from Hacker News

Samsung still hasn’t given us a good reason to buy a foldable phone

by galogon on 8/11/22, 2:57 PM with 20 comments

• by ddingus on 8/11/22, 3:27 PM

  I miss my Note 4.

  Had lots of sensors, plastic enclosure, removable battery... Great phone, very robust, fast, did not need to be handled delicately.

  Then they made the enclosures glass. Now I have to handle a phone delicately and with considerable care. It's slippery! Wants to slide and hit the floor!

  Next move?

  Get rid of the headphone jack!

  After that?

  No SD card.

  After that?

  No removable SIM.

  Now, it folds?

  None of this makes my life better. None of it improves the robustness and utility of the device.

  I bet the first company to make a robust, plastic case phone with all the good features put back into the product will do well.

  People want the utility and robustness.

• by sithadmin on 8/11/22, 4:14 PM

  I used a Z Fold 3 as my primary phone for a few months.

  It dramatically changed my phone usage habits. The super slim front display is just slim enough to be annoying to use, so I'd find myself checking/acknowledging notifications without finding myself engaging and becoming distracted as frequently as I used to. I also found that when I was sitting around somewhere bored, I was much more likely to start reading an ebook than before, as the form factor is really fantastic for that. My reading habits have dropped back off now that I've returned to using an iPhone.

• by cercatrova on 8/11/22, 4:58 PM

  The reason is pretty simple. I want to carry around a tablet. I can't fit a tablet in my pocket, but I can fit a folding tablet in my pocket. Thus, I will use a folding tablet, such as a Samsung or Oppo or Vivo Fold.

• by sfjailbird on 8/11/22, 4:11 PM

  Happy with the Flip 3. It is small in the pocket. I can check messages and new emails without unfolding. I can even do NFC payments while it's folded up.

  Besides that, I can stand it on my desk with the screen towards me, which is very convenient when doing things on a computer and the phone simultaneously (like 2FA authentication).

  Can't think of any downsides to a standard phone really.

• by omniglottal on 8/11/22, 5:01 PM

  And Rainbo hasn't given us a reason to buy sliced bread. Some things are just obvious and, to those who refuse to use their own cognitive faculties, Samsung owes nothing. The producer is not on the hook for manufacturing demand.

• by poulsbohemian on 8/11/22, 6:06 PM

  Dedicated Apple user here...I was in a Verizon store a few weeks ago and encountered one of these foldable phones. Was super impressed with the hardware. Really neat to have a device that functioned either as a palm-sized phone or could be folded out for a tablet-like experience. Lots to like! But, for users like myself it's not just about the hardware, it's also about the overall experience. If it isn't iOS and/or fits into our household tech stack, it's a non-starter.

  There might be a secondary thing going on here too... I've had multiple tablets over the years. In theory I could use one as my everyday device. In theory I could take one with me in the field daily and it would be useful. In practice though, my current iPad is sitting somewhere collecting dust because a large-screen iPhone is "good enough" for those times I might otherwise pull out the tablet in a business setting, and when I'm doing "real work" I'm on my laptop anyway.

• by CrimpCity on 8/11/22, 4:12 PM

  Actually I like having a smaller phone in my pocket instead of a brick so I for one will be looking at foldable phones once I am back on the cell phone market.

• by nullsmack on 8/11/22, 6:58 PM

  I wish they would stop this. I do not ever want a foldable phone. That's just a part to break in a year or two and force you to buy a whole new phone. I had a sliding phone in the past that broke in normal use and the buttons on one side became impossible to register. It's bad enough that the phones are designed so that you can't easily replace batteries and such now.

• by MerelyMortal on 8/11/22, 5:26 PM

  The only thing holding me back is concerns about duribility and software updates.

  Granted I haven't really looked into it in the past year or so, and I'm not planning on upgrading my current phone for at least one more year.