[dmitrybrant]

> Samsung is hoping the launch of its foldables will help level out these losses

Very serious question: Who is asking for foldable phones? Who is saying, "You know what's missing from my phone? More moving parts! A huge hinge for crumbs to get stuck in! I just can't enjoy this app unless it's in a square form factor and a crease in the center!"

[seizethegdgap]

I'd love a phone that converts to a tablet, but I'm not about to pay more than I paid for my desktop computer. That, and I'm hoping someone figures out a "rollable" phone without a waterfall screen instead.

https://www.theverge.com/2020/11/17/21571056/oppo-x-2021-rol...

https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/tcl-rollable-phone-concept-...

https://www.theverge.com/2022/7/12/23205814/lg-rollable-phon...

[Johnny555]

I used to ask the same question about cameras on phones, who is asking for these? Low resolution, terrible low light performance, and who wants to look at photos on a low quality phone display, if you have to load pictures on your computer anyway, why not just use a dedicated camera and get much better photos? I “knew” that with the space constraints in a phone, the camera would never approach the quality of a “real” camera.

Then, of course, the technology advanced (hardware and software) and my phone has replaced both my point and shoot and DSLR cameras (even if picture quality can’t quite replace good lenses and a big sensor, the convenience outweighs it, no more dragging along a big camera bag on vacation)

I’d love to have a reliable and inexpensive folding phone so I could have a big screen when I want it (like while commuting or on an airplane) but I can fold it up to a much smaller form factor when I don’t want the big screen.

[lucidguppy]

I think things like folding and cameras on phone isn't why you go out looking for a phone.

It's just to nudge you towards their product when you're given the choices.

[tnel77]

Because of our children, I think the camera is the main selling point for my wife. She almost exclusively uses her phone for taking pictures and sending them to family.

[tweetle_beetle]

To use your own analogy, you would like the folding phone from 20 years in the future (reliable and inexpensive). It sounds like you didn't want the camera phone of today in its infancy.

I think the parent is asking who wants the folding phone of today, and, by extension, why is the strategy of a large organisation relying on this market?

[Johnny555]

>the parent is asking who wants the folding phone of today

The answer to that is simple -- the people that are buying it.

You don't get the folding phone of tomorrow without first getting the folding phone of today, and some people want it badly enough that they are willing to pay a premium and suffer through its technological shortcomings.

[jsnell]

Presbyopia starts kicking in at around 40-45 years of age, and makes reading on a phone screen increasingly difficult. It's hard to make the text large enough even with the largest of today's normal phone screens, especially considering the aspect ratio. The foldables fix that issue. Not only is the screen larger, but the aspect ratio is much closer to what you want for reading.

I fully expect my next phone to be a foldable just due to this.

[forinti]

I don't get it. You need glasses anyway for everything else.

I've started using glasses and I'm not interested at all in getting a foldable.

What I would like is something like an Ubuntu phone. And better batteries.

[seanmcdirmid]

> I don't get it. You need glasses anyway for everything else.

When you get older, you often start needing two pairs of glasses (or bifocals). One for things far away (the glasses you drive with) and one for things much closer (computer, phone, etc...).

[jsnell]

Right. And at least I find phone use to be markedly different from e.g. computer use in this respect. It happens on the go, unpredictably, and not for very long at a time. I'm totally fine swapping to a different set of glasses when sitting down to work on a computer for three hours, but it's a much bigger hassle to do for a lot of phone use cases.

(I don't like any kind of varifocals.)

[seanmcdirmid]

I use fancy bifocals for that (varifocals?). It becomes more needed as I get closer to 50. I guess that will be even more important at 60…sigh.

[Tagbert]

And that is why my glasses have a progressive prescription. Works pretty well. However there are other changes in eyes that make smaller text a little harder to read that glasses cannot address. Cataracts can start appearing and impact image quality. Eyes can become dryer and focusing on small text can be tiring.

[seydor]

Or just increase the size of fonts. Samsung's font is actually pretty readable so i don't see this being a problem. A phone has to have a manageable small size to be useful.

