Samsung bent the wrong way once again
Did you ever wonder why we expect the best phones will be upgraded every year? We insist that Apple will launch the iPhone 15 like clockwork, and we know Samsung will announce the Galaxy S24 in February. History is our guide, but when did this history begin? I’d say it began with Samsung, and its aggressive annual pace has finally become a problem for the company with the underwhelming Galaxy Z Fold 5.
Underwhelming may be an unfair description. It’s astonishing, truly. If you’d shown me the Galaxy Z Fold 5 in 2007 while I was standing in line for the first iPhone, I would have passed out right there in that New Jersey mall. My tiny brain wouldn’t comprehend the folding glass, the massive displays, the array of camera lenses. Break out that S Pen and wave it around with some air gestures and I’d have called you Gandalf and followed you to Mordor.
On the other hand, if you show me the Galaxy Z Fold 5 now while I’m holding my Galaxy Z Fold 4, I’d have trouble discerning the differences. The Fold 5 has a faster processor? My Z Fold 4 was pretty fast already. The Fold 5 can fold flat? Okay, is that all? Because, as far as upgrades go, that’s kind of, well, boring.
There’s a lab full of engineers working on foldable glass whose heads just exploded when I called their last year of labor “boring.” It’s not boring. I’m sure it took a level of technical achievement that I can’t comprehend to get from a teardrop gap to a completely flat seam. Engineers work in worlds measured in micrometers. I just want to buy a new phone.
An expensive new phone, at that. The most surprising thing about the Galaxy Z Fold 5 may not be the lack of improvements, but the failure to drop the price. If the phone isn’t going to get much better, at least it could have gotten cheaper? It’s hard to understand how last year’s price is justified. At least the Galaxy Z Flip 5 got a much bigger cover display. The Galaxy Z Fold 5 just got … a little better.The Pixel Fold shows how big foldable phones must bend
The problem is the Google Pixel Fold, and upcoming phones like the OnePlus Open. All of today’s foldable phone makers are working with a rectangular, internal panel around 7.6-inches. You can bend that rectangle in half in two ways, and how you bend it shapes the cover display.
