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- Hacker News
- Does anyone had a good experience with foldable phones? The only people I know that bought one had them broken near the 2 year mark.
My phone from 2018 it's still working perfectly.
by is_true - I tested out last year's foldable phone for a couple of months.. borrowed it from a friend.
Maybe I'm just losing interest in phone tech - but to me, it was only down sides and no upside.
The phone was bulky. Fragile.
The larger screen you get when you open the phone - was absolutely useless for most of the content I watch. The screen is 4:3 and most of the content I watched was 16:9. The black bars at the top and bottom of the video meant that the actual video content is exactly the same size as my non foldable Motorola Edge 40.
by saidinesh5 - I love mine, but I used to try and stuff a Kindle into my jeans pocket because reading on a large screen is so much more enjoyable for me.by TGower
- My pixel fold 9 got 3 hardware failures (battery, speaker and folding sensor) and was warranty replaced for a fold 10. While it was being replaced I was using a non foldable phone and was totally missing the folding experience (large screen and multitasking for some personal use cases), so I am team foldables for now. otoh I do not get the idea behind the flip phonesby anabab
- I had a flip phone. It was silly, and a waste of money, but I’d buy another one. It was fun, quirky and a bit different to the general black rounded rectangle.by maccard
- The Pixel 9 Pro Fold had a lot of warranty replacements due to a failing internal cable. The 10 seems to have resolved the issue, but time will tell.
Other than that, the Pixel Fold has been a great phone. It's like having a tiny tablet with me everywhere I go.
by guyzero - While I daily use an iPhone now, my original Pixel Fold is still working and running GrapheneOS. Besides a bug caused by GrapheneOS where the outer screen wouldn’t work, it has been flawless, and I can’t really blame Google for that one.
Giving it up was tough, as I consume a lot of books and mangas. I’m just waiting for Apple to release their foldable before I ditch this iPhone.
- I am very happy with my Pixel 9 Pro Fold, the replacement because of early models losing 5G on unfolding was swift and it's been one of my least annoying phones so far, and I used many models, OSesby polotics
- Been a folding phone user for multiple generations now.
The flip-phone style ones: Excellent! The folding aspect really aids in switching between a small device with minimal controls to a normal phone. I would use these over a standard phone. No question.
The portrait-to-not style ones like pixel fold? Is nice on occasion but the software is a complete let down. For reasons I do not care: The orientation is either wrong or the software cannot handle the form factor. The end result is a poor user experience.
Considering "usable space" as a percentage of the screen that contains useful content these are worse when unfolded than folded. Yes the screen is larger but most of the screen ends up useless. The actual useful chunk suddenly becomes horribly small in proportion.
The default layout showing composing an email in gmail is a prime example. The actual content area of the email: Same size as when folded. The rest of the screen is unused or taken up by the keyboard. Yes the keyboard is now larger but it's somehow weirdly proportioned.
There are adjustments that can be made to improve that. Some have to be applied every time the phone is unfolded or the apps restart (or neither or both who knows?)
Oh and my pixel fold screen has failed 2x in 3 years - I do not treat it gently.
I go on a longer rant about this here https://youtu.be/WHxOosmJt_U
by coreyoconnor - I still think stylus support (both hardware but especially software) is going to be a killer app for these things. They've gone in the wrong direction for now, but some of the Asian phone companies (Huawei?) still have stylus support.by FiddlerClamp
- I was looking forward to this one because of the IP68 dust and water protection rating, but the fact that it has the same cameras as the base Pixel 11 instead of the Pro is very sad. I also wish the HiLight feature was more used at launch - for example, having it glow red while recording.by Johnbot
- Why is Google averse to larger batteries? The Chinese makers have been stuffing 8000ish mah batteries in rather diminutive phones for two or three years now, and Google is releasing one in 2026 with about half that.by silisili
- Because those are a different kind of battery, silicon-carbon and they wear out much quicker. I am sure they will eventually though.by SirMaster
- Might be longevity concerns. Those new batteries are impressive, but the concern is that they will degrade a lot.
Also, remember the exploding Samsung phone. Experiments with batteries are risky for those companies.
by onli - Shipping regulations. >20Wh can't go by airpost in the west.by plantain
- I am only 75, but in a few years I have thought of downsizing to one device (and a VPS for a little coding). A future version of this phone that is triple fold would work for me.
- You know, maybe cameras are good enough, and I don't want a tumor at the top edge of my phone that gets tiresome to hold after 5 minutes.by sawjet
- Meet the Vivo X300by rcpt
- The Fold still has 16GB of RAM. The 11 Pro and 11 Pro XL both got nerfed to 12GB.
You also only get 6 months of a free Google AI Pro subscription (a $120 value) as opposed to the 12 months with the 10 (a $240 value). It's hard to see the 11 as an upgrade.
by trollbridge - Just a note that the 12GB nerf only applies to the base storage version of the pros.by abraham
- 12gb is a huge downgrade.
I was going to buy an 11 Pro, but now I might just grab a 10 Pro instead. What is the 11 buying me, some extra attention grabbing lights and a small redesign? in exchange for less memory? Oy vey.
by jpalawaga - I can’t say I’ve ever found myself thinking “I wish I had more RAM” on my phone. On laptop, I’d take it in a heartbeat but on my phone (which has 6GB) I’m perfectly happy.by maccard
- Maybe I'm being too cynical, but all the benefits in the video intro are either things that aren't benefits of the hardware (screen calls without looking, Gemini, tap less do more) or they're compensations for the foldable screen (30% more durable, 20% brighter ... than the last Fold, but likely still worse than non-folding phones.)
I don't see that as a product video that's telling me why I need one. It's just telling me that they've iterated on the last model. I mean, congrats, well done, but why should I buy it?
by onion2k - I'm looking forward to when "fold" is not so equivalent to "premium". I'm interested in a folding phone, but I don't think I've spent a cumulative $2000 on my last 4 phones. I'd have a hard time justifying spending even $1000.
I'm also looking forward to nomenclature settling so the horizontal-folding passport-style folding phones (like this, which I find interesting) can be more clearly distinguished from the vertical-folding flip-phone style folding phones (which don't remotely interest me).
by delecti - I have a feeling that making durable fold in half cell phones is just not something we can do cheaply, so they have to be billed as premium to justify it.
Also isn't that terminology settled? Fold for passport, flip for flip phone. I'm sure Apple will invent a new word but everyone doing foldables seems to use those consistently.
by gumby271 - These phones are getting larger each release, and it's the opposite of the trend I prefer now. I really am starting to miss the SE phone sizes and not feeling like I'm carrying a literal brick in my pocket wherever I go now. I don't think Apple is cutting back on the phone size either when their Fold comes out, and we're slowly just moving towards the point where a phone is just a mini tablet.by rvshchwl
- To be clear, this is slightly smaller than the pixel 10 by ~1mm in each direction, but they are still too big.by codemac
- iPhone 13 mini -- the last mini is still supported, will be supported by iOS27, and, given continuation of trends, will be supported by iOS28. That gives you a three year runway. They are plentiful on eBay and FB marketplace, and for $79 apple will replace the battery for you with a new one.by dmitrygr
- I was legitimately excited to get an iPhone Mini. Every new phone feels like a downgrade. I don't care if the phone is faster if it's an annoyance to carry, or hold in one hand.by jerlam
- Also weight. While the 11 Pro Fold apparently is a bit lighter than it’s predecessor, it’s still 239 grams. I miss the days of the 113g SE.by layer8