OTOH they have removed sensors and ports because they want to sell more watches, which is infuriating

[baby]

Pdfs, videos

[adastra22]

Get reading glasses.

[happytoexplain]

The appeal of a big screen that fits in your pocket is obvious. The downsides certainly might outweigh that, but the reasoning is not a mystery like you're implying.

[solardev]

What good would a bigger screen in my pocket be? My current phone is already uncomfortably large. It's not like my thumbs or palms are getting any bigger. I wish they made smaller Pixel phones, not bigger.

[Philpax]

What if you had a small phone that could become big on demand, for enhanced content consumption or productivity tasks?

[solardev]

Personally, I'd just open my laptop or plug it into the desktop monitor.

Like even a giant iPad with a keyboard isn't productive for me. I just use my phone to check messages, read the news, etc. If I want to do something useful, I just sit down at the ultrawide and use a real OS with like four times the memory.

I played with those folding phones at the store last week and thought to myself "nah, just more shit to break. And what would I do with it anyway? Watch YouTube slightly bigger? It'd be much harder to type on too."

[The_Colonel]

Smartphones / tablets are for the most part devices for consumptions, and foldables are better at that than normal smartphones.

The improved reading experience on a device I have all the time with me is an attractive proposition.

The disadvantages (chiefly price and weight / thickness) currently outweigh the value for me, but I hope it gets better.

[simonblack]

Personally, I'd just open my laptop

Exactly. I refuse to use my phone for everyday computing. The screen is too small and/or doesn't have enough pixels to display enough data at a time. I normally use a 4K screen.

I liken using a phone for everyday computing to be like using 'keyhole surgery' for surgery on the heart. You need to be able to see a job as a whole not just a tiny portion of it.

And don't get me started on how big and cumbersome today's phones are. I went though several decades where mobile phones shrank from being a heavy house brick to a 'chocolate bar' that fitted easily into a shirt pocket. Only for the progression to start going all the way back to today's monstrosities.

[RestlessMind]

> Personally, I'd just open my laptop or plug it into the desktop monitor.

Most of the world doesn't have a laptop and are not interested in getting one. Even more so when it comes to a desktop. But they would be thrilled about a device which is as easy to carry as a phone but can have as big a screen as an iPad when watching Youtube or reading news or doing a video chat. I can immediately think of at least 5-7 family members who would love this kind of device.

[solardev]

Would they still want it at 3 to 4x the price of a generic phone and a generic laptop?

[dylan604]

Tell me you're a fellow boomer without using the word.

These kids today...might not even have a full computer at home. It is possible that they only use one at school/work. So the majority of the compute time is on a device. This is something I have to remind myself of a lot more often. The mobile first concept is real for a reason. So, just having an ultrawide and a system with an OS is pretty much on the lines of a class distinction.

[californical]

Idk, I’m a young millennial and I am in the same boat as GP commenter. I have an iPhone SE, any bigger just feels wrong. I can’t imagine wanting a bigger thing to stare at in my hands, and I’m typing this from the tiny old iPhone

[rejectfinite]

>might not even have a full computer at home

How awful. Do they play games, do work and watch TV on their phone?

[solardev]

Not a boomer but a millennial. I dunno if it's a class thing (my phone, computer, and monitor combined still costs less than some new phones these days). I need the computer for work because it's my livelihood. And I play video games on it (streaming, cuz I can't afford a real gaming PC).

But I can totally believe that for many people the phone is their only device. I still struggle to imagine what use case would be better on a slightly bigger phone, especially if it makes typing harder. I had a Steam Deck for a while and that size is similar, and it was so hard to interact with that keyboard vs a regular phone in portrait mode.

I have no issue with manufacturers trying new form factors. Somebody out there must want them. I just wish they also kept making smaller phones for the small-handed among us...

[caddemon]

If you dislike the size of your current phone, it sounds like you might enjoy the z flip.

[baby]

You just made the point for foldables

[rescripting]

Your thumbs may not be getting any bigger, but your eyes are probably getting worse.

[z0mghii]

Completely disagree with you on smaller pixel phones and that's ok

[solardev]

I just miss having that option.

The market offering only bigger phones seems a bit... heavy handed? Ba-dum.

