Foldable phones are supposed to be the next big thing with multiple companies vying for your pocket. Toms' Guide speaks with everyday people about what they think and ask MrMobile to break down the foldable pros and cons. Plus, Samsung, Google and Motorola weigh in on how they’re trying to take foldables mainstream with the Galaxy Z Fold 5, Pixel Fold and new Motorola Razr.
Category
🤖
TechTranscript
00:00 Remember the Motorola Razr?
00:02 Before smartphones, flip phones were considered the pinnacle of mobile technology,
00:06 and the Razr was an icon.
00:08 Released in 2004, it quickly became the envy of everyone from executives to teams.
00:13 But with the advent of the iPhone, the flip phone was dead.
00:17 In the background, phoneable started as crazy concepts,
00:21 but that all changed in 2019 when Samsung released the original Galaxy Fold.
00:26 Four generations later, we now have the Galaxy Z Fold 5,
00:30 Google has released the Pixel Fold, and Motorola has resuscitated the Razr.
00:34 There's even rumors of a foldable iPhone.
00:36 I'll be chatting with some of the leading names in the space to ask the question,
00:40 are foldable phones here to stay? And who's going to win this new war?
00:43 Yes, tech nerds like me use foldable phones.
00:51 But what about everyday people?
00:53 We're here in New York City and Times Square to see how familiar people are
00:57 with foldables outside of the tech world.
00:59 Have you guys seen foldable phones before?
01:04 What do you mean by foldable phone?
01:06 Yeah, like a flip phone. That's throwback. That's back in the day.
01:09 Only on the commercial.
01:10 Have you ever seen a foldable phone?
01:12 Yes.
01:13 Oh, okay. Okay, great.
01:14 Samsung! Korean! Yay!
01:18 So this is the new Z Flip 5 from Samsung.
01:21 Yeah. What do you think of this design? Is this something that you would carry?
01:24 Sure, because it's so small. Yeah!
01:27 I really like it, because as women we don't have a lot of space in our pockets,
01:32 so I think it's more practical.
01:34 But I don't know, it looks fragile in the middle as well.
01:37 It looks like the screen is going to break, but I think I have the fear of it.
01:42 You don't like it?
01:43 No. I think it reminds me of the old phones, like the Nokia ones.
01:48 The Nokia ones, yes.
01:50 What do you think of a design like this?
01:52 That's fire. That's hot.
01:54 Yeah? Yeah, I like that.
01:55 It's kind of scary, though. I don't want this to break on the outside.
01:59 So the other type of design that's out is the book-style foldable.
02:03 This is way too big, but if I want a tablet, maybe I can use it.
02:07 But you think you might use something like this?
02:09 Yeah, yeah, definitely. Especially this one.
02:11 The other one looks a little old-fashioned, and I think this one is really futuristic.
02:16 Yeah, yeah.
02:17 Okay, so this one is $1,000. This is $1,800.
02:22 Super expensive.
02:23 Do you think either of them might be worth that much money?
02:26 No.
02:27 I think this one is too much.
02:30 No, it's super expensive, yeah.
02:32 $1,800.
02:33 This one?
02:34 Yeah.
02:35 What? $1,800?
02:37 Yes.
02:38 I don't know.
02:39 With a phone plan, you can do it. You can make it work.
02:42 Maybe a little bit expensive, but maybe in the future it will be way cheaper.
02:47 Which company is it?
02:48 This is Samsung.
02:49 Ah, Samsung. Okay. I'm only iPhone. I don't like Samsung.
02:53 If Apple has a phone like this, I will change to a phone like this.
02:57 There you have it. Maybe foldable phones are still a niche product.
03:00 So are they worth up to $2,000? Let's go ask Mr. Mobile himself.
03:04 Michael Fisher is Mr. Mobile, a smartphone expert with over a million subscribers on YouTube.
03:10 As someone who has reviewed all the major foldables so far, I asked him to break this trend down and pick some of his favorites.
03:16 The definition of a foldable is pretty simple.
03:19 It's a phone with a hinge on it that either becomes smaller when you close it,
03:23 or it's a phone with a hinge on it that lets it become larger when you open it.
03:28 A phone that becomes a tablet, or a phone that becomes a smaller phone.
