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Samsung is testing the water with their new passport-size fold phone. Looklike enough people demanded for smaller size phone.

Granted it is still considerably bigger than ip13mini, but it's step in right diretion

Also fan of the smaller phones. I dug up my Samsung Galaxy Ace from many years ago, and was so surprised at how tiny it was, with a replaceable battery as well!

My hope is that Unihertz ends up making a phone that I like enough, they seem to be pretty much the only ones making smaller phones. Their current offering doesn't really speak to me yet, but they're making quick progress.

> I am afraid that the 13 mini is the last of its kind.

Yeah, I thought mine was great but just wasn't up to the job of running the latest & greatest. Ive switch to an iPhone Air. It was a reluctant switch and I would go back in a heartbeat if Apple released a smaller form factor with the latest internals.

I had the 12 mini (before it I had an iPhone SE, then iPhone X, then the 12 mini), which unfortunately did not work for me because the battery drained too fast.

Really hope you're wrong and we do eventually get some more one-handed phones in the future, especially once battery tech evolves.

I really want something 13 mini sized but the battery life is no good for me. They could fix that with less fat and bloated software but like hell that's going to happen.

The last phone I really liked was my iPhone 6s. Right size, shape and feel. That was incidentally the last phone that had a camera that didn't oversharpen everything too.

I love my iphone SE (all gens)

This article is extremely poorly written and has the assumption we all very deep in folding phone lore and can read the writers mind.

I think there's some new folding phone aspect ratio ("passport sized"?) that's more popular but the article never really explains which one they're talking about. Don't think it means moving away from folding in general.

Folding phones aren't going away; they're becoming more mainstream. The initial versions of folding phones that came out five or six years ago had issues and some aspects that weren't addressed. But we are literally in the sixth or seventh generation of folding phones, and Samsung has basically perfected them. If you think the durability is bad, think again, because they are very, very durable. I use a Z Fold 6, and it is built like a tank. The next ones are even tougher.

In terms of usefulness, they are actually more useful than the bigass phones like the iPhone Max or S26 Ultra, and other comparable ones from various manufacturers. The outer screen is pretty small and very usable with one hand. There are a few multitasking options you can choose from once you unfold them. you can have two or four apps open at once if needed. They are also very good for watching videos. A huge number of smartphone users do spend a lot of time watching stuff on their screens.

The latest Samsung Z Fold 8 has become a huge success... its size appears to be even more ideal for one hand. the thinness and overall size of it once opened has essentially seemed like the perfect form factor for the latest generation of smartphone users.

I'm confused, what is everyone else moving away from, folding phones? The same article said Samsung is still making folding phones and Apple is about to release one.

It's feels like 3d TVs and AR headsets, they're trying to find a new customer base to milk but it just isn't here

This is a square screen BB KB style Android phone: https://www.unihertz.com/products/titan-2-elite

When you open it, it becomes a tablet not a phone. And therein lays your answer.

Turns into a small tablet which is great for reading, for impromptu client demos, and for playing some games like puzzles.

It also enables multitasking by having applications side by side which can be very useful on a phone too.

You don't have to use it all the time, but it's nice when you need it.

What a strange question. I guess we no longer need monitors because a phone display is all anyone should need? Why do I need two devices when one would do? I get we are not there yet but I can certainly imagine having just one device and virtual displays in my glasses / contacts. Those displays will not be phone sized

Also, bad eye site, large fonts, suck in small screens

Makes it easier to use enterprisey management console type UIs on the go. Also nice for reading large diffs.

I actually develop software on my phone with Termux. I want the biggest screen that still fits in my pocket.

The original iPhone cost $500 and adjusting for inflation that is about $800 today. I don't remember phones costing $300 since before the smart phone era. Even Walkman phones cost $500 in the early 2000's.

Look up the figures for inflation, your money is worth a fraction of what it was before COVID, then we have component shortages on top of that.

The $199/$299 prices were never real. Those were on carrier-subsidized plans.

