175
submitted 11 months ago by cloaker@kbin.social to c/android@lemmy.world

Foldable smartphones have reached their fifth major generation, as heralded by Samsung’s Galaxy Z Flip 5 and Fold 5...

For me it's definitely the durability concerns. I've valued my phone's water and dust resistance since getting an ip67 phone years and years ago. My brother had a flip and a grain of sand in his pocket got under the display; when he closed the phone the display died. And they expect me to pay more for the privilege.

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[-] TrismegistusMx@lemmy.world 107 points 11 months ago

It's a gimmick that makes phones less reliable and doesn't add value to the experience.

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[-] eran_morad@lemmy.world 91 points 11 months ago

Why the fuck would I want mechanical stress?

[-] harmonea@kbin.social 79 points 11 months ago

The phrase "what's stopping you" implies we're all interested, but hesitant.

This is a really, really bad assumption.

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[-] RisingGrace@lemmy.world 65 points 11 months ago

Price. It's just too high to consider for me right now when I can get phones with the same computing power for half the cost

[-] Nerd02@lemmy.basedcount.com 50 points 11 months ago

Uhh the price tag? I just bought a new phone after 6 years of honoured service from my old one, payed the new one a whopping 300€ and it already felt like a rip off. Ain't no way I'm paying four digits for a phone.

[-] Rhodin@kbin.social 47 points 11 months ago

My current phone still works.

[-] ThePancakeExperiment@feddit.de 12 points 11 months ago

Pretty much this. And they are still too expensive.

[-] reddig33@lemmy.world 27 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

I don’t see the point of it. It might be smaller in height when folded, but it’s twice as thick. That doesn’t make it any easier to pocket.

It also seems unnecessarily over complicated. The folding screen technology also doesn’t seem mature (high crease failure). I would think at least one or two phone companies would design them so they just met at a bezel-less seam rather than trying to actually fold an oled/lcd screen.

[-] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 11 points 11 months ago

Same with me. I just don't see the point. I can't think of a situation where I need my screen to regularly get bigger or smaller. It might be helpful once in a while, but not enough to get a phone that does that.

[-] The_Fundertaker@lemmy.world 26 points 11 months ago

They're prohibitively expensive, the aspect ratio is dumb, and the fold/crease is distracting as hell.

It reminds me of back in the '00s when people were getting the sidekick or whatever that "T" shaped phone was that Tony Stark had in Ironman.

[-] Crashumbc@lemmy.world 23 points 11 months ago

Price, durability, use case...

There's nothing about them that makes them worth sacrificing the first two above.

[-] meta_synth@yiffit.net 22 points 11 months ago

-Not durable (If you can damage the screen with your fingernail it's not durable enough. Period.) -No headphone jack

  • No expandable storage
  • No removae battery
  • Lack of support for folding screens in apps
  • Extremely high prices
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[-] peter@feddit.uk 21 points 11 months ago

The price, the line down the middle, the hinge. Generally just not requiring any more screen space

[-] Poob@lemmy.ca 20 points 11 months ago
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[-] Ogygus@lemmy.world 18 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Cost

durability

Size

difficult to repair (if not impossible)

lack of sdcard (on such a large body)

No open source ROMS

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[-] lunchymunchy@lemmy.world 17 points 11 months ago

price and reliability

[-] thelinuxcast@lemm.ee 17 points 11 months ago
[-] Dick_Justice@lemmy.world 17 points 10 months ago

I mean they cost at least a grand.

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[-] prey169@lemmy.world 16 points 11 months ago

They don't have the actual answer in their poll for me which is, you pay 1800 for the z fold but get the camera of the s23 basic model. Which is wild.

Give me the ultra cameras and I'll buy it

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[-] seacocker@lemmy.world 15 points 10 months ago

I don't pay more than £400 for a phone. So that.

[-] waterbogan@lemmy.world 14 points 11 months ago
  1. I'll break it

  2. I dont need what a foldable offers

[-] CarbonIceDragon@pawb.social 13 points 11 months ago

Honestly, I just don't find them very appealing, one of my coworkers has one and having the thing unfold into a shape more like a small tablet just looks like it'd make it harder to use one handed, and having a weird seam in the middle looks distracting. They look kinda cool and novel because I'm not used to seeing screens fold like that, but I don't see myself actually preferring one once the novelty ran out.

[-] Cabrio@lemmy.world 13 points 11 months ago

I've avoided the like the plague for all the obvious reasons, my mum has been using one for a few years now and ran into just about all of those reasons.

Permanant mid fold in screen.

Durability lasts far fewer actions than what was in the specs and warranty.

Refurbishing only introduced new issues and failed to resolve old issues.

[-] a1studmuffin@aussie.zone 13 points 11 months ago

I don't want one. It's a cool technological feat, but like a transparent monitor or flexible keyboard, it just doesn't make sense for my needs.

[-] uzay@infosec.pub 13 points 10 months ago
  1. My current phone works fine
  2. I can't run CalyxOS or GrapheneOS on it
  3. They are way too expensive
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[-] Zeb@lemmy.world 13 points 10 months ago

My current phone still works, too expensive, durability concerns (my current phone would not be working were it a foldable), center crease, looks like a pain to repair (right to repair hell yeah!), and most importantly...

