I also write notes with stylus on it which is practical unfolded. More real estate for video etc. And then I can just fold it and use it as a phone for calls.
I want a rough, minimalistic foldable like the old school Razr. Something that can take abuse.
I want to be able to flick it open and close with the snap of my wrist and stuff the folded form factor back into my pocket without worry.
I don't care if there's no screen covering the bezel. That'd make it less durable anyway. Two screens, similar to the Nintendo DS is fine.
I'm sick of the smartphone slab and exposed glass. I want a wallet shaped device with a protective plastic or metal shell on the outside.
It’s how the iPhone looked to bb users.
It’s how the Note 1 Phablet looked compared to 4” smart phones
You can only go so big in a phone.
If Apple nails the iPhone max that unfolds into an iPad mini while minimizing thickness, it will be hard to ignore.
If it's nearly 2k, it's a plaything for the rich that's both fragile and may have issues that are likely to be poorly supported by the vendor.
I usually do so on my tablet, but before tablets were a thing, I was reading comics on my various touchscreen phones. Pinch to zoom: Mandatory.
I prefer cheaper android phones. My requirements for a general purpose computer in my pocket were long ago exceeded. Reading comics on the go is fine with a phone, better with a tablet (of which I have several, the most expensive one being still cheaper than the cost of the new Pixel Fold even when you add in the cost of my work phone and personal phones).
Computing power is so cheap these days, I am a big fan of just having one-off devices on the cheap. My new Kali Linux box? A $50 refurb Chromebook. Let's not screw with multi-boot shenanigans if we don't have to.
I really don't need a do-everything device. I think most people don't either, they just want one.
For example, in Japan, 36.6% of teenagers say they don't use PC at home [1]. It's also a country where people read a lot of comics. Now these foldable screens make more sense, right.
[1]: https://news.yahoo.co.jp/byline/fuwaraizo/20201021-00203217
And tablets are still a thing, you can just use them for comics instead of spending $1800 on a phone.
I’ve heard so many people make this comment about a variety of things.
I recommend paying closer attention and learning.
The best response is to let people figure out for themselves what they don’t get.
Now I just say "doesn't do anything for my style of cooking"
The vast majority of the population doesn't need the kind of computing beast they are using, but it is what gets sold to them. Everybody in society gets a phone and the vast majority of them are technologically illiterate, it's absurd to think that organic demand directs direction in the phone market.
An iPhone 14 and iPad Pro are gonna' run you $1,600, and be more useful in most cases.
I mean, sure, you're not going to fit an iPad in your pocket, but do you really need to? And when it's out, it's more productive to have a separate tablet and phone, than just one device that's trying to do it all.
Folding phones are a neat idea, and as a technical achievement, this is impressive. But in terms of price and practicality? I don't really see the appeal or value.
On the other hand, I always have my phone with me and I'd definitely benefit for a larger screen when reading emails, websites, documents, planning trips or whatever.
That said, I would never pay that kind of price, neither for a foldable, nor for an iPhone so I guess I'm out of that market niche anyway.
Not convinced. Having to move back and forth between two devices is a pain. Just like how a powerful laptop with a docking station is much nicer than a cheap laptop and a desktop, even if the former costs more.
I also like to think that long-term maybe they will have the ability to fold out along more than one dimension and potentially be dramatically larger than this, but that's just dreaming at this point.
It's just remarkably convenient
It’s 1600 for iPad Pro alone in Europe.
> I mean, sure, you're not going to fit an iPad in your pocket, but do you really need to?
Yes.
> And when it's out, it's more productive to have a separate tablet and phone, than just one device that's trying to do it all.
Majority of people care about convenience, not productivity.
I thought that was the consensus... It surprises me that Google is investing money on such a device. Weird.
I'd say the market is heavy cellphone users that use apps that benefit from the larger screen.
I don't understand this type of justification.
My fridge would cost around $65k for a 15 year lifetime at $0.50/hour.
It just seems like a completely meaningless way to judge the value of something.
The technology is still in an awkward phase but I think slab phones will be obsolete in 5 years
Also feels good to "close" the phone. In ways that locking doesn't quite reach.
Not surprised at all by the cost it's a lot different product and very new. There's people paying 1K for normal phones.
I feel like carrying small phone and a tablet/laptop is still a significantly better value any way you look at it unless you travel a lot without any storage on your human. I found the most ergonomic travel setup for me is a Lenovo Yoga laptop and the small samsung s22. Both of which can be bought for less than 1800$.
I don't like carrying a bag with my MacBook if I can avoid it
An iphone was also amazing unique and expensive when it first came out. But by todays standards - a $100 android phone is both more powerful and a lot cheaper.