> New iPhones used to be $199

With a 2-year contract with your carrier in which you pay the cost of the phone gradually each month

they did, significants parts of it, and "during Covid" is ongoing

https://www.cbc.ca/radio/quirks/long-covid-brain-1.7171918

I think the clumsiness can be improved. I always make a conscious effort when I grab my phone or put it away, so that is is always secure. No "I thought it slid into my pocket but apparently it was still outside it and then dropped". I would grab my phone with both hands in a lot of situations that are risky etc.

It's a bunch of small habits to change, then you may be ready for a fragile foldable. Until then, yes, probably not the target audience!

You can get covers that shield/protect the hinge

Among other manufacturers Spigen has cases that protect the hinge. I've owned a foldable for 3 years and never had anything get into the hinge thanks to that, though some amount of dust did gather inside the hinge cover over time.

But I would be nervous about spending that much on a phone if you expect to be dropping it a lot, honestly.

> Samsung just includes too much overlapping bloat "features"

Yep, that's a major drawback. My partner has a Samsung phone and seeing all of the included bloatware, plus the terrible updates and add even more, made me not even consider one of their devices last time I bought a phone.

I'm on my last Samsung for this reason. Just way too much bloatware, need to agree to a new privacy policy once a week, and every time it updates I find a few new apps on my phone I didn't want.

Gonna hold out for the Motorola/Graphene phone though. One of the models is supposed to be a flagship foldable.

>Comes out to about $1100 after trade-in and includes a free Pixel Watch 5.

Thats expensive :/

Just be careful about what your actual use case is.

For example, this form factor of foldable doesn’t give you significantly more screen real estate for 16:9 video content since it’s such a square aspect ratio.

They also generally aren’t large enough to take advantage of tablet layouts, while tri-fold designs fold out to be almost identical to a tablet size.

You have to really want to use two apps side by side in my opinion.

If you run GrapeheneOS on it and use it as your full machine while wired to a display or three, sure.

Otherwise, in no world is $1100 for a cell phone anything but expensive.

Yes, iPhones are also expensive.

just a heads up, the gpu is actually terrible. it is not even the actual gpu that is the issue but the software

> free Pixel Watch 5.

Personally, I find smart watches a gimmick but maybe I havnt looked into them enough.

I'm on fi and got the fold 8 through fi for a pretty steep discount. It was cash off immediately + fi credits. I can pull up exact details if you care but it was several hundred dollars off split pretty evenly between instant discount and fi credits. Coming from nearly 10 years of pixels/nexus the transition hasn't been that bad. I miss a couple pixel exclusives, but nearly all the samsung bloatware can be disabled or removed entirely. I haven't bumped into bixby once.

One genuine nice Samsung feature is DeX. Been using it + moonlight (when needed) to make the phone basically a secondary computer when hooked up to USB-C monitor. Honestly I think this phone may end up replacing several other devices - kindle, gaming portable (eg: steamdeck, replaced by phone + GameSir G8 + controller), laptop, tablet. I think it can only replace laptop in my use case because I can remote into my desktop from it if I need extra compute - so if you are laptop only I don't expect it to be a straight replacement.

Honestly, best phone I've ever used - but I hope next year either google gets off the sidelines and adopts passport form factor + gets its shit together on the crease, cpu and dex equivalent so I can get my pixel exclusives and vanilla OS back, or alternatively Samsung makes the wide form factor the "ultra" and gives us better cameras, speaker placement, s-pen and IP68.

Yeah, you can almost buy two phones for that price. There you go, wireless foldable

For me the biggest issue, frequently hearing and reading about broken inner screens, is that it makes the screen a consumable, which socks.

Target is probably people only use phones, no note PCs. If you use note, its generally better to tether by phone and view and input from note.

Really depends on what you do with the open phone. I can understand it being a huge distraction when watching video with the seam right in the middle. EBook reading? Apps in tablet interface mode? Might as well complain that using two monitors on your desktop is unusable because of the bezels. Doesn't matter in practice.

It's not that noticeable when you use the device. It will depend on your ambient lights usually and how you hold it. It's a lot easier to see when someone else is holding the phone too, so if that was your reference, you may want to use them a bit more first.

