this post was submitted on 06 Aug 2023
144 points (90.4% liked)

Android

28000 readers
393 users here now

DROID DOES

Welcome to the droidymcdroidface-iest, Lemmyest (Lemmiest), test, bestest, phoniest, pluckiest, snarkiest, and spiciest Android community on Lemmy (Do not respond)! Here you can participate in amazing discussions and events relating to all things Android.

The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:

Rules


1. All posts must be relevant to Android devices/operating system.


2. Posts cannot be illegal or NSFW material.


3. No spam, self promotion, or upvote farming. Sources engaging in these behavior will be added to the Blacklist.


4. Non-whitelisted bots will be banned.


5. Engage respectfully: Harassment, flamebaiting, bad faith engagement, or agenda posting will result in your posts being removed. Excessive violations will result in temporary or permanent ban, depending on severity.


6. Memes are not allowed to be posts, but are allowed in the comments.


7. Posts from clickbait sources are heavily discouraged. Please de-clickbait titles if it needs to be submitted.


8. Submission statements of any length composed of your own thoughts inside the post text field are mandatory for any microblog posts, and are optional but recommended for article/image/video posts.


Community Resources:


We are Android girls*,

In our Lemmy.world.

The back is plastic,

It's fantastic.

*Well, not just girls: people of all gender identities are welcomed here.


Our Partner Communities:

!android@lemmy.ml


founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

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.

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] TrismegistusMx@lemmy.world 88 points 1 year ago (4 children)

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

load more comments (4 replies)
[–] harmonea@kbin.social 64 points 1 year ago (7 children)

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

This is a really, really bad assumption.

load more comments (7 replies)
[–] RisingGrace@lemmy.world 50 points 1 year 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 38 points 1 year 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 37 points 1 year ago (1 children)

My current phone still works.

[–] ThePancakeExperiment@feddit.de 10 points 1 year ago

Pretty much this. And they are still too expensive.

[–] The_Fundertaker@lemmy.world 23 points 1 year 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.

[–] meta_synth@yiffit.net 21 points 1 year ago (1 children)

-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
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Crashumbc@lemmy.world 19 points 1 year ago

Price, durability, use case...

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

[–] reddig33@lemmy.world 19 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

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 10 points 1 year 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.

[–] Poob@lemmy.ca 18 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] UsernameIsTooLon@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago

For real, it's that easy for foldables. Sub-$500 foldables with really durable screens seems another decade or so away however.

[–] thelinuxcast@lemm.ee 17 points 1 year ago
[–] Ogygus@lemmy.world 16 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (5 children)

Cost

durability

Size

difficult to repair (if not impossible)

lack of sdcard (on such a large body)

No open source ROMS

load more comments (5 replies)
[–] lunchymunchy@lemmy.world 16 points 1 year ago

price and reliability

[–] waterbogan@lemmy.world 14 points 1 year ago
  1. I'll break it

  2. I dont need what a foldable offers

[–] prey169@lemmy.world 14 points 1 year ago (2 children)

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

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] peter@feddit.uk 13 points 1 year ago

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

[–] Cabrio@lemmy.world 12 points 1 year 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.

[–] Dick_Justice@lemmy.world 11 points 1 year ago

I mean they cost at least a grand.

[–] zipzoopaboop@lemmy.world 11 points 1 year 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.

[–] uzay@infosec.pub 11 points 1 year ago
  1. My current phone works fine
  2. I can't run CalyxOS or GrapheneOS on it
  3. They are way too expensive
[–] CarbonIceDragon@pawb.social 11 points 1 year 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.

[–] LollerCorleone@kbin.social 10 points 1 year ago

Too fragile. Too expensive.

[–] Wussy@lemmy.world 10 points 1 year ago

I'll fold when the price comes down.

[–] Thorny_Thicket@sopuli.xyz 10 points 1 year ago

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

[–] senzalamenino@reddthat.com 9 points 1 year 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.

[–] Moghul@sh.itjust.works 9 points 1 year 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.

[–] herrwoland@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago

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

[–] Bizarroland@kbin.social 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

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.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] godless@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] dewritoninja@pawb.social 8 points 1 year 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

[–] peyotecosmico@programming.dev 8 points 1 year ago

I want my phone to last more than 2 years

[–] imperator3733@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago

They're way too expensive and they're still early-generation devices. Plus, why would I trust Google to continue with the product line seeing as how they keep killing viable products and services?

If they get to the Pixel Fold 4 or 5 and the price is down to the $500-600 range, then it'd be a very serious contender for me. (Assuming the insane fragility is resolved)

[–] Xariphon@kbin.social 8 points 1 year ago

Too expensive.

[–] aluminium@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago

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

[–] Sim@lemmy.nz 8 points 1 year 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.

[–] ___f____g___@lemmy.ca 7 points 1 year ago

Huh... the folding. I'm already mad that I can't get a solid 5 years out of a $1200 phone, there's no way I'm shelling out for a first wave foldy.

doesn't provide a benefit for me for the tradeoffs in smaller battery size, screen size, lower water resistence, lower durability, no open source documentation/parts to enable comsumer repairability

[–] fritobugger2017@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago

Lack of interest in the form factor. Too thick when folded. Folds are too large for one hand when open. Cost is high for the chip sets and memory.

[–] CountChonkula@kbin.social 7 points 1 year 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.

[–] phamanhvu01@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year 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.

[–] owsei@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago
  • Price
  • Durability
  • my feelings towards UI designers that now have to think "what if the screen just halved in size out of nowhere?"

Simple: price. I think that is true for the majority of users. When there's a $200 foldable out there, people will try it just to see what the fuss is about. But that's not even on the horizon.

For me personally, they need to come wayyyy down. Like 1/3 of the current price. That would put them in competition with budget flagships like the Pixel 7.

[–] mortonfox@pawb.social 6 points 1 year ago

The price, obviously. However, I'd also worry about the screen cracking where it folds.

[–] recluse@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

Nothing is. I'm currently writing this post on one. I will consider that weight is a big issue, one I wish was spoken of more than the plethora of reporters and journalists upset that Instagram, famously known for not having an iPad app, also doesn't have foldable support. I really like my Pixel Fold regardless.

[–] negativeyoda@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year 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

load more comments
view more: next ›