroom/us-smartphone-market-q2-202...
The only drawback is the camera but turns out it's much easier to carry a dedicated camera (Canon g7xm3 in my case) than a dedicated reading device / tablet.
I haven't tried any foldable phones and I have no intention to anytime soon, but with other samsung phones my experience has been completely different. I've only ever used Samsung smartphones, and the only times they broke was when I dropped them or mishandled them myself somehow. My current one is past the 6 year mark, and I have no issues with it. It still keeps 48 hours of battery with my normal use (though that might not be saying much considering my normal use is different from most people's normal use of watching videos for hours)
Great hardware that nearly always impresses. Very infrequent hardware issues compared to its main competitors (in the android space).
Extremely annoying software experience. Locked bootloader aside, as I recognize that's only an issue for a very small group. But the software goes through these intense hills and valleys where you can go a long time without updates, with bugs, with bloat, with problems. Then a burst of updates that seem to address many of those issues, then it just slides back into the shit. And the amazing hardware is dragged down in this cycling, to the point where the phone will feel old at an accelerated rate. I've hard that exact complaint about apple and a few other android manufacturers many times but only Samsung has genuinely given me that experience.
It's very unfortunate. If they unlocked the bootloader I could bypass the software issues myself and have damn near the perfect phone.
Chris Young has a video about this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbaZpJ1AhFU
A forced reboot error first occurred between 6,000 and 10,000 folds, and the same error repeatedly appeared at roughly every 10,000 folds afterward (e.g., around 16,000, 26,000, etc.).
Around 46,000 folds, creaking noises started coming from the hinge.
At 75,000 folds, an unknown black liquid came out of the hinge, but it has not appeared again.
At 175,000 folds, all speakers (earpiece, top, and bottom) stopped working.
The hinge has become smoother. Free-stop still works, but elasticity seems to be lost.
The speakers failing at 175K folds seems like the major failing point. I suppose bluetooth would probably still be working so you could still limp through day-to-day activities.
"The best camera is the one you carry" is about opportunistic capture of moments i.e. it's better to record them on anything than nothing. That doesn't always work. I've lost more moments than I gained on a smartphone camera which won't focus on what I want, does weird uncorrectable things with white balance, has a pretty nasty digital zoom, or has gunk on the lens from being handled.
Me too, but this option is disappearing. As our minis reach end of life, I don't think we'll have other "small" options than foldables, unless you're willing to go for super niche android phones (eg unihertz)
Hopefully the foldables become more resilient by then
Seem to always have reliability issues with Samsung phones. Hopefully the 6th iteration is more stable.
The one with a pixel final break was when he landed in Belize to start a vacation and the screen died. Entire vacation he had to borrow wife’s iPad mini to read.
Plus, you no longer need to deal with buying and maintaining a separate device like an iPad! This is why I suspect Apple is dragging its feet on the foldable category, besides letting the screen technology mature. It will probably cannibalize some sales from that market segment.
I find my phone much more comfortable to hold than a book. It fits my hand.
You only read one sentence at a time anyway. I rather scroll, keeping the current sentence in the middle of the screen than jump around with my eyes in an open book, and having to turn pages, or keeping them flat.
Am I missing something? (Real question. I read a lot!)
Nah, I'd say most digital books are probably PDFs.
Not how I read when I read on paper & this bothers me on a phone a lot.
I'm not functionally dyslexic, but all the words pop out at the same time, you could say I read verbs, then tense, nouns after and then I read adjectives in a sentence.
But English is also my second language, so my first language's grammar probably fits closer.
Oddly enough when I first encountered lisp, the nested pile of map, fold and filter was easier because of the well trained habit of restructuring after reading verbs.
1) Some books have images, charts, tables, etc. The screen size makes a big difference for these.
2) The format of the "book". Reading a PDF for example is much better on a bigger screen.
https://www.arts.gov/stories/blog/2024/federal-data-reading-...
Though I agree with you that a larger reading screen would be very nice, I doubt such an experience on a device that offers endless digital distractions will reverse this downward trend - not that you said it would.
Also I doubt that Apple's foldable phone will cost the same or less than Samsung's, as is suggested in the article...
I've found a much easier solution to this problem.
For your second, I think you don’t understand why people buy/use iPads. First off, I don’t really know anyone who uses an iPad mini for anything productive (other than as a test device). A 7-9” screen is just not useful compared to a 13” iPad for things like Sidecar or reading sheet music in live performances. The 7-9” screen being an unfolded phone doesn’t change this.
