The Problem with the Galaxy Fold
The Samsung Galaxy Fold marked the official start of the foldable phones era and there are a couple of things that concern me regarding them.
Last year in November, Samsung teased us with a preview of their foldable smartphone and this February, during the Samsung Unpacked event we finally got to see it in its full glory. Samsung named it “the Galaxy Fold” and the plan is to start shipping it on April 26th with a price tag of $1.980.
It’s a pretty hefty price that you are paying here for innovation, but considering that this is the first mass produced foldable phone that has two AMOLED screens, 6 cameras and 2 batteries; and also considering that it tries to act as a replacement both for your phone and tablet, the price doesn’t come as a big surprise. It’s definitely an interesting piece of technology, but during the presentation of the Galaxy Fold a couple of concerns crossed my mind and I want to share them with you.
The front screen
Let’s first start with the front screen and with this I refer to the smaller screen. Since the Galaxy Fold is still intended to be a smartphone that you would take with you on the go in the majority of situations you will probably end up using the smaller, front screen. For example if you are walking on the street, standing in line, going grocery shopping etc., in all of those situations it will probably be more convenient for you to use the phone as a regular smartphone instead of unfolding it in “tablet mode”. Again as said, in majority of cases, I believe that you will use the Galaxy Fold as a regular smartphone, and that’s where my first concern arises.
Is it even usable?
From what we were able to see in the presentation of the Galaxy Fold, the front screen is going to be a 4.6” screen (so quite small for today’s standards)which has a very narrow shape.
Next to that, it’s positioned in the middle of the frame leaving below room for a gigantic chin. My biggest concern here is the typing experience on the small screen. I have a feeling that using this screen and typing on it won’t be that easy and that it will require quite some time to get used to it and even after getting used to it, it will still feel weird and clumsy. Just think about it, we live in an era where we have bezel less, edge to edge screens and suddenly comes the Galaxy fold with a gigantic chin below the screen.
The second screen
Let’s now move on to the second, foldable screen that you use in “tablet mode”. There are a couple of things that concern me.
Why does it look so cheap?
First of all, since this is a folding screen, it’s impossible to use glass like on traditional smartphones to cover the thin layer of the AMOLED screen since the the middle part of the screen has to be able to fold and unfold constantly. Therefore, a highly flexible material has to be used to cover the AMOLED screen, and that exact middle part is what concerns me the most. During the presentation, when they showcased the second screen of the Galaxy Fold, under certain light angels it was visible that the middle, foldable part of the screen has small bumps.
I think that the main difficulty here is that when the screen gets stretched, the middle part of it does not get 100% flush with the smartphone body which then creates these small screen bumps. I really hope that this isn’t as bad as it looks in real life because now, it reminds me of a kid’s toy with a sticker on it.
Does it feel the same?
This also leads me to my second concern regarding the second, larger screen and that’s the touch experience. Again as said, glass can’t be used here to cover the AMOLED screen so probably a flexible material was used and my question here is, is the touch experience as good and as smooth like on a glass screen? Or is it more a plasticky feel that you get when using the screen? I am not really sure here, but it’s definitely something to take in consideration.
Can it flex?
My last concern regarding the second screen is the durability of the middle folding part of the screen. During the presentation, Samsung showed us how they put a lot of effort in developing the hinge system and I am also sure that they ran a lot of tests to ensure that the screen can endure thousands of folds. What concerns me here is, how will the screen behave and endure in different weather conditions? I do believe that colder temperatures will definitely affect the screens flexing capabilities, so that’s again something to take into consideration.
App support for dual screens
The last thing that I want to mention as a concern is the app support for this dual screen setup, or as Samsung advertised it “app continuity”. What app continuity enables you to do is is that you can start interacting with an app on the small screen and then seamlessly continue using it on the second, much bigger screen and vice versa.
Android recently also announced that it will support this kind of experience, but I am concerned how many apps will actually be optimised for this and how long will it take them to get optimised?
I am saying this mainly because you will probably buy the Galaxy Fold for the dual screen experience and if the majority of apps are not optimised for it, it will significantly impact your experience and the value that you are getting from this device.
Conclusion
In the end, I just want to say and make it clear that foldable screens are still in a maturing phase and that Samsung is probably also testing the waters with the Galaxy Fold to see how the consumer market reacts to it. So you can’t really expect here a perfect product, but then again, you are paying $2000 for it so it makes sense to expect perfection. Unfortunately, I am not sure if you will get exactly the level of perfection that you are looking for.
In the end, there are still couple of questions that are open:
- Is the future of the smartphone industry?
- Will this create a significant impact on the smartphone industry?
- Would you ever be willing to buy a foldable smartphone if the price was acceptable?
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