03:32 The principal benefits of a foldable are that they're multimodal.
03:36 They change shape based on what you need them to do.
03:39 So with the large one, I have a big canvas for getting work done.
03:42 I can run multiple apps side by side, and I can leave my laptop at home sometimes.
03:46 The small one, for influencer duties, I can take photos.
03:50 It's its own tripod. I put it down. I don't need to carry around extra gear with me.
03:55 Then I close it, put it away.
03:57 The principal problems with foldables right now are that they are expensive and that they are fragile.
04:03 The price is already coming down, so that won't be a problem for much longer.
04:08 But the fragility of a device with moving parts and a display that is made of ultra-thin glass
04:13 that has to bend hundreds of times a day, that might take a little longer.
04:17 And because foldables rely on moving parts and gaps,
04:20 they are more difficult to make resistant to water, and particularly dust.
04:25 So some of them are rated for rain. You can drop them in the pool. They'll be okay.
04:29 But dust is the real hazard to a foldable, because if it gets inside there, it can cause damage.
04:34 My favorite foldables, I always carry two, because I've got the night and weekend phone,
04:38 and I've got the workday phone, large format, and flip phone.
04:43 Motorola's Razr, not this one, but the fancier one, the Razr Plus,
04:46 I carry when I don't need to do so much work, because it's so thin and delightful and beautiful and gorgeous, frankly.
04:53 And this is the OnePlus Open. It's light. It's the right shape. It's gorgeous.
05:00 And it has software that does some interesting things. We haven't seen that in foldables in a minute.
05:05 To me, the appeal of a foldable phone is that it's the first smartphone in years that has changed the way I use a phone.
05:13 So you don't have a phone and an e-reader, or a phone and an iPad, or a phone and all these devices.
05:18 You have a phone that becomes all these other things. And that's really compelling.
05:24 The latest foldables feel like they're about to break through to the masses. But how did we get here?
05:30 The idea of a foldable phone, which could transform from a compact device into a larger screen when needed,
05:35 has been a topic of discussion among tech enthusiasts and manufacturers for years.
05:39 Concepts and prototypes of foldable phones started emerging as early as the mid-2000s.
05:43 Samsung made significant progress in the development of foldable phones and showcased their first prototype in 2011.
05:49 However, the tech was still in its infancy, and the prototype did not lead to a commercially available product.
05:54 The key breakthrough was the development of flexible display technology.
05:58 Samsung and LG invested in research and development to create flexible OLED panels that could bend without damaging the screen.
06:05 And so, in 2019, Samsung launched their first commercially available foldable phone, the Galaxy Fold.
06:11 It featured a 7.3-inch flexible display, allowing users to have a compact, phone-like form factor or unfold it into a tablet-like experience.
06:19 Others joined the arena, including Motorola, who revived its iconic Razr brand with the Motorola Razr,
06:25 featuring a vertically folding display reminiscent of the classic flip phone design.
06:30 Today, foldable phones are still niche, primarily due to their high price tags and the relative novelty of the technology.
06:36 However, with advancements in manufacturing processes and increased competition,
06:40 prices have started to come down gradually, making foldable phones more accessible to a broader audience.
06:48 To find out more, I sat down with some of the pioneers developing the next generation of foldables at Samsung, Motorola, and newcomer, Google.
06:55 This has been a long time coming. Today, we're here with George Wang, who has designed and brought to market the Google Pixel Fold.
07:02 One of the things that really stands out is the exterior display and the aspect ratio that you guys chose.
07:07 How did you decide on the size and how wide it should be?
07:11 The first thing is we actually looked at data.
07:13 We were trying to see how often do people use their phones and really what do they do on their phones to try to make some decisions.
07:21 We saw that the 99th percentile of the user unlocks their phone and uses their phone about 200 times per day.
07:27 So a lot of interactions. And the majority of those are actually quite short interactions.
07:33 Sending a quick text message, changing the song.
07:35 So we really focused on giving a phone-first type of design here that's very similar to the phone that I'm sure you have in your pocket.
07:42 And then the benefits of that is actually when you unfold it, it gives you a large 7.6-inch display.
07:48 That's really beneficial for things like media consumption as well as multitasking, which are key use cases.
