I just don't understand who wants these foldable phones, especially at the $1799 price point. I guess a use case is wealthy frequent travelers who don't want a separate device with a larger screen to watch movies/videos on the go? Someone help me out here.
These foldables are a great demonstration of why the screen diagonal is an unintuitive metric.<p>This device has a 5.8” screen when folded, and a 7.6” screen when open. Looking at those numbers, it doesn’t sound like a very big difference. Yet anyone can see that the 7.6” screen is twice as big as the 5.8” one!<p>The diagonal only made sense for TVs because the aspect ratio was fixed at 4:3 (and later 16:9). It shouldn’t be used for computer screens or phones.
I understand the laws of physics are in effect, but the big thing keeping me from even remotely considering a foldable is the durability of the internal screen. The newer Galaxy Fold's have some sort of plastic/glass composite, but it still scratches super easily, and it's not serviceable at all.
I'll never understand why "thin" is still a standout feature of a phone when they add a fat ugly camera bump on it anyway. Why not make a thicker phone and the camera flush with the casing?
Really looking forward to future generations of foldables when the price is closer to $1000 than $2000. I've had my Flip 3 for almost 2 years now and it's been a blast; I'm genuinely interested in the larger foldable size, but the price is still too steep for me.
Yeah that price point makes it an instant pass - In all honesty, phones, at least for me, have been reaching a point of diminishing returns.<p>I upgraded from an iPhone 11 to an iPhone 14 recently, and the difference was practically nothing. I didn't think it was possible to experience buyer's remorse after waiting three whole generations, but here we are.<p>I wouldn't be surprised if it's five years before a phone has some jaw-dropping feature that I just have to buy, and if these are the kinds of innovations Google is investing in, I might even say closer to a decade.
139.7mm x 79.5mm
Just imagine, they would remove the crap in the middle and sell it for a reasonable price.
Finally an android flagship with proper sizing and GrapheneOS.
You can't look at the Google Store without signing in to a Google account? <i>sigh</i><p>EDIT: in Private Browsing mode I can access it, but in a normal browser tab it requires me to give my password.
The Live Translate video shows 'aqui' instead of 'aquí'. I don't know if that's an error the software actually makes, or if the person who composited the text into the video had the wrong spelling.
You know what I'd want? A foldable tablet. I'd love a mini or standard size tablet that can fold out like a newspaper into something with good screen size. Hell, it'd be great for e-ink also.<p>But a phone? I mostly use it to call / send texts and want it pocket sized and durable.
Yikes.<p>Google hasn't magically figured out how to fix the problem with the screens failing after a few hundred bends; neither has Samsung, which is most likely their display supplier.<p>On top of that, there is no viable market for a phone over $1200 (and, arguably, no market for over $1000, ask Apple how their sales have been going down since the peak in 2015); what were they even thinking? This is ridiculous even for a halo product.
I love my Z Fold 3 form factor a lot more than I thought I would. The one thing I've missed is the pure Google/Android software experience without the Samsung bloat from my old Pixel phone.<p>This is very tempting, but given it's their first attempt and the steep price, I'll probably wait for the Fold 2 to improve on any growing pains.
What is the state of today’s folding phones, did the hardware improve over the first attempts?<p>1. Is the unfolded screen a continuous flat surface? (I.e. is the vertical bulge in the center gone?)<p>2. Are there gaps around the hinge or screen edge? Is the phone weatherproof?<p>3. Are there gaps when the phone is in the folded state?
I don't trust google to 'complete' the entire product experience. Samsung is among the worst, Apple is the best and they are not perfect.<p>A 'foldable screen' implies a lot of changes in usability and behaviour, most of these companies don't bother with the detail and therefore less than desired experiences.<p>At least up to Pixel 4 even the alarm clock, merging calls, a bunch of small things felt very off. Apps were not consistent.<p>That said, screen real estate is nice, if that's your thing and you are not price sensitive, it might work.<p>Personally, I want a small, thin form factor with only a few apps max and I want it to be robust, always work, with extremely long battery life and for Google/Apple to not hoard all of my personal data.