[jwolfe]

It's not heavy handed. It's responding to what sells in the market, and big phones are consistently what most people buy when they have the option of both.

[chrisco255]

So, larger screen means you get to display more pixels on the screen at a time.

[jayd16]

I have a pixel fold and it's actually just really nice to have a big screen to flip open sometimes. It's especially useful for a site that doesn't have great mobile scaling.

The price, weight and fragility need more iterations but it's a neat toy. I'm not sure it's for everyone but not everyone wants or needs a stylus either.

[weeblewobble]

Yeah this is the way I feel about it. I’m not exactly clamoring for it but if someone (Apple) released a super well executed foldable phone with no major downsides I’d happily pay an extra few hundred for it at my next upgrade. Apple is probably happy to let competitors iron out all the kinks and then they’ll release an iPhone 21 Max Fold and sell a billion units.

My dental hygienist whipped out a foldable phone last week to show me a picture of her granddaughter. First time I’ve seen one in the wild. There was a very distinct thick dark line/crease down the middle of the picture… it was all I could look at.

[GordonS]

I really like the idea of foldable phones - smaller in my pocket or when I'm just checking a notification or whatever, but I can double the size of the display when wanted. Being able to balance on a surface for taking group shots is a nice bonus too.

But the prices are insane just now. So I am interested in this format, but not at these prices.

[moonchrome]

Flip phones seem like a nice concept - small pocket size, notification display, full size. But current implementations are like overpriced beta implementations - once they polish the concept I can see myself getting one.

[Iulioh]

They are polished.

All the Samsung foldables gen 3 and above are mature tech, no longer in beta but yeah, they are way to expensive

[o1y32]

It's in the fifth iteration now, so the answer is: plenty of people. Maybe not anyone you personally know, but they are out there.

[seanmcdirmid]

I don't think their will be much interest in foldables until (and if) Apple decides to release one. And then...well...Apple will ship a polished enough product that it will sell.

And it really isn't "keeping up with the joneses" so much as "I'm not sure if that will be really useful" (until you see that it is actually really useful).

[TillE]

If Apple ships one, it'll be because they've finally managed to engineer one which isn't fragile, creased, and dust-collecting.

The platonic ideal of a foldable phone is exciting, but Android phone makers have been trying for years and the results are still a mess. I'm not holding my breath.

[DoingIsLearning]

I struggled to find a smartphone that doesn't have > 6 inches of screen and barely fits in my pocket.

I would prefer a 4 inch screen but since they are a fringe market by now, I would settle with a huge foldable screen instead.

Arguably I am not buying something from Samsung because of all the cruft that comes with their software but I can see the appeal in such a device.

[baby]

Me me me. I want a foldable phone because I read pdfs and watch videos on my phone. The problem is that I’m in the apple ecosystem. But every new foldable that gets released give me more and more excuse to leave the apple ecosystem (if I dont have an iphone, then, whats the point of my macbook pro and ipad pro?)

[tjpnz]

Colleague bought one because he liked having the larger display for reading. Took about a week for a grain of sand to destroy the thing. There's certainly a market for them but Samsung seems intent on actively destroying it with their half baked products.

[slowmovintarget]

People don't want folding. Folding is the cost paid to get something they do want: a larger screen. What do people actually want in a handheld? They want that roll-out multi-size screen from Earth: Final Conflict.

OK, that was 1997, and it's been done better since then (Minority Report and others...: [1]). But people want the big screen with a tiny carry.

[1]: https://www.theverge.com/2018/11/14/18088620/samsung-foldabl...

[lallysingh]

I have a Z fold 3 and love it. It's great for reading e-books and looking at maps and reading most web pages (some mobile ones get confused). It's everything I'd need in a tablet without having to carry one. Just a large phone.

[lampington]

Reading this on a Fold 3, which I'm considering replacing with a OnePlus Open, if the reviews are good. The crease is not noticeable in use for me. Having more screen real estate in a device that still comfortably fits in my hip pocket is great. The only downside I've noticed in a year of use is the Samsung bloatware. There are a couple of small scratches on the screen but no more than I had on my previous smartphones after a year. That's after taking it to the beach multiple times and not taking any particular care to avoid getting stuff on the screen.