If I could have both in one device, that'd be awesome.
So far however (besides the fact that only Android has foldables), the very visible crease is a dealbreaker for me.
That's what I thought too, but after speaking with a Samsung Fold something owner, and testing it for some time, it's mostly visible only in some angles. Also I imagine it's like notches and holes, you get used and forget about them.
And yea, what you stated is why I want a foldable phone
Best extra $400 spent per year or so.
If you have all the money in the world the most expensive / exclusive phone you can get is an iPhone, Samsung Fold, or this Pixel Fold.
The folding bit has no value to me, but even if it did, that price point is unacceptable. A phone is something I carry every day and don't treat like a delicate flower. If it costs so much that losing or breaking it would bring financial pain in addition to the pain of the loss of the phone, it's not suitable for my needs.
That said, I'm being overly cautious because I've never actually lost or broken a phone.
I don't have a tablet and wouldn't want one as a dedicated device, but I could absolutely see myself using the tablet features of the Pixel Fold, given that I wouldn't be carrying around an extra device, and it's pocket-sized when folded up. (I usually read a book on my phone when on transit, for example, and would love to be able to do that on a larger screen.) But carrying around a $1800 device that's as easily breakable as a phone? I think I'd be too anxious for that.
That said, not at this price point and with Pixels not known for their hardware quality. Maybe I’ll wait for when Apple inevitably does their foldable.
By comparison, the standard of "splitting" a single screen results in something that is often too small and awkward to use and with too little screen space for comfortable viewing.
On the site, if you use Google Fi Wireless, and you keep your service for 24 months, then they prorate $700 discount for each month.
Why: I read a lot (pdf, not epubs) and I watch videos a lot.
The problem is that they're using the wrong fold. I want my screen to EXTEND outwards. I don't want to go from one screen to open yet another screen. I want it to intuitively either extend, or allow me to fold OUT my content, not in.
Besides, if this lasts at least 4 years then the amortised price is more reasonable.
Turns out... Plenty. Just like foldables. Samsung has been doubling shipments every year.
2. Really excellent emulation device. Powerful enough hardware and phenomenal screen. I use it as-is in portrait mode for the best possible DS emulation on-the-go. I can at least 4x the resolution in almost all games. I can also slap a gamesir controller thing on either side to turn it into a sort of switch-style emulation device. I play ps2, ds, 3ds, gba, gamecube, n64, snes, and nes games on it.
3. Good game streaming device. Mount the controllers on it and use moonlight or steam link to stream from my desktop PC, even if I'm not on local network. Or, use nvidia geforce now or whatever it's called. There's a separate link to servers here in Taiwan through taiwan dageda, so I get ridiculously good connection.
4. Pretty good note taking device with the stylus. This is the use case that drove me to purchase. I'm always experimenting with various ways of (handwritten) note taking, especially on books I read, and having all my notes right there on my phone is really, really nice. I never "forget my notebook" now. Well, unless I forget the stylus lol, or it falls out of my pocket, which has happened 3 times now, and the styluses are an absurd like 50$ or something, so, this device is not nearly ready for mainstream consumption. Similarly, it's great for banging out quick engineering diagrams or designs. I can export to image and throw directly on a ticketing system, or upload into slack. Nice flow, if I get a question from a junior when I'm on a train or whatever.
5. Reading books is very nice on it.
6. Using music-making apps, especially ones with piano rolls and keyboards, is phenomenal. I really wish it had an aux plug though. The jellyphone 2 has that and is the size of a pill bottle, and has dual sim and removable SD storage. No excuses. Although, my version of the galaxy fold 3 does have dual sim.
7. The width of the screen when folded is actually usable on my smaller hands. This was another big driver for getting it. Hilariously, my initial reason for looking for my next phone was, I was tired of big phones, and wanted one I could actually use one handed. Funnily enough the narrow width (that so many people complain about) of the galaxy zfold3 was a big selling point for me.
8. Using maps is really nice on it, and I'm doing this constantly because we're always exploring Taiwan.
In all, I don't think I'm down to drop another 1.8k (1.4 for me because I got it on contract) on a phone any time in the near future. When this phone bites the bullet (and the inner screen is already "tightening" and reducing the flatness of the unfolded state, so one of these days I'm sure I'll overextend and crack the thing) I'm going to get a nice small android something, I heard the Asus zenfone 9 is a good size at a fair price.
