Before the reveal of the iPhone, smartphones weren’t as ubiquitous as they are today. Slowly as more manufacturers created their own versions, smartphones evolved into what they look like now – flat, glass rectangles. Eliminating the buttons of mobile phones is what brought the touch-screen smartphones into the future. Unfortunately, the days of emphatically snapping your foldable mobiles or sliding the keyboard away were also gone.
Now with most smartphones having the appearance of flat, rectangular pieces of glass with rounded corners and a few buttons, phone manufacturers are looking to shake up the market with a little change. And that change was to take from the rich culture of the past and incorporate into the technology that exists today. Thus, brings in the era of the foldable phone.
Perfecting the Fold
In 2019, the new and improved Motorla Razr and the Samsung Galaxy Fold were released. That makes 2020 the year of the foldable phone, after the world and the economy recovers hopefully. But foldable phone technology still needs some time to prepare for their debut as the last few wrinkles are ironed out such as perfecting foldable phone software as well as foldable glass.
Future foldables won’t have the same satisfying “snap” as their ancestors. Instead, foldable glass will give the new smartphones their novelty. Foldable glass is a type of ultra-thin glass that can be bent hundreds of thousands of times over, instead of folding and leaves a gap between the two screens. It’s not a totally new phenomenon, but perfecting it to survive daily use will take time.
Folding into the Future
Whether we want them or not, foldable phones are on their way to become the new “it” thing. But the new design doesn’t bring much else other than its bendability at this point. The fact that it can fold makes it more compact and easier to carry unlike current rectangular smartphones that easily slip out of shallow pockets. However, there is still much work to be done as engineers play with the laws of physics to find the right balance between bendability and damage resistance.
There are several foldables currently on the market like the Huawei Mate X, Microsoft Surface Duo with models from LG, TCL, and Apple under wraps. Companies are holding back their foldables until they’re ready but will be releasing them as an alternative choice for classic smartphones. Over a decade since the original iPhone, smartphones have essentially become powerful handheld computers.
Due to the high price tags on smartphones, more people are holding onto their older models longer rather than spending another thousand dollars for the newest model that comes within a year of the last. The high quality of every model plays a factor for people to hang on to their smartphone a little tighter leading to fewer smartphone sales every year.
Will the Market Fold?
The age of foldable phones is on the horizon to shake up the monotonous smartphone market and as another device for technological companies to perfect. At the moment, the cons outweigh the pros, but we’ll just have to wait and see what comes out.