Dunno. Crease almost invisible when screen is on and not pitch black ( using Honor V3 while actual generation is V6).

They have been for years. Almost all smartphones have roughly the same set of features, with fashion-like differentiators. You pay more for a premium one and it lasts a bit longer before the never-ending app bloat inevitably renders it obsolete.

The real question these days is: how badly does the software stack screw you over?

you get used to it almost instantly like within 1 hour of use. But I also have the OnePlus Open which has probably the best hidden crease you can buy besides Oppo which is just the company OnePlus came from

They aren't moving on from foldable, they are moving on from the shape to a shorter and fatter shaped foldable.

While they are more expensive, if price is the only concern, you could get last year's Z Fold 7 for a price similar to the launch price of an iPhone 17 Pro Max.

I think a lot of people pay their phones off with a contract over several years.

Signing up for a new phone contract, you start looking at a $600 phone. Thats $25 a month plus $15 for your calls and data, so $40 a month. Then you see the next phone next to it thats only $1200, it's so much better, and you're only paying $65 a month for it.

And then they flash this one in front of you, only $67 a month (just ignore the fact it's now over 3 years instead of 2)! 5 minutes later, you are in.

Enough people that even great Apple got FOMO after this market.

I did buy flagships few times and to be honest I did not regret them.

I kept them longer and I was able to do more... but that was few years ago when phones were getting more powerful for a reason.

Cameras were getting more megapixels to get on par with non digital photography (arguably, if you are not an artist at least) and everything needed to come along, memory, storage, processing and of course screen resolution.

... but again once that was done, which varies for everyone but still, and that is the key part of the argument, reaches a plateau of usefulness for the average user, then everything "more" was really a technical specification d*ck measuring contest. Unless you have superhuman vision, current screens are "good enough" to check your family photos and your work email.

Long story short I went from flaghships to 2nd hand few generations olds Pixel 8 (cheapest I could try GrapheneOS on) and I don't regret that decision at all.

TL;DR: I did, I don't anymore.

PS: before someone argues I don't know what I'm missing as I'm probably not using my phone for much, I do quite a lot on my phone including programming on it (directly on it, not via ssh), streaming videos on video projectors, running qemu for other architectures, etc. I'm not a casual user.

$1900 for green bubbles is crazy. My wife's iPhone 6 still trumps this.

I didn't read the paywalled article, but this phone looks exactly like the Pixel 9 Pro Fold I used to own.

And that is to say that it looks dated and ugly, particularly compared to Samsung's square phones.

Google's design comes with larger bezels, more weight and thickness, and a bigger crease.

The rounded corners are subjective I guess.

Reviews like this like to exaggerate certain things in order to get a punchy headline ("feels like the end of an era") and to create a matching narrative for the article. To keep readers engaged. Pretty typical for The Verge.

But as far as reviews go, this one is just as bad as most. They didn't do any standardized measurements of the battery life including comparisons with similar phones, or performance benchmarks, or charging speed measurements, or any camera measurements that go beyond vibes. They are just reporting what anyone who bought the phone could also tell you: subjective impressions and a few out-of-context sample photos.

Listen to each person who says he wants a small phone. Is he the kind of person who would even buy the smaller phone if it got released, rather than holding onto an old working phone? Is he also going to spend more money on apps, AirPods, etc, maybe a iPad too? Sometimes yeah, usually not. I'm in that group, I understand why Apple doesn't cater to me.

Also don't think anyone makes buying decisions based on these reviews. It's more entertainment than anything else.

I kept hearing how Pixel is the clean Android software experience, then I got one as a work phone. It honestly felt pretty unintuitive, and I thought that was just how Android is, but then it broke and I got a Samsung replacement... The Samsung UI is surprisingly better. Down to the clock settings.

It's in the spirit of the subject matter. Really emphasizes the Fold.

i mean it started nearly 2 years ago...

This is the same site that ran a front page saying if you vote for Trump you are literally a racist. I liked it better when it was just headphone reviews and holiday gift guides to pump their affiliate revenue. XD