Folding The Future

samsung foldable phone

With the Mobile World Congress convention in full swing the past weekend, there was a lot of phones that are becoming foldable. Now I have been asked by quite a number of people “What do you think of those foldable phones?” Well let me break it down with what I saw and my first impressions on what foldable tech could mean.

gmail on a foldable phone

To Fold or Not To Fold

Making a screen fold like a tortilla is super hard, the tech is in its infancy, don’t let anyone say differently the tech is beyond difficult. We had a few phones appear at the MWC this past week, Samsung introduced the Samsung Fold, Huawei introduced the Mate X, and TCL has currently a prototype of a foldable phone that will probably see release in the near future. Now what is this packing? Well I could get into the nitty gritty, but I will avoid all the tech specs, if you want you can head on over to the companies websites. Now why are companies doing this, is folding a screen really the future? Well I don’t know where the future is going, cause if I remember when I was high school, teachers use to tell me we would never have a device in our pocket that would do our math homework for us…and now we have apps that can do our math homework for us.

Foldable tech could very much revolutionize technology by providing consumers a more targeted 2 in 1 kind of like laptops are both computers and tablets. Now I haven’t gotten any hands on time with any of these devices but my first impressions of them is each of these companies could be onto something that could help consumers cut down on the number of devices they are carrying. What I think companies will need to focus on with building these type of 2 in 1 phones will be battery life and longevity, cause right now I think the first series of devices are a learning experience and by learning experience I mean the battery life might be terrible and the hinge might break after less than a year. Take any 1st generation device, tech people always tell me don’t buy the first, buy the 2nd generation.

westworld foldable phone gif

Tech People”The iPhone X is Too Expensive”, Samsung “hold my beer”

The cost of both these phones are crossing into the 2 grand area. You are probably thinking “2 FREAKING G’s!” well before you freak out, remember how much 4K and 1080p tvs cost when they first came out? And now you can get a 55 inch 4K tv for like 300 dollars instead of 3 thousand dollars. That is how technology is, it evolves and we learn how to optimize and make it more cost effective. These phones however I think will be used more by enterprise people who depend on their email and office products at first, then the adoption level will rise and as they are slowly brought down these could very well become the standard.

I believe if Samsung and Huawei and other companies focus on this technology we could very well see it move away from being a niche product at first. Would I buy a foldable phone? Not yet, cause apps will not be optimized at first, there might be some issues with the bendable area breaking, battery life might be iffy at first. But if the technology evolves and becomes a 2-1 phone tablet hybrid and focus on providing that amazing desktop like experience in Samsung DeX, these foldable phones I could very well see replacing tablets and possibly computers of the future. Cause yes 2 grand sounds like a lot, but what if you didn’t have to buy a tablet and a laptop and instead could plug your phone into a monitor and just do your work, taxes and everything else that way and play some games as well. Yes there is a world for a foldable device that costs around 2 grand if it cut costs in other technological areas of your life.

 

IN CONCLUSION

I am very excited to see where foldable tech goes, it can very well be a precursor for a whole other type of device. could you imagine having a rollable laptop screen, or a bendable portable monitor? This could very lead us down a foldable future if we continue to capitalize on this technology, yes we won’t have westworld tablets for a while but could very well be the beginning of a foldable future.

see you space cowboy…