As cool as all the features are, it's not like I have all THAT much time to game or make music on my phone, and worse case, I can just toss the thing into my plane-toys bag when I have flights or whatever. The notes taking feature I still use occasionally, especially for diagrams, but I've since moved to a onyx boox e-ink tablet for that, mostly because this lets me hand-write annotate epubs, a feature I've wanted on a device for like, 15 years lol.
So, after ~1 year of using the galaxy zfold 3, I can say, it was worth the money ONLY because it fulfilled like 8 usecases for me. Take away even a couple of those and there's no way it's worth it. A better alternative would be a jellyphone or pixel + a small affordable android tablet in the bag with a stylus. Spend the remaining on a previous version op1 or opz if you're really into music making, or a steam deck if you're really into gaming. Or shit both lmao, you're right that 1.8k is an insane amount of money.
Edit: looking through the marketing material, I'm not seeing any stylus usage on the pixel version. Even if a stylus would technically work, if the responsiveness and sensitivity doesn't allow for note taking, this thing doesn't make any sense to me. On the samsung foldables, the responsiveness of note taking with the stylus beat out literally every other device I've ever tried it with. It is phenomenal.
Flush means the whole thing lies flat on the table, a lump means an edge of it is on the table but the bit on the lens isn't. Recessed would fix that but adds even more size.
They can design thicker phones to better withstand impact.
They can put back the damn 3.5 audio port
They can go back to screws so we can have removable batteries and easier repairs, like we used to.
My goddam phone is too slim for its own good. It is uncomfortable to hold it. I equiped a case just to make it thicker :/
There were no suitable cases for the Z Fold 4 and other foldable phones (other than the one ugly Spigen case that adds one inch of extra width) that would allow me to enable good protection.
But I think Pixel Fold doesn't have the issue if I choose it. The shape can stay still on the table I think.
Then I happened on a good deal for a higher tier phone, very light compared to what I was used to. Suddenly I'm never dropping my phone.
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!
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'm not entirely sure it made sense even then. I completely understand the point (knowing the AR allows one metric to consistently compare and derive the other dimensions) but in my opinion, diagonals became ubiquitous because when looking at TVs, bigger was typically better in the consumer mind and the diagonal is of course one of the largest justifiable dimensions they could plaster over the product and cheaper to print/advertise (less text to put on boxes and flyers).
I think we were handed diagonals in the same way prices are often advertised at near complete fractions of dollars ($9.99): it projects more value to the average consumer's perceived value than it actually provides.
That make it easy to claim “4K resolution*” for a device that, perceptually, is nowhere near the quality you’d get from a 4K monitor.
Example usage: “Did you know the first iPhone’s screen was only nine stevethumbs? So tiny!”
Many people don't even know it's a diagonal, they just associate the number with having seen the object in real life. You could call it a TV with a size of "16 leafs" or "354 planks". Neither the value or the unit has any meaning.
For those of us outside of Apple ecosystem Pixel 6a for $350 (with some recent discounts) is one of the best modern devices all around. Yeah you can certainly find something even cheaper, but again it will be loaded with tons of non-Google spyware.
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/08/google-pixel-sees-hu...
In mid-2022: "...Canalys had Google up 380 percent year over year, and this quarter, the company is up 230 percent."
[0] https://www.androidauthority.com/google-pixel-market-share-3... (I love how neutral this article is)
Will never consider Samsung again. They do this weird 3rd party support partnership thing with asurion where they’ll tell you to go to asurion to get the phone fixed but then refuse to honor the diagnostics performed by asurion because they’re a 3rd party, which makes for an awful customer experience. For a $1000 phone you would expect much better support.
All this to say I don’t have confidence in the foldable screen tech, and I have even less confidence with any company that has 3rd party support arrangements with asurion (which google does too)
That should tell you anything you need to know about its durability.
It seems a no brainer to me. It would keep the fragile e-ink substrate safe, while being more ergonomic and allowing you to have twice the screen real-estate without ending up with the terrible reading experience with too-long-lines that you get from current large-screen e-readers.
The product's timing was off; the first iPad came out while we were still building it, which made it quite a bit less attractive, and it likely could be made much thinner and lighter today. (What really killed it was the founders' inability to secure digital rights from any textbook publishers... though arguably it would still have been a tough product to sell even without that obstacle.)
I couldn't find any pricing info, but I would test drive one for a work setup if I had the chance.
With a foldable phone, I just unfold it. The convenience leads to using it more and that's a big advantage.
Right now the crease/reliability is a worry, but assuming that is resolved I'd pay $1800 for it.
Neat devices but not really pragmatic.
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.
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.
Yes, surely Google didn't do any market research before investing $$$$$ into developing a new device.