...why? What do I gain by going with a foldable? My current phone doesn't need to fold to fit in my pocket, and it doesn't have so many compromises.

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[-] GiddyGap@lemmy.world 12 points 11 months ago

As long as there's a noticable crease in the screen, I'm out. They also need to last more than two years.

[-] CatsGoMOW@lemmy.world 12 points 11 months ago

The main thing stopping me is that I don’t use Android phones right now. But even if I did, I personally find the whole foldable phone thing to be a bit gimmicky. I’d want to see it have staying power over some years before I’d even consider getting one.

[-] Thorny_Thicket@sopuli.xyz 12 points 11 months ago

I see them as every way inferior to normal phones. I don't get why they're popular.

[-] herrwoland@lemmy.world 11 points 11 months ago

Stresses me out each time I open and close my phone thinking the life span of the display is shortened by 1

[-] Wussy@lemmy.world 11 points 11 months ago

I'll fold when the price comes down.

[-] Patius@lemmy.world 11 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

I got one, but got rid of it after the screen cover plastic became rigid and creaky...twice. Worse, Samsung said they'd cover it once under warranty, and that after their ubreak ifix people were telling me it'd cost $200 to fix and I had to explain I had a protection plan to the braindead tech ten times.

Not worth it until they solve durability issues.

[-] zipzoopaboop@lemmy.world 11 points 11 months ago

It adds nothing of value. It's just a neat gimmick. I don't want a crease in my screen, I don't want to double the width of my phone in my pocket, and I have no valid use cases for it.

[-] dewritoninja@pawb.social 10 points 11 months ago

Im not gonna buy a phone that's worth several months of salary in my country only to get mugged the moment I pull it out

[-] senzalamenino@reddthat.com 10 points 11 months ago

The fact the most of them are made by Samsung and I can’t stand the amount of bloatware Samsung put on their devices.

[-] godless@lemmy.world 10 points 11 months ago

I simply don't like them. There's zero use case where I would consider a foldable phone superior, or even equivalent to a regular one.

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[-] CountChonkula@kbin.social 9 points 11 months ago

I'm still not sold on the durability and the last thing I want is the screen to become a wear item. Even with most of them pretty much all switching from plastic to ultra thin glass, bending glass like that is asking for it to eventually break and replacement internal screens aren't cheap.

Secondly, a lot of foldables sacrifice battery capacity as the Flip 5 has a 3700 MAh battery and the Fold 5 has a 4400 MAh and powering a 2nd, larger screen is going to consume more battery. A normal smartphone you can typically find with at least 5000 MAh batteries in them.

The tech is cool and all, but it just seems more like an engineering flex rather than something that's practical.

[-] peyotecosmico@programming.dev 9 points 11 months ago

I want my phone to last more than 2 years

[-] phamanhvu01@lemmy.world 9 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Price and durability. I don't know, I can maybe get one eventually if I really want to, but shelling out like ~$1500 USD for a unproven screen design is pretty yikes to me. Plus, since my LG V60 is still serving me so well I really see no good reason to replace it.

[-] Xariphon@kbin.social 9 points 11 months ago

Too expensive.

[-] Sim@lemmy.nz 9 points 11 months ago

For me, they're too fat when folded and too big when open. I don't like the feeling of the crease, and the technology needs time to prove how reliable it'll be in the real world.

[-] LollerCorleone@kbin.social 9 points 11 months ago

Too fragile. Too expensive.

[-] Moghul@sh.itjust.works 9 points 10 months ago

It all comes down to the gimmick not being worth an additional thousand euros to the price of my phone.

I don't think durability would be a problem for me as I already baby my glass back device and I haven't been using screen protectors for years with no problem. The downgrade in cameras isn't that big of a deal for me as most pictures I take are macro, and as it turns out phones nowadays are horrendous dogshit at it anyway.

I think I'd enjoy the gimmick, I used to own a flip phone as a teenager, it's just not worth a thousand euros extra. I'd probably add another 150 or 200 euros to my pixel to buy a folding phone.

[-] aluminium@lemmy.world 9 points 11 months ago

Durability and the fact you still have to make significant cuts to battery life and cameras.

[-] Bizarroland@kbin.social 9 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

I'm not paying a thousand plus dollars for a phone. I go through a phone every year and a half to two years. I don't want to spend $1,000 a year for a phone.

I don't want to have a never-ending phone payment. I buy inexpensive but good quality phones like Motorola's or second-hand pixels and I'm good.

I spend 160 something dollars a year on average on phones, and use the least expensive prepaid plans out there.

And this is not because I am poor, there's room in the budget for me to have the fancy iPhone and you know the top of the line plan or whatever, I just got better things to spend my money on than a fucking phone.

If a company comes out with a folding phone that doesn't have a lot of bloatware on it and is in the $200 range then the next time I buy a new phone I would consider it.

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[-] owsei@lemmy.world 9 points 11 months ago
  • Price
  • Durability
  • my feelings towards UI designers that now have to think "what if the screen just halved in size out of nowhere?"
[-] negativeyoda@lemmy.world 8 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

The fact that there will always be a seam in the folding screen. If I feel it while swiping over it or there's weird glare because the surface is uneven that would drive me bananas

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this post was submitted on 06 Aug 2023
175 points (89.2% liked)

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