07:53 So how important is having a 3.6-inch external display on the new Razr?
07:59 It is important to get that extra space.
08:03 We're even seeing, hey, is there an opportunity to go bigger and how much bigger?
08:08 And where's the line and where's the limit?
08:12 For us right now, we've really made apps more usable.
08:16 We've expanded capabilities so that someone can transition or choose when they want to transition their apps from the inside display to the outside display.
08:24 We've also enabled full-screen view, which allows the user to easily switch between an app going into full screen taking over the entire display.
08:34 Which is really useful in particular for apps where you're showing a QR code or in maps when you want to see just a bit more view of where you're walking or where you're driving.
08:45 But of course, it's user-specific.
08:47 So some users may spend more time in that outside display and others might spend less.
08:53 For us, it's important to make sure that even though we have something that's pocketable, we're still providing usefulness to that pocketability.
09:01 It sounds like Google is aligned with Motorola when it comes to use cases for the front display.
09:05 But what about form factor?
09:07 What do you think about flip-style foldable phones?
09:10 The thing for us is we want to focus specifically on this form factor because everything we can kind of bring to it and ensure that we can kind of solve some key user issues from the design to the apps as well as the camera.
09:22 And so we're quite confident in what we're doing with this, but we're always exploring other types of devices and other types of technologies.
09:28 Samsung are the veterans when it comes to foldables.
09:30 So how do they see the market share growing versus their other flagships?
09:34 We've got big goals for foldables.
09:36 Our goal is by 2025 that that's 50% of our global flagship mix.
09:41 And at the moment, I would say we're kind of well on our way towards that trajectory.
09:45 But if the Z Fold 5 is $1,800, won't cost be a blocker in that vision?
09:50 Foldables eventually will come down to price.
09:52 This year, we really focused on resolving the pain points that we saw for our current foldable user base.
09:57 So with Fold, a lot of that had to do with the form factor, making it slimmer, making it lighter weight, powerful processing, our brand new latest processor.
10:06 And on Flip, a lot of that was driven through the Flex window and so that cover screen experience.
10:11 And so we're really focused on continuing to refine the experience.
10:14 Of course, over time, as the technology evolves, we'll continue to see innovation and hopefully bring it down in price point at a future time.
10:23 The regular Razr, which has been reimagined for a more affordable price point.
10:26 What do people need to know?
10:28 It really is lovely in that we were able to retain a lot of the similar high quality elements from Razr Plus to Razr.
10:38 You do have that smaller display, so you can't do as much.
10:41 You know, you might close it to really close your phone and be done using it, as opposed to close it and then be able to do more interactions.
10:48 But you can do basic tasks from the external display.
10:51 You can see your weather.
10:52 You can see your calendar.
10:53 You'll be able to view notifications, the time, of course.
10:56 But you will have to open it to do more of the things that you would regularly want to do throughout your day.
11:04 Even though we've taken things away, we've added certain things in lieu of that.
11:08 So it has a smaller display on the outside, but it has a larger battery.
11:12 Even though we have something that is, will be meaningfully more affordable, it still is a high quality device.
11:20 So what does the future look like?
11:22 Well, the way I like to think about it is I have twins at home that are four and a half years old.
11:28 And if you just think about your own evolution of the phones you've had over the years, it will evolve from maybe not having a phone to flip type phones to bar type phones.
11:38 They're going to go through that same evolution.
11:40 And if you just think forward, whether that be whether they're in high school or at some point in my age, they're not going to be carrying around a bar type smartphone.
11:48 It's going to be foldables.
11:49 It's going to be different form factors.
11:51 I think the innovation that we're seeing today is just the starting point and scratching the surface of what's going to be a huge new wave of different form factors.
11:59 And we're really excited to be on the cutting edge of that.
12:02 With that kind of competition driving the market, we can anticipate three things.
12:07 Prices to drop, more innovation in terms of form factor and durability, and also more brands entering the fray.
12:13 One of them could be Apple, but rumors of a foldable iPhone are at least a year away.
12:17 So what's the future of foldable phones?
12:19 Stay tuned as it unfolds to see if they can really break through to the masses.
12:24 [MUSIC]
12:34 [MUSIC PLAYING]
12:37 [BLANK_AUDIO]