There's enough of a market that Samsung is now on the 4th gen of their Z Fold, and the 5th gen is coming out soon.
it's almost like pixels are designed by AI were all the feedback it have is what youtube reviewers will praise/complain after unboxing a free phone and nothing else. One component that was always bottom of the barrel is modem, because well, no reviewer reviews modems.
gladly not CISO for that org that had a bunch of pixels, but last Pro models had a modem that would heat up to the point of safety shutdown after 30min video calls. Of course there would be no feedback on the OS. Android would just show no data signal with full 4G bars and users would have no idea what was happening. and earlier this year had FOUR remote exploits. In a modem. remote exploits. just marvelous. Whole org had to drop to 3G... i mean, whoever was lucky to be out of the US. Those in 3G-less US were stuck with wifi phones, because they also announced it right before their march update, which only arrived in april. pixels are great.
I’m aware I could obviously still rock a sidebag as a woman, I just generally don’t; lol, and honestly the smaller format of a purse has its advantages, too.
https://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&q=mini%20backpack&tbs...
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.
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.
I can’t, for the life of me, see a difference on performance. It takes better pictures at night and that’s about everything I can notice.
At this point the only “feature” that I want is USB-C. As ridiculous as this is, the only way apple can convince me to upgrade my old iPhone is to change their connectors.
After that Samsung, and now Google, have released multiple almost $2k devices to complete silence.
I couldn't imagine financing a phone
I agree, seems pretty aggressive.
1. Is the unfolded screen a continuous flat surface? (I.e. is the vertical bulge in the center gone?)
2. Are there gaps around the hinge or screen edge? Is the phone weatherproof?
3. Are there gaps when the phone is in the folded state?
Phone has been rock solid no issue. Love it.
Nope, no manufacturer has solved this. There is a "crease" in the middle the pixel fold here which is in the middle between the Z fold4 and some of the newer Chinese phone companies that do a "tear drop" folder to limit the creasing effect. So it's noticeable but eventually you'll get over it.
> 2. Are there gaps around the hinge or screen edge? Is the phone weatherproof?
Two questions, yes there is a gap top and bottom in the middle when unfolded. A lot of the newer phones are weatherproof yes but I wouldn't take any phone out in a tornado or leave it lying in the sand at a beach.
> 3. Are there gaps when the phone is in the folded state?
Gaps? Where ? When folded you can think of it as two phone sitting directly on top of each other and attached at one side.
I guess that's why I'm not a VP at some BigCo.
Caveat: this is measuring the size of the phone itself, not the screens, since that was easier to find.
Does the Pixel 7 Pro not fit that description? I just bought one for GrapheneOS.
EDIT: in Private Browsing mode I can access it, but in a normal browser tab it requires me to give my password.
But a phone? I mostly use it to call / send texts and want it pocket sized and durable.
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.
That's one way of spinning it. Personally I'd rather have all the Pixel users beta test Android, so I can get the bug fixed version from Samsung.
This is the prevailing opinion among people that would purchase it. It will have disappointing sales numbers and there will be no Fold 2.
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.
At least up to Pixel 4 even the alarm clock, merging calls, a bunch of small things felt very off. Apps were not consistent.
That said, screen real estate is nice, if that's your thing and you are not price sensitive, it might work.
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.
It was only like 6 years ago that leaving your phone in the same room as a running shower was a risky gambit, not sure why we expect ip7 waterproofing on brand new tech.
We expect their shipments to grow 73% YoY in 2022 to 16 million units.
Samsung continues to lead the category it created with the first Galaxy Fold device.
Samsung’s share of the foldable market was 62% in the first half of this year.
We expect this to jump to 80% in the second half with its new Galaxy Fold 4 and Flip 4 product launches."
https://www.counterpointresearch.com/foldable-smartphone-shi...
I'm still on the 3, I've had it for about 1.5 years and I use it every day. I love it, especially with the pressure sensitive pen.
It's still working great, so I'll probably wait for the fold 6 or 7.
"Translating speech [...] uses 20% less power." https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/googles-tensor-g2-chip-is-k...
Amazing!
The aspect ratio might allow for always on playback controls and a dedicated area for subtitles which could be nice.
They do?
Aren't Pixels some of the longest-supported phones, security update wise?
Their IoT and software services might be another story.
Samsung wins either way.
(To be clear I'm joking here, no idea if Samsung are even the ones making the displays)
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.
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!
Wow, it's hard to believe how lame their marketing is. Prompted?
"Please write me a slogan to help sell a new smart phone in the style of Apple, but make it sound cooler.."
Casing these phones seems like a challenge
Then again, I do live under a rock.
I'll wait for Pixel Fold 2
