Ever since Samsung unveiled their first Galaxy Fold back in February of 2019, I've been quite bullish about foldable phones; I did believe that they were the future. I still do. However, using two foldables (the Galaxy Fold 4 and the Pixel Fold) has changed what I feel they need to do to be the future.
The criticism I heard the most in the early months after foldables were released was that they're bad phones and bad tablets for the price of both put together. That's something that I only ever half agreed with—it was undeniable to me that the small size and crease and plasticky texture of the screen did mean you were getting a somewhat mediocre tablet—but I thought the portability of said tablet justified the price and I never understood why people thought the phone experience would be bad. I always supposed that you'd need a small screen for calls, texts, emails etc. The way I saw it, the ever increasing size of modern smartphones was merely a consequence of the fact that we can consume other media on these devices; apart from that, it actually goes against the easy use of the other basic functions I listed above. This isn't an unusual take; it's what anyone who champions the iPhone mini says. So, making the outer screen smaller and more one-handable and the inner screen bigger and more spacious seemed like a win-win.
Ironically, it's that second part that's proven me wrong. See, I've found that it's not just about raw size; a lot of what we do on phones depends on the aspect ratio being right for content to scale the way we'd expect. Using the camera, listening to music, or just typing anything, are somethings I'd far prefer to do on the outer screen than the inner screen. On the Fold 4, the outer screen was so narrow that pretty much all of these weren't particularly pleasant to do. The 4:3 preview of a camera was too small outside, and who wants to open the device for a shot that may be gone by the time you're there? Of course, your thumbs are going to be too far apart to comfortably type inside, and the outer screen is too narrow. I found that I needed the "phone" part of this device a lot more than I'd expected, and just depending on the tablet for everything wasn't going to work.
So, the move for me was to wait for a device that had a more typical outer display size and aspect ratio; something that was more "usable." That device ended up being the Pixel Fold. And sure enough, it's outer display was normal enough to make me want to use it, and it actually fit into one hand even more comfortably than the Galaxy Fold. It's here that my above conclusions were affirmed because I did end up using the outer display more often (a good 80% of the time) and I really enjoyed the phone. Specifically, I was loving digging into Android (I'm a new user). What gave me pause was that whenever I went back to my slab phone (iP14PM) for anything, I'd like it a lot more, not for OS or anything like that, but for size. If I'd look from one phone to the other, I'd physically be able to feel my eyes relax. I learned it's not just the ratio or maneuverability of that outer screen, but also it's raw size. The text being smaller was what made this device less pleasant to use than my normal slab phone. Sure, blowing it up in accessibility helps, but then everything looks out of proportion, no different than on your grandmother's bold font iPhone. This was never a conclusion that I expected to reach—after all, why wouldn't you just use the tablet for a bigger view?—but that's just not how it works in real life. It boils down to that (a) I need that different outer screen for 80% of my use and (b) that 80% is better on a slab phone.
The conclusion here for me is not at all that foldables are a bust, but that where I previously thought that narrow outer screens were fine, then thought that normal-ratio small outer screens were fine, I now feel that only something as big as a regular big format slab phone will work for me. I never would've advocated for a such a thing before because of how it would demand 2 hands to operate even when closed, but the lack of usability for me makes me accept that downside. I already use two hands for my existing giant slab, and I can do the same for a foldable when it's closed.
What's upsetting is that the Pixel Fold is otherwise the nicest phone I've ever used, and the only phone I've used in years that's actually exited me (likely because of Android, not the phone itself, but still) yet every time I use the iPhone for anything I'm reminded how much nicer the bigger slab screen is and don't feel comfortable keeping an $1800 device that's worse than that.
Have any of you foldable owners experienced something similar? I'm curious how many people are limited by the current design of outer screens vs how many prefer then small for one-handed use vs how many just don't care and want to unfold for most things.
The criticism I heard the most in the early months after foldables were released was that they're bad phones and bad tablets for the price of both put together. That's something that I only ever half agreed with—it was undeniable to me that the small size and crease and plasticky texture of the screen did mean you were getting a somewhat mediocre tablet—but I thought the portability of said tablet justified the price and I never understood why people thought the phone experience would be bad. I always supposed that you'd need a small screen for calls, texts, emails etc. The way I saw it, the ever increasing size of modern smartphones was merely a consequence of the fact that we can consume other media on these devices; apart from that, it actually goes against the easy use of the other basic functions I listed above. This isn't an unusual take; it's what anyone who champions the iPhone mini says. So, making the outer screen smaller and more one-handable and the inner screen bigger and more spacious seemed like a win-win.
Ironically, it's that second part that's proven me wrong. See, I've found that it's not just about raw size; a lot of what we do on phones depends on the aspect ratio being right for content to scale the way we'd expect. Using the camera, listening to music, or just typing anything, are somethings I'd far prefer to do on the outer screen than the inner screen. On the Fold 4, the outer screen was so narrow that pretty much all of these weren't particularly pleasant to do. The 4:3 preview of a camera was too small outside, and who wants to open the device for a shot that may be gone by the time you're there? Of course, your thumbs are going to be too far apart to comfortably type inside, and the outer screen is too narrow. I found that I needed the "phone" part of this device a lot more than I'd expected, and just depending on the tablet for everything wasn't going to work.
So, the move for me was to wait for a device that had a more typical outer display size and aspect ratio; something that was more "usable." That device ended up being the Pixel Fold. And sure enough, it's outer display was normal enough to make me want to use it, and it actually fit into one hand even more comfortably than the Galaxy Fold. It's here that my above conclusions were affirmed because I did end up using the outer display more often (a good 80% of the time) and I really enjoyed the phone. Specifically, I was loving digging into Android (I'm a new user). What gave me pause was that whenever I went back to my slab phone (iP14PM) for anything, I'd like it a lot more, not for OS or anything like that, but for size. If I'd look from one phone to the other, I'd physically be able to feel my eyes relax. I learned it's not just the ratio or maneuverability of that outer screen, but also it's raw size. The text being smaller was what made this device less pleasant to use than my normal slab phone. Sure, blowing it up in accessibility helps, but then everything looks out of proportion, no different than on your grandmother's bold font iPhone. This was never a conclusion that I expected to reach—after all, why wouldn't you just use the tablet for a bigger view?—but that's just not how it works in real life. It boils down to that (a) I need that different outer screen for 80% of my use and (b) that 80% is better on a slab phone.
The conclusion here for me is not at all that foldables are a bust, but that where I previously thought that narrow outer screens were fine, then thought that normal-ratio small outer screens were fine, I now feel that only something as big as a regular big format slab phone will work for me. I never would've advocated for a such a thing before because of how it would demand 2 hands to operate even when closed, but the lack of usability for me makes me accept that downside. I already use two hands for my existing giant slab, and I can do the same for a foldable when it's closed.
What's upsetting is that the Pixel Fold is otherwise the nicest phone I've ever used, and the only phone I've used in years that's actually exited me (likely because of Android, not the phone itself, but still) yet every time I use the iPhone for anything I'm reminded how much nicer the bigger slab screen is and don't feel comfortable keeping an $1800 device that's worse than that.
Have any of you foldable owners experienced something similar? I'm curious how many people are limited by the current design of outer screens vs how many prefer then small for one-handed use vs how many just don't care and want to unfold for most things.
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