4800mAh battery for bigger screen, and extra processing? What was feature team smoking when putting specs together? 7A has more battery and it hardly is gonna do a day, and you are telling me I am gonna spend $1800 for a bar trick phone? No thanks!
First grapheneOS compatible foldable!<p>Other than that meh, phones are very limited, and I would rather invest in anything than spend my money on a (very finicky and unreliable) social media machine.
What I don't like about these designs is that they have two screens, of which you'll only ever use one at a time. I preferred the designs of the devices that had the screen on the outside and wrapped around the outside of the hinge which also has the benefit of increasing the angle that the screen bends at. Oh and the price point feels very steep to me too, even as someone who has bought mainly from the top end in the past.
I'd like foldables if they had two separate screens which acted as one, like a miniature laptop with an extra screen where the keyboard would be. The bendy display makes me think I'll wear it out pretty quickly. Pretty sure Microsoft did this for one of their recent devices.
if my phone is already 5.8 inches, who cares if it folds out. make it 3.5 and fold out for recipes and diagrams/notes. if I need a 7" display I'll have a 10" in a bag with the added battery pack and speakers it'll require anyway
I'm not a huge fan of Google, but if Graphene can be installed (and the bootloader unlocked), I would be interested!<p>Foldable devices like the Lenovo X1 fold are very nice to work with "on the go": take a Bluetooth keyboard and your office is everywhere!
<i>Google’s first foldable. Brilliant in every way.</i><p>Wow, it's hard to believe how lame their marketing is. Prompted?<p>"Please write me a slogan to help sell a new smart phone in the style of Apple, but make it sound cooler.."
I would love one of these if they were trifold rather than bifold. That would mean the same number of screens, even, since the outer screen would become one third of the unfolded screen.
Oh no... am I the only one disappointed that they made it fold the wrong way? I was hoping for a phone that's half the size of Pixel7 when folded...
I can definitely see this being useful for work and school, but not sure if I would use a foldable for everyday tasks.<p>Casing these phones seems like a challenge
From 1899 euros in Europe. Certainly, I don't really know who feels comfortable using a 2K euros device while walking down the street every single day. I would be so worried about it being lost, getting scratch or what not. Besides, it looks huge.
$2000 might be better spent on a phone that doesn’t have an operating system scheduled to expire 2-3 years from now. Every iPhone I’ve owned has had multiple lifetimes with family after the 3-4 years of use I might get out of it. Androids are scheduled to expire.
Funnily, at 7.6" (unfolded) it's less than an inch bigger than a Pixel 7a Pro (6.7"). Why go through this rigmarole of folding when you're barely adding much realestate?<p>I guess that's why I'm not a VP at some BigCo.
Ladies and gentlemen, phones with foldable screens are the new "3D TVs". Good news is within 5 years it will be over. To compensate enormous electronic waste we will pay more for air travel.
I'm quite interested in a folding phone but at that price it needs to have the latest and greatest compute power.<p>I'll wait for Pixel Fold 2
What happened to outward folding form factor without the extra screen? Foldable screens still not durable enough? Three screen foldable seems like such a dumb design to settle on. Ditto with aspect ratio with massive black bars when watching media.
<a href="https://store.google.com/us/product/pixel_fold" rel="nofollow">https://store.google.com/us/product/pixel_fold</a> for us that are not in the US.
Why is Google still making Pixel devices? They have made them since 2016 and spent billions of R&D and ads and it has only reached like 1-2% market share in the US.
Given that folding phones have a history of being fragile and Google has a history of dropping support for the devices they sell quickly, do they really expect a $1800 device to sell at a time when flagships that sell for half that much are not moving like they did a couple of years ago?
1,8k. Yeah, right. For doing what exactly? Watching videos? I'd rather take a tablet, and a phone and still have money in the pocket. I just don't see the use case for these things. Microsoft also produced a foldable device and it tanked.
Hot take: Samsung is the only firm that can produce these displays. They know most smartphone manufacturers just copy what they bring out. They know that folding displays are a pointless fad that offer consumers nothing. But it doesn't matter: if they bring out a foldable smartphone, all the other firms will do the same and throw Samsung a huge display production contract.<p>Samsung wins either way.<p>(To be clear I'm joking here, no idea if Samsung are even the ones making the displays)