A folding iPhone could eat the iPad mini, but that’s never been a cash cow for Apple or something power users cared about - it’s more of an “iPod touch” for kids. (And frankly, the Switch 2 kind of obsoletes it.) The thing that would eat 13” iPads’ lunch is something more like Apple Vision.
For me personally, it's my travel machine. I've done all sorts of things with it on the road. From SSH to using Photoshop to make some last minute edits. It (barely) fits in my pockets so I don't even need a bag for it. Probably my favorite machine ever at least in terms of form factor.
Screen size does seem to be a personal choice. For me, I've always liked small screens for portability. I'm the weirdo who actually got work done on the first gen Asus EEE PC and didn't mind it. But I can understand that wouldn't be for everyone.
My normal international travel load-out is a backup smart phone + an 8" LTE tablet with eSIM + bluetooth keyboard. It's about as minimal as I can get while still having a real keyboard and functional screen size to handle travel logistics.
I guess you don't know many pilots? :)
This is the app they use https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ForeFlight
I did try one, the Pixel 9 Pro Fold for 6 months before going back to iOS (I'm too deep on the ecosystem, but I like to try Android again every once in a while).
I think I only used it unfolded like three times. It was pretty much pointless for me.
Anything I need a bigger screen for, I almost always have either my laptop or iPad with me for that. I don't WANT to do things on my phone, I actually want to use it less - a foldable offers the alternative deal, where you want to and actively use your phone for more and more tasks forgoing other devices.
Not for me, probably never will be.
Consequently, probably why I might be "downgrading" from a pro max down to the new iPhone Air. No bulk, no excessive camera array...just a thin, light phone.
Microsoft and Apple have already proven that students are willing to shell out the money to buy $1000+ products just to take hand written digital notes on. If Samsung or someone else could create a foldable that's in the ~$1500 range that can fold out into the size of an ipad mini AND has a good pen usage and storage situation, I believe it will sell incredibly well.
It'd be so cool to be able to walk to a lecture with only your phone.
That said, these days I use a Samsung Galaxy Note 10+, Amazon Kindle Scribe w/ Premium Pen, Samsung Galaxy Book 3 Pro 360, and when at a desk, a MacBook and Wacom One display, all with Wacom EMR --- no folding devices, since there doesn't yet seem to be one which uses the normal frequencies (most recent foldables used the same frequency for the stylus as is usually used for the eraser?!?).
I'd give a lot for a competitor to the Lenovo Yoga Book 9i which used a Wacom EMR stylus, or for a phone which used a standard Wacom EMR stylus.
The form factor doesn’t lend itself to storing a comfortably sized “pencil” along with the phone, and god forbid an Apple accessory exist that doesn’t feel perfectly integrated with the product it goes with.
To people (like me) who want bigger screens, your comment reads akin to "Imagine that you need to grab your phone because you need a 6" screen, now instead you can just flip out a second screen from your Apple Watch and have a 2.5" screen."
I’m put off by how Samsung monetise every data source they’re trusted with though. E.g. TV viewing, phone data, Samsung Pay, forced analytics, etc.
As a brand they don't seem to have any restraint when it comes to user privacy.
I'd like a foldable but not so much to pay $1300 for the Razr.
AT&T doesn't have low end Motorolas so I bought an unlocked, guaranteed to work with AT&T, sub $300 one directly off motorola.com and took it to the AT&T store.
So far it's left me alone.
I'd to see some evidence for this claim. It seems to be a ridiculous offhand claim to make in this era of late stage capitalism. Flagship phones owners are wealthier, their data is more valuable for customer acquisition. Why in god's name would those penny pinchers leave that kind of money on the table? It makes no sense. It's not like flagship phone owners can track whether their data is being sold any better than low end phone owners.
They might make it harder to turn data collection off in low end phones, but that says nothing of their desire to be able to sell the data of flagship phone owners.
It starts with Samsung's app icons. They all feel like a cheap knockoff of either Apple or Google to me.
I don't want to get a device where the UI looks like this.
Other than that, the Z-Fold 7 looks like a great device. I hope Google catches up.
Out of all the companies, Google and Samsung are by far the most secure companies in terms of breaches and the magnitude of those breaches.
Of course, not going to that next step would be ideal, but at least you have some control over your choice on security.
You don't think those vulnerabilities are going to leak out during the 4 months that OEMs have them before patches are pushed out?
