I'm more interested in a foldable smartphone than a foldable notepad, but I can see how this would be the first iteration.
Samsung’s Foldable Phone Is the $1,980 Galaxy Fold
111–120 of 204 posts
Re: Samsung’s Foldable Phone Is the $1,980 Galaxy Fold
#112Earlier quoted context omitted.
Android is working on OS-level support for folding displays. This one's early, and will have limited support from apps, but I don't think the category will die as a gimmick. It has genuine utility, it's just been a technological hurdle. Personally, I'll wait another couple years for Apple to refine it a bit. Also, the smartphone market has started saturating and device makers are clamoring for a feature - any feature…
If they are working from the OS side that’s perfect. But I Im no way expecting to see anything but the most important apps have useful multi-app-in-screen interactions. Yeah YouTube, FB, Search, w/e but will that make it worth it? Sort of like the Touch Bar on MacBook Pros (which I have). Yeah it’s awesome to have on select apps like Photoshop, Safari, etc but it’s in no way so valuable as to build a whole product ar…
> useful multi-app-in-screen interactions.
I use multiapp all the time on my current phone. I love it. Android makes it easy to move in and out of multiapp mode, swiping the separator when you want to go back to full screen. Many android apps already support this feature.
This is the same thing, except with a larger screen & different panel arrangement.
Re: Samsung’s Foldable Phone Is the $1,980 Galaxy Fold
#113I wonder who was the designer responsible for this monstrosity, and i honestly hope that person never gets to work again. But let's be honest, this is android, so it was probably designed by 12~75 product managers responsible for a single small feature each, which they personally never used. they had the opportunity to work with the most cool and anticipated new tech... and they just slap two phones back to back like…
Yeah it still looks like a proof of concept to me. I don't see why anyone would use it.
Even as a proof of concept.
This is like a car show showing a prototype car with just a new engine throw in the trunk. So amateur.
Re: Samsung’s Foldable Phone Is the $1,980 Galaxy Fold
#114Tangentially, it's interesting to see how Samsung's reveal video (at the top of the article) [1] is so uncannily similar to what Microsoft came up with a few years ago for the Surface Studio [2], right down to the music selection. Something about technology killing creativity, perhaps? /s [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7r_UgNcJtzQ [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifZXp2geVKI (apologies that this isn't a link…
actually it's more like the first iphone reveal.
Re: Samsung’s Foldable Phone Is the $1,980 Galaxy Fold
#115While I won't be an early adopter for this, I think the concept is great. The things I'll be watching out for if this takes off: 1) How does the screen holdup in daily use? Does the Infinity Flex Display get work out or glitchy at the hinge after 10,000 folds? 2) Will the device get thinner? This is currently the size of two phones stacked on top of each other. I can't imagine carrying that in my pocket long-term. 3)…
4) do the two screens wear uniformly? 5) what effect does putting a hinge in the center of the device have on the thermal capacity of the unit (thermal capacity is almost more important for performace than ram on a modern mobile computer architectures) 6) what are the long term ramifications of splitting the battery cell into two halves. It must be less capacity due to the extra packaging and safety overhead. I could…
I don’t think dividing up the battery is a big problem. You’re right that there’s some additional overhead from more packaging, but it’s not horrible.
Consider Tesla batteries, which consist of thousands of cells. They are heavier and bigger than they could be (and indeed, their newer ones use somewhat fewer, larger cells for this reason) but it’s ok.
Phones are more weight sensitive than cars, but a two-piece battery is also not very extreme.
Re: Samsung’s Foldable Phone Is the $1,980 Galaxy Fold
#116That just seems gimmicky at best IMO. No ecosystem. I expect it will sell for 2-3 years and then die off and have them lose money on it. What type of niche market actually needs a phone that can display 3 apps at once and fold down to a brick sized phone? It's good that companies take these leaps of fate but they sort of seem reaching. Why not wait and keep pushing the tech until it's worth releasing a beautiful prod…
I agree this first-gen product is worth skipping, but given that many people spend probably 20% of their waking hours looking at their phone screen, it seems short sighted to me to argue that a 2x boost in screen size is merely a gimmick.
>given that many people spend probably 20% of their waking hours looking at their phone screen
This sounds like punishment to me.
Re: Samsung’s Foldable Phone Is the $1,980 Galaxy Fold
#117I wonder how many times you can fold the display before it makes a crease or splits in 2. Hasn't that been a long-standing problem with flexible displays? You can bend them but you can't fold them? I imagine that like paper, you can only fold it so many times before the same thing happens.
Re: Samsung’s Foldable Phone Is the $1,980 Galaxy Fold
#118Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, probably not, but it could quite plausibly replace an iPad Mini. I could see even replacing a midsize tablet, for someone for whom that amount of bulk elimination merits a compromise.
At around 4x the price? It's not replacing anything.
Eh. Plenty of people buy iPhone Xsen even though it is 3x the price of competent midrange phones. Another 1.5x multiplier on a $1200 Xs Max doesn’t seem like an insane deal to me for the added feature if you’re a mobile media consumer.
Maybe Samsung has learned from Apple: the profits won’t be found down-market.
Re: Samsung’s Foldable Phone Is the $1,980 Galaxy Fold
#119Earlier quoted context omitted.
Fun story for you on that: I applied numerous time for their Failure Analysis Engineer, Reliability Engineer, and other similar positions but repeatedly got rejected (or simply ignored by their ATS, I don’t play that keyword game very well). My professional career in Materials Science and Materials Engineering has had a large focus on reliability testing and failure analysis. In parallel with inventing new technologi…
> I’m sitting in front of a 2017 MBP that has been used as a stationary desktop and babied with a keyboard cover and much TLC that has strange screen artifacts that seem to indicate that it was pinched https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203671
That’s ironic. A product intended to solve one major fault in the laptop caused another one.
Re: Samsung’s Foldable Phone Is the $1,980 Galaxy Fold
#120Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, probably not, but it could quite plausibly replace an iPad Mini. I could see even replacing a midsize tablet, for someone for whom that amount of bulk elimination merits a compromise.
At around 4x the price? It's not replacing anything.
Foldable devices like this won't remain $2,000. It's not replacing anything today. Tomorrow it will when you can buy good devices that are comparable for $600 or $700 and Samsung is forced to compete on price.