Foldable phones

[GodLovesYou]

Hey hey guys!

Do you think that foldable phones will be the next big think? Or will be just a failure?

Have a good day.

 

[mikedt]

There has been a folding Android phone before, the Kyocera Echo. But it didn't really catch on though, and I never saw one.

 

[GodLovesYou]

There has been a folding Android phone before, the Kyocera Echo. But it didn't really catch on though, and I never saw one.
View attachment 103432

That's why they just focused on the printers

 

[Sento]

non moving parts > moving parts

 

[Jhayzone]

http://www.gsmarena.com/samsung_w2016_highend_clamshell_gets_official_in_china-news-15129.php

It looks cool but I'll never consider getting one.

 

[The_Chief]

Samsung says they'll start mass production of a phone with a foldable display in 2017. Which means I'd put hard money on the Note 7. That would be a rockin' cool phone IMO.

 

[El Presidente]

It's not something that really interests me tbh.

I'd rather OEMs focus on better battery life/camera (stuff that's actually useful and important) than silly gimmicks like foldable screens.

 

[kate]

Do you mean an Android flip phone, or bendable phones?

I don't think flip phones will become popular again anytime soon.

 

[double1]

^kyocera echo lol i believe that is one of the worst Android phones of all time

 

[chanchan05]

It's not something that really interests me tbh.

I'd rather OEMs focus on better battery life/camera (stuff that's actually useful and important) than silly gimmicks like foldable screens.

Depends on how they manage it. I'd love a 5.5inch phone that opens up into a 7-8 inch tablet for reading. Should they put a 6000mah battery in that, my wallet should open pretty quickly. Lol.

 

[dontpanicbobby]

The render I saw didn't have that nasty hinge in the middle like the echo.

 

[The_Chief]

I believe that render is from THIS VIDEO from almost three years ago. No doubt they've come up with a less clunky design by now. Should be a pretty sexy device when it comes out

 

[dontpanicbobby]

Yeah that's the idea. I especially liked the scroll like doo-hickey at the end. That would be so back to the future. Everyone carrying around scrolls. Then we see a real revolution with the new Smart Toga®..

 

[xyourxhighnessx]

2002 has what you're looking for. Its called a flip phone.

 

[xyourxhighnessx]

Why would anyone want to go backwards to a phone that folds?

I thought we moved away from that design for the simple fact that its fragile and inferior to the current design in which phones don't fold

I won't buy any phone that flips again.

 

[chanchan05]

Why would anyone want to go backwards to a phone that folds?

I thought we moved away from that design for the simple fact that its fragile and inferior to the current design in which phones don't fold

I won't buy any phone that flips again.

I don't believe that the fragility of flip phones are what caused them to get out of style. I don't believe them to be much more fragile than our current glass phones. My Motorola v3 was happily running for nearly 7 years before my sister dumped water on it.

This is a natural reaction to development. Flip phones showed up to get big things into smaller bodies. The v3 for examoke had a bigger screen and keyboard than the N70, despite having a slimmer and smaller body. Now people want big screens, but with the phone part still a manageablr size. Folding the screen seems to be the next logical step.

 

[Hadron]

My V3 still works, and I regard it as less fragile than a smartphone: drop a smartphone screen down on an uneven surface (e.g. a cobbled street in Bergen, to pick a personal example) and you have a good chance of breaking the screen unless you have a flip case and that is closed at the time. Toughen glass all you like, I still see a lot of phones being used with cracked or broken screens.

I don't think I'd be in the market for a first generation folding phone though, since it will be that, a first generation product. But I can see the sense, as long as it's useable without unfolding too.

 

[xyourxhighnessx]

Theres no guarantee youd have the flip phone folded when you drop it. Like the flip case example who's to say you wont drop the flip phone while open?

The thing i dont like about a flip phone is its just another thing that can break. I feel it makes the phone more susceptible to being broken (especially if you drop it while open/it lands on a corner of the device)

 

[chanchan05]

Theres no guarantee youd have the flip phone folded when you drop it. Like the flip case example who's to say you wont drop the flip phone while open?

The thing i dont like about a flip phone is its just another thing that can break. I feel it makes the phone more susceptible to being broken (especially if you drop it while open/it lands on a corner of the device)

That only applies to mechanically folding devices. In all aspects being shown, the foldable screen would be one piece of screen flexible enough to fold. It remains to be seen if it will have an actual mechanical hinge on a vulnerable area.

 

[Hadron]

With a first-gen folder I'm more worried about how well the screen will last at the fold than about a hinge mechanism: repeated flexing, and a fairly tight bending radius if you simply fold it over (especially with this drive to keep phones thin) sounds like a severe test of its durability. But I've not seen the mechanics of a real folding phone, so should reserve judgement.

 

[psionandy]

With a first-gen folder I'm more worried about how well the screen will last at the fold than about a hinge mechanism: repeated flexing, and a fairly tight bending radius if you simply fold it over (especially with this drive to keep phones thin) sounds like a severe test of its durability. But I've not seen the mechanics of a real folding phone, so should reserve judgement.

Hopefully someone will invent something better than the ribbon cable... Which still causes problems in laptops till this day (vertical lines going up the screen... Is a classic fault on laptops)

 

[mikedt]

Here's a piece of folding hand-held tech, extremely thin, NO mechanical hinges! And I don't think Casio have made calculators like this for 20 years or more now.

Must be 20 years old at least, it's "Made in Japan", not China. Probably had very light use.

From experience they never lasted too long, especially when given typical school or college use. The keys on the right side often wouldn't work because the flexible conductors, probably flexible printed circuit, have failed with stress fractures, because of repeated bending at a small radius, i.e. fatigue.

So I'm thinking if they want to make a thin foldable phone without hinges, they got to find plastics, metals and a display that can withstand repeated bending thousands of times, at a narrow radius and doesn't fail or break with fatigue. If there's hinges and a definite split in the device where it folds, you've basically got the Kyocera Echo again!!....LOL

 

[chanchan05]

Hopefully someone will invent something better than the ribbon cable... Which still causes problems in laptops till this day (vertical lines going up the screen... Is a classic fault on laptops)

The new screens Samsung is developing doesn't use a cable. Its basically a 1pc screen that folds. That's the issue there really. How well it would hold up.