Google has chosen to sacrifice security for marketing.
Ever wanted a smaller phone? That's a flip phone, it just happens to expand when you need it. Ever drop your phone and damage the screen ? The closed flip phone is super sturdy. Ever wanted to put your phone on the table and use it with one hand, laptop style? Flip. Even in general use, having it slightly bent towards you is a nicer experience that a fully flat phone.
Yes, it has a slight crease in the middle, it has never bothered me even a little. And now, there's an actual microcrack across the crease, doesn't really bother me either, but for some people it might. Look forward to improvements in the next generations.
I also got the Clicks physical keyboard case for it, which turns it into a modern Blackberry type phone. I love it. The physical keyboard means no on-screen keyboard taking up your external screen space. I only actually open my phone a few times a day, which really helps keep doomscrolling at bay. Full discloser, the keyboard isn't perfect and definitely has some quirks and tradeoffs but on the whole I'm glad I got it.
Having both a phone and tablet in your pocket is phenomenal. I don't think I can go back at this point. Apple knows this, which is imo why the rumor is the new iPhone 17 will have a fold option for a higher price. If you think it's gimmicky, you haven't tried it yet.
Either they have good form factor closed but they suck open or they have good form factor open but they suck closed. They could go with no external screen but it would be much more annoying to use. And I think it says something fundamental about smartphones, that Steve Jobs intuitively understood: it's a good tool when you can pull it out of your pocket and use it in seconds (preferably one-handed when possible). Having a bigger screen but that needs to be unfolded doesn't add any benefits to this primary need and ends up requiring a lot of compromises (weight/volume, compromising pocket ability) for uses cases that are infrequent and would be better served by a typical table anyway. Funnily enough, in those situations you are quite likely to have the bag to carry this solution so the foldable phone becomes moot.
To make things worse, they are ridiculously expensive, often more than what it would cost to buy both an equivalent phone and tablet, which is at the same time stupid and genius. And yes, this is precisely why they are a social status thing. You have to be quite affluent to buy something so practically stupid, you are basically burning cash.
I find folding phones interesting for what they so aptly demonstrate about life in general: no matter how hard you try, you can't have it both ways.
I'll say this: I live in France and when Apple announced the first iPhone, I imported it from the US at great costs. So, it's not like if I am a luddite, I'm just able to understand what's good and useful while you may not.
Here is the thing, people are buying foldables only to show off, the functionality/usefulness makes no sense for the vast majority of people. Which is why they are still expensive and it will stay that way.
Even tech reviewers with infinite choices and zero affordability issues are not using them. If they were any good, they would be using them daily, but it's not the case.
What I'm saying about the first iPhone is that it was good and useful on release day, even though it was a flawed product missing many things that would only come later. And the cost wasn't a problem.
We have had many generations of foldables with improvement/refinements everywhere and they are still nowhere close to being ubiquitous or mainstream. At its 4th generation, Apple was selling 50 million iPhones globally even though it was one of the most expensive phones you could buy. We are in the 6th or 7th generation of foldable and they are not reaching anywhere near those numbers. Even if the price would come close to a regular smartphone it's doubtful that most would pay up because there are other compromises.
Fundamentally, foldables are niche products for tech geeks or people who like to show off, they will stay niche, just like VR and 3D before them.
I have been right on both of those before, do you want to make a bet?
Particularly so if the content has a table, grid, or similar.
Typing isn't perfect, but it's somewhat better.
Photos and images are so much better on the foldable.
For videos the advantage isn't so great, but at least you don't need to rotate the phone. You can watch both horizontal and vertical content.
Considering how most customers prefer a large phone, I'd rather bet on foldables becoming the default.
I bought mine because it's useful, it's weird to read that someone would think that it's a status symbol. Are noise canceling headphones a status symbol too for you?
When making selfies on a regular phone, you use the front-facing camera which is often sub-par. But with the Samsung Folds, you use the main camera for selfies (you flip open the phone, and see the viewfinder on the outside screen).
Samsung's current, Fold 7, is 8.9mm closed. Turns out you can actually go thinner than a thin slab like Samsung Edge (5.8mm) or iPhone Air (5.6mm) because you can move components out of one side and put them in the other, including battery. This lets Samsung build a foldable that's 4.2mm when open, meaningfully slimmer than either the Edge or Air.
My guess is Apple's book-style foldable will be ~4mm open and ~8.5mm closed and just edges out Samsung's Fold 8 when they ship next year.