[caddemon]

I could absolutely see the flip style phone (small form factor and unfolds to normal size) being very popular. At the least it is convenient if you wear women's clothing, which roughly 50% of people do.

Even an old-ish model of the z flip has been surprisingly durable IME, and Samsung continues to improve on the hinge and screen crease designs. The latest z flip is also in line with the price of a new iPhone. Of course Samsung now has competition from the new Razr on this front, which I've heard is very good.

As far as the z folds are concerned, it does seem more niche to me. But that's the bet that Pixel made first so I guess we'll see.

[hourago]

> Who is asking for foldable phones?

Corporations are valued on growth not on sales. Any idea to grow will be evaluated over just keeping a good product.

This is why companies are betting billions on crazy ideas while their products just become worse year to year.

A CEO that says, we will keep this ship floating will be fired the next day. CEOs are selected on how much grow they promise to bring and deliver to do.

Until this changes things are just going to be getting worse, more expensive and more bloated. And there is no enough competition to create a counter to it.

[kramerger]

> Very serious question: Who is asking for foldable phones? Who is saying,

I don't own one, but having seen colleagues use them I plan to get one once it stops costing and arm and a leg.

[Vaskivo]

I like small phones. I dont want to have something larger that 5.5 inches in my pocket.

Five years ago I bought a Sony xperia zx1 compact, due to its form factor. I've been looking for a new phone for about a year, but all of them are too big or under powered for my liking.

To me, the alternative seems to be foldable phones.

I'll probably buy a Motorola razr 40 in the coming weeks.

Also, an iPhone is not a option.

[silisili]

Zenfone 9 should be a hair smaller than zx1, have you checked it out?

[Vaskivo]

I have the zx1 _compact_: https://www.gsmarena.com/sony_xperia_xz1_compact-8610.php

Which is 129mm tall and has a 4.6 inches display.

Still, the Zenphone is about 15mm taller. I'll check it out. Thanks.

[bootstrapper35]

I have observed that "keeping up with Jonases" may play a role here. My cousin that could easily afford it has bought it for some reason, then he's brother has bought it just because he had it - and the thing is, he could not easily afford it - and not even in the sense of why would you pay so much for a phone but could not easily afford an expense like that in general and he's bought it anyway just because he's brother had it.

I personally would not want to carry an even bigger phone in the pocket. I have an old S7 for 5 years now and I'm not looking forward to an upgrade because even the new non-foldable Samsungs are much bulkier (and probably nowhere near as durable - the phone is tougher than a brick - fell like 10 times on the hardest surfaces with no protection and only got a few scratches on the screen that are not visible when using the phone). By the way, anyone got recommendations for a new replacement?

[_trampeltier]

I guess the Z Flip is more for women, because they mostly have just small pockets on the pants and sometimes also just a small handbag. And the phone is just small and cute.

The Fold is more for nerds i guess. It is even foldet not small, just large if open.

[rpgwaiter]

Me! If a phone could fold out 4 times into a mega tablet I would pay an irresponsible amount of money for it. I settle for the single fold for now

[riffraff]

I'd be frankly happy with the same screen size and half the size in my pocket. But that does not seem to be were foldables are going.

[hammock]

Who was asking for a touchscreen phone, in 2007?

[alvarezbjm-hn]

I was asking for my IPAQ to have a phone years before, then the palm Treo came in, and I stopped asking... because the Treo was terrible.

[balaji1]

Another serious question: Don't the foldables have insanely good unit-economics?

[andruby]

What do you mean? That they are profitable because they are sold at higher prices and don't cost much more to make?

I would expect the low volume and manufacturing difficulty would make them more expensive to build

[nunez]

I've seen tons of folks with the Fold; like, a surprising number.

[helf]

I do not like the crease and the larger foldables do not entice me bit I got work to let me get a zflip4 as a replacement and I have liked it way more than I expected.

It is a good form factor. Fits in my work shirt pocket.

I do industrial IT and a metal working factory and it has survived that environment with any complaints for a year now.