Know When to Fold ‘Em

“You know, of all the things I wish for in this lunatic fringe of a world we find ourselves living in, if I could just have one wish…yeah, it would be a foldable smartphone.”

Said no one ever.

Well, save for Samsung, which introduced its Galaxy Fold smartphone this week at an event in London.

I watched a snapshot of the demo Samsung presented of its Fold smartphone yesterday, and it’s very Jetson-y. 

The Verge provided some speeds and feeds:

Samsung is using a new 7.3-inch Infinity Flex Display that allows the phone itself to have a tablet-sized screen that can be folded to fit into a pocket. The main display is QXGA+ resolution (4.2:3), and when it’s folded, a smaller 4.6-inch HD+ (12:9) display is used for the phone mode. Samsung is using 512GB of Universal Flash Storage 3.0 (eUFS) for fast speeds, alongside a Qualcomm 7nm octa-core processor and 12GB of RAM. Samsung has even built two batteries for its Galaxy Fold, that are separated by the fold but combined in the Android operating system to represent a total of 4,380 mAh.

But the hook is its foldability, which The Verge explained this way:

Samsung has built a sturdy backbone to the device, with a hinge system that has multiple interlocking gears. All of these gears are hidden at the rear of the device, and allow the Galaxy Fold to transform from tablet to phone modes….Samsung is allowing the Galaxy Fold to run three apps at once on this Android device, and it’s using an app continuity system to adjust these apps when you move between tablet and phone modes. Apps like WhatsApp, Microsoft Office, and YouTube have all been optimized for the new display and modes, and Samsung has been working with Google to ensure Android 9 Pie fully supports this display.

In a separate story from The Verge, journalist Vlad Savov isn’t having any any of it, however. His lede~”The foldable Galaxy Fold phone-tablet hybrid is Samsung’s Google Glass: an exciting technical showcase that is hitting the market far too soon and risks souring everyone on the entire nascent category.”

Of course, I haven’t even gotten to the price tag…are you ready for it….hold on, I’ve got to figure out how to unfold this thing…okay, almost there…and, drum roll, please: $1,980 U.S.!

Now to be fair, if you compare that to the Vertu Aster P at $4,200 (a luxury smartphone made for people who have too much money on their hands), that’s a heck of a deal! And compared to the Vertu Aster P gold version at $14,120, it’s a downright steal. Right?

Rightttt.

But the real question I want to see answered by consumers is what problem does the Fold solve?  

Could it supplant the perceived need to have both a smartphone and tablet? Instead of reaching into your backpack for the iPad, you can now just crank open the Fold and voila?

IBM went down a similar path in 1995 with the introduction of its ThinkPad 701C, which had a TrackWrite keyboard (better known as the “butterfly” keyboard).  It was very cool, and it was trying to solve a similar problem: Fitting more into less.

In this case, more keyboard into a more compact form factor — it was clever and, for some, probably useful.  

One also now sits on display in the Museum of Modern Art in NYC, eagerly awaiting some curator to pop the butterfly keyboard open and start a typing frenzy.

I guess we will just have to wait until the Fold is actually in market before we can determine if it will come to a similar fate.