Vivo announces its first folding phone:
Vivo has announced the X Fold, its first folding phone. The X Fold takes a similar approach to Samsung's Galaxy Z Fold series and its competitors, with a large 8.03-inch folding screen on the inside for tablet-style use and a more conventional phone-sized screen — in this case, 6.53 inches — on the outside.
[...] Beyond its folding capabilities, the Vivo X Fold sports recognizably flagship specs. It's powered by Qualcomm's flagship Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 processor and has a 4,600mAh battery that can be charged at 50W wirelessly or at 66W using a cable. Both its screens support up to a 120Hz refresh rate and have ultrasonic fingerprint scanners built into them.
What are your thoughts on folding phones? Will the extra screen space be useful, are they an opportunity for planned obsolescence or will it just be another fad?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 14 2022, @01:58PM
What I need is a "small" Android phone, with a 4-5" screen. Current phones are too big.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by richtopia on Thursday April 14 2022, @02:56PM (1 child)
Too expensive. Too big.
However, I'm clearly not the target audience: I'm looking for a budget device every 4ish years. Manufacturers won't earn much profit off people like myself.
Now, let's derail the conversation around folding phones and complain how phones are too expensive, too big, apps take too much compute resources, and the OS is too locked down.
(Score: 2) by zafiro17 on Friday April 15 2022, @01:08PM
I've seen a few people carrying the new Samsung foldable device. I've asked them how they like it, because it's a device that fascinates me. They all universally state they love it, and opening up the big screen to tablet mode makes it really convenient to so the sorts of things that are difficult on smaller screens.
To me it looks not just big but also heavy. I've got a Samsung Note 9, which is a decent phone but heavy - really heavy. I'm increasingly convinced my next phone will be smaller and lighter.
I sure do like that big screen though, just wish I didn't have to always wear cargo pants in order to carry it.
Did anyone ever have a Nokia Communicator? Looks like about the same dimensions and weight to me, roughly.
Dad always thought laughter was the best medicine, which I guess is why several of us died of tuberculosis - Jack Handey
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 14 2022, @03:23PM (1 child)
From a technological standpoint, these screens are amazing -- a screen that can bend and fold without breaking -- Wow.
From a practical standpoint, it gives me pause. I'm not a fan on excessive waste. Planned obsolescence is offensive to me. So when reading about these foldable phones, my first thought is the act of bending a paper clip until it snaps. How long will the phone last? If most of these will be in a landfill, or electronic recycling facility, in a year or two, due to an expensive broken screen, then its wasteful -- wasteful of the customer's money, and wasteful environmentally. 300k folds is amazing, but will it live up to that number, and is it enough? With a price tag in excess of $1k, personally, if I can't get a minimum of 5 years out of it, its a waste. 7 to 10 years would be better.
I can't imagine buying one of these myself, so I guess I'll get to see how they work out. Here's hoping for longevity.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Thursday April 14 2022, @03:35PM
A paper clip is a rigid piece of metal with a specific use case. To be used as a clip to hold a few pieces of paper together. It's not designed to be bent back and forth. You can easily bend it and shape it, but it will easily break.
A foldable phone, isn't like that. It's got a lot more in common with a laptop. I've seen many a laptop hinge that gave out. The wonderful plastic Macbooks where pretty much every single one developed that broken edge due to the plastic spacer. There's all kinds of things that can and will likely go wrong with these foldable phones. The average person that drops $1k on a smartphone, probably won't be dealing with any of them, though. As they'll be dropping another $1k on a new phone in the next year or two.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 0, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 14 2022, @03:31PM (1 child)
i know people who would nearly giveup a arm and a leg for a regular clamshell "dumb" phone. like with a keyboard/dial pad and not enough intelligence to run spywarez ... well at least not the "off the shelf" type.
also, like a week of stand-by battery and "oops i dropped the phone now its kaput" it didnt break the bank less 35 bucks ...
(*) backdoor ready(tm) fivehundred gigamemory to hide in with 50000 storage thingy to not be noticed and 2 trillion operating symbols per second to not break a sweet and slowdown..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 14 2022, @04:13PM
They exist: https://www.amazon.com/flip-phones/s?k=flip+phones [amazon.com] and many cost much less than an arm and a leg (unless you're a chicken: https://www.kfc.com/menu/fried-chicken/3-piece-chicken-combo-breast-thigh-and-wing) [kfc.com]
(Score: 2) by looorg on Thursday April 14 2022, @03:43PM
I kind of liked the clamshell-type phones. I guess it wasn't so much folding as in that it had a hinge in the middle and you had the screen on one part and the keys on the other.
I guess this is sort of that except it's screen on both ends (and there is no fold or break in the screen?) and a virtual keyboard on the screen? Still. Pass. To large. To expensive. To pointless.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 14 2022, @04:06PM
I also still will not buy a phone without a removeable battery and expandable storage and a earphone plug that gets guaranteed Android security updates for several years (currently rocking an Xcover Pro)
(Score: 2) by drussell on Thursday April 14 2022, @08:55PM
I agree that being able to manufacture a bendable display panel is a novel idea and impressive from an engineering standpoint, but for something like a phone it seems more like a solution in search of a problem.
There really isn't any good reason to need to have a continuous fold-out-able screen on something like a typical phone.
Being able to unfold a giant TV out of a small suitcase or something does seem pretty cool and Jetsons-esque but is it really that much of an advantage in most applications? Is it worth the extra expense and fragility in most applications? I think not.
For certain niche applications? Really cool tech. Mainstream displays? Uhhh, I'm not sold.