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Foldable flip phones are an overly complicated solution to a nonexistent problem. They are kinda neat, but is that enough?
My sibling has a folding phone with an open toilet as their wallpaper, and they said that's probably the only reason why they wanted a flippy phone. They also say the pocketability is nice, and they don't really care about the worse camera bits for the price (they definitely aren't using it in camcorder mode)
They solve the same problems as the original folding phones. They allow you to keep you phone in your slacks or skirt pocket without destroying the look of your outfit or the screen of your phone.
Slab phones are a disaster for pocket-ability. Yes you can shove it in your back pocket where it looks like ass, breaks your ass when you sit down, and breaks the screen or the phone itself if you sit down in the wrong way or on the wrong thing.
Folding phones solve those problems.
Maybe this is just my male privilege, but I have never had a problem putting a slab phone in one of my front pockets, and my wallet in the other.
Yes, it is definitely male privilege.
Women's pants are practically non-existent. I was elated to finally find a phone that can fit in my damn pants. Been on the Z Flip line ever since and I'd be heartbroken to see it go.
Plus whipping it open and closed to answer and disconnect calls is fun AF.
With folding phones, you now have a slab half as big and twice as thick. Not really solving too many problems with that form factor.
That's actually not the case with the newer folding phones. The Z fold 7 is only 10% thicker (8.9mm) when folded than the s25 ultra (8.2mm), for example. The clamshell flips do run a bit wider at 13mm but they've really come a long way and I'm sad to see the market for them dying.
Women's pants generally aren't deep enough. So the length of the phone absolutely makes a difference over the thickness in terms of that.
Source: My pants. It had been a frustrating saga over the ever increasing size of smartphones when women's pants pockets weren't expanding to match. Stumbled into the Z Flip line and was hooked. It finally did solve the problem for many of us
If my phone was twice the thickness it'd still be thin. I'd trade space for some extra battery any day, and/or for this.
It's not though, it's about 1.5 times as thick. And it feels way smaller in your pocket than slab phones do.
I utterly love my Razr, it folds up to protect the main screen and fits in a pocket so much better than some skinny long thing that I'm worried about creasing into inoperability, and I still get the screen realestate of a non-flip phone.
I have no idea why people hate on flip phones so hard. I'd be pissed if they stopped making them because everyone that doesn't have one likes to shit on them so nobody tries them.
But that's what killing the screen
But it's not though? Early generations, sure. But we're at the point now where dropping a folded phone really does not have much of a difference in chance of breaking in than dropping a regular candybar phone.
You're right in that technically it causes wear. In that regard, I suppose the fold mechanism would fail eventually. So it's not going to be your daily driver for the next 10 years. But no phone is. Modern folding phones absolutely do well for the normal life of a phone (4-5 years maybe??).
Where credit is due, I think batteries have improved. I've noticed that the battery health no longer starts dropping fast after a year and a half (which was like a standard for me). When I got my phone, the battery health was already at 98%. I don't know why and I didn't really care as I got thru the days without needing to charge extra. After 2.5 years, the health is at 95% and I'm still not seeing noticeable degradation. Then again, I use battery health management system (smart charging) which wasn't a thing on older phones, maybe that's the reason
My Z Flip 6 died after a year even though I babied that thing. The screen would freeze or fail to turn on unless you warmed up the entire phone. I tried the press-to-reseat-the-cable trick. Nothing worked. Samsung wanted to charge me $400 to repair the screen because it was a month out of warranty.
This is why I have trust issues.
That is absolutely fair and valid. Lemons do happen. I just think they aren't nearly as common as people fear.
I've had mine for 3 years and it's a little blurry at the fold. My wife's is way better than mine but she uses hers less. I've not seen this catastrophic screen issues I've heard about.
I only knew of one person and hers was a goner in half a year, but she somehow managed to switch phones under warranty (didn't know you can do that) instead of repairing. That being said, I have OnePlus Open (foldable phone), but it's not the main screen that's constantly gets bent which is the sus part to me. I open it at best 3-4 times a day when I need the large screen, not every time I need to use it. Mine is 2.5 years old, going strong. Some months ago I was in a phone shop waiting in line to buy a HDMI adapter for it and there was this lady arguing with the clerk about why can't she submit her flip for warranty if it's not her fault. 3 years actually blows my mind
The first generations had weak hinges, but those were solved several generations ago. I have no idea what you think is killing screens.
Foldable fatigue. I forgot the technical term. Every foldable is tested for how many times it can fold before fatigue starts setting in, resulting in micro cracks/tears and eventually broken screen. I have no clue about flip, but I think the latest fold was rated at 500k flips and mine is ratee at 1m flips, but it still sounds like the weak part to me.
It'll die eventually, sure. But the numbers you quote are ridiculously high, it'll take several decades to get there. So that seems like a non-issue to me.
I know, but each time you go to a foldable subreddit, you can almost certainly find people showing their broken screens. The numbers are just for folding in perfect conditions. It is the weak part, still. No hard glass cover, hardly water resistant, weak dust resistance, etc. I accidentally once folded my screen with a key inside (as I was folding at the same time as sliding into the pocket that had a key in it) and only noticed few minutes later. Survived, but that would not be a worry at all with non-foldable.
Sure, but there are tons of people walking around with cracked screens on slab phones too. The screen is always the weakest part. What would be noticeable is if screens on foldables failed way more than on slab phones, but I haven't seen any evidence to support that. I wouldn't be surprised if it's the other way around: slabs break their screens far more when they get dropped because the screen isn't protected on the inside like a foldable does.
I'd love to have one, but unfortunately none of them support custom Roms AFAIK.
Nope, unfortunately. But Motorola is supposed to be moving to using GOS for their future phones, I'm hoping they might be convinced to release the hardware trees for the older phones so they can be backported.
GOS won't come to the older ones due to the lack of a Titan-like security chip, but itd be nice to see either a newer RAZR with support, or the old one just getting Lineage or something.
You've hit the nail on the head there.
I had a Flip3 as a way of trying to kick my QWERTY habit, and it was cool as fuck. It's a great conversation starter (if you like starting conversations!), it's a lovely form factor to carry in it's folded state, and no matter what anyone says, it's satisfying as fuck to end a particularly heated call by slamming the phone shut.
Other than that though... it's just a decent phone. No better or worse than anything else aside from the irritating bloatware.
The hinge was weak as fuck and two of my devices suffered screen bleed from the hinge, but then that was nearly five generations of Flip ago.