Foldable Smartphones: Pros & Cons
Foldable smartphones aren’t without their merits but buying one of the first such devices means living with a caveat or two. Here’s a quick rundown of the biggest pros and cons of foldable smartphones you should consider before buying in.
Con — Foldables are still way too expensive
Right now, foldables sit above even the most expensive flagship devices from brands like Samsung, Huawei and others. For instance, Huawei’s Mate XS beats out everything from Apple’s iPad Pro to the most expensive configuration of the brand new Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra when it comes to the price-tag.
Buying a foldable in 2021 means buying the most expensive item on the menu. Until the technology and market mature enough to push prices downwards, that’s going to remain one of the biggest factors holding back potential adopters.
Pro — Foldables feel like future tech
There’s a splash of subjectivity in the mix here but, simply put, foldables are cool. There’s a real, tangible novelty to the ways in which in they differ from your stock standard ‘glass-sandwich’ smartphone.
At a glance and over time, those differences stand out. It’s as neat to watch a screen bend the first time as it is the fiftieth. There’s a part of your brain that says this shouldn’t be possible.
Science fiction films have teased us with the idea of foldable screens for decades, the ability to realise that possibility is a big part of what makes modern foldables an appealing buy.
You’re buying something outside the normal when it comes to smartphones.
Con — Foldables are still relatively fragile
Of course, beyond the financial downsides of investing in a foldable smartphone, there are also serious durability concerns to consider. Most people expect to get two or three years of everyday use out of a brand new smartphone.
When it comes to foldables, the odds of finding something that lives up to that bar are hard to gauge. In a material and design sense, foldable screens are more prone to breakage than their non-bendy counterparts. Whether we’re talking about water, dust or everyday wear and tear, there are more potential points of failure here. This drawback really compounds the high price you’re paying up-front, since there’s little in the way of guarantees that your first foldable smartphone will last the distance.
Pro — Foldables make you think about how you use your phone
One of my cooler takeaways when I originally wrote about the Samsung Galaxy Fold for PC World was this idea of The Fold Effect.
In subtle ways, the design of the Fold makes you want to use it less. But it also makes you think about the way you’re using your phone more. For all that the Fold gets wrong and right, this quality remains absolutely fascinating and utterly exclusive to it.
My experiences with the Galaxy Z Flip inspired similar takeaways:
I found myself almost using my phone less by choice and it felt like the times I did decide to use my phone felt like more meaningful time spent.
The physical act of unfolding a foldable phone involves a little bit of friction. However, as I’ve spent more time with these kinds of devices, I’ve come to suspect that this might actually be a good thing. It’s way too easy to spend way too much time staring at your smartphone. Counterproductive as it might sound, the slight bit of extra effort involved in using a foldable device pushes you to be more considerate about how much you use it.
