5 Reasons Foldable Phones Are a Bad Idea

5 Reasons Foldable Phones Are a Bad Idea

Smartphones used to come in all shapes and sizes — there were phones with keyboards, phones with rotating cameras, and phones with 3D screens. Smartphone design has standardized around the flat, glass slab in recent years, but things are starting to get weird again. Multiple smartphone makers seem to think 2019 is the time to make science-fictional folding phones a reality.

Devices like the Samsung Galaxy Fold and Huawei Mate X look cool in demos, but foldable phones are probably a long, long way from being any good. Here are five reasons the current crop of devices is going to be bad.

Even “Nice” Plastic Screens Are Still Plastic

Everyone thought Apple was crazy to put a big glass screen on the original iPhone, but that turns out to have been a good idea. Glass adds to the structural strength of your phone, and modern hardened glass is very difficult to scratch. Foldable phones are plastic because there’s no such thing as folding glass (yet).

You encounter a lot of things throughout the day that are harder than plastic, but few that are harder than Gorilla Glass. While your flat smartphone can ride around in your pocket or bag with keys, pens, and coins, a foldable phone might come out looking likes a scuffed mess. Oh, your phone folds inward like the Galaxy Fold? Good luck never getting dust trapped in there when you close it.

The Mate X looking weird after a few folds.
The Mate X looking weird after a few folds.

You might also have noticed Samsung and Huawei are cautious about how they demo these new foldables. That’s because they’re hiding how weird the screens can look. As more people get hands-on with the phones, it has become clear that the plastic covers have creases down the middle, and these might get worse over time. The texture of the screen is also uneven with undulating ripples from repeated folding and unfolding. This is more obvious when you see them from an angle.

They Will Break Eventually

Perhaps you think the plastic screen tradeoff is no big deal. At least the screen won’t shatter when you drop it, right? Well, don’t count on foldable phones being particularly durable. All folding phones include a complex hinge system that’s going to fail eventually, and we’ve been through this before. Consumers progressively shied away from phones with hinges, sliders, and other moving parts because they broke at a much higher rate than devices that are just a chunk of metal and glass.

5 Reasons Foldable Phones Are a Bad Idea

Maybe the folding bits of these phones will last for thousands of cycles on average, but that’s the average. Some of them won’t. Samsung talked up its custom geared hinge system, which does look impressive. Still, the more moving parts you add, the more likely something is to break. There are already enough factors making phones disposable. We don’t need to add more.

App Support Will Never Arrive

Before you spend the cash on a foldable phone, you have to first think about why you’d want one in the first place. Do you just really need a tablet in your pocket all the time? Don’t expect miracles. Android apps didn’t work well on tablets, and there’s no reason to think it’ll be any better with foldables.

I’m sure developers will get right on this.
I’m sure developers will get right on this.

Android foldables will support new split-screen modes that look neat in demos. However, most people don’t need three live updating apps visible simultaneously. They just need one app that works well on the screen. Google will give developers some half-baked tools to make apps work better on folding phones, and next to zero apps will be updated. So, you’re just back to the classic problems with Android tablet apps.

One of the primary drivers in making phones larger is video playback, and foldables don’t help with that. Well, unless you really like black bars.

The Designs Are Still Clunky

Converting your phone into a tablet is the selling point of foldables, but how often will people really do that? If you wanted to carry what is essentially a tablet around all the time, you could just buy a tablet. We can safely assume anyone using a foldable phone will use it folded most of the time because it’s easier to hold. However, these phones all look like absolute bricks, and there’s no reason to expect that to change anytime soon.

5 Reasons Foldable Phones Are a Bad Idea

The Galaxy Fold is a whopping 17mm thick when closed. If you’re wondering what that’ll feel like, just tape two regular phones together. Even with all that girth, the battery capacity is only a tiny bit larger than a conventional phone. The slightly move svelte Mate X is still 11mm thick, and one edge remains that thick when you unfold the screen.

With a foldable, you’re trading all the ergonomic niceties of modern phone design just so you can unfold your device into a tablet a few times per day. That’s not a good tradeoff.

They Cost Too Much

You have to expect that being an early adopter comes with higher prices as companies roll out new materials and technologies. For example, Samsung’s Note Edge with the first curved OLED was about 20 percent more than the regular Galaxy Note of that era. Apple charged about 30 percent more for the iPhone X when it launched alongside the iPhone 8.

The price bump for a foldable phone in 2019 isn’t 20, 30, or even 50 percent. These phones are more than twice as expensive as the current top-of-the-line flat smartphones. Samsung is asking about $2,000 for the Galaxy Fold, and the Mate X will be even more at around $2,600. These are not reasonable prices for consumer (or even luxury) electronics. The obscene pricing is a sign that foldable phone technology isn’t ready for prime time. Yet, companies are pushing it on us like this is the next big thing. In reality, it’s years away from viability.

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