Folding Phones Such As The Samsung Galaxy Fold And Huawei Mate X Have No Place In The Market

Every few years the technology market feels the need to rejuvenate itself. Now, after the single screen smartphones have been perfected, the jump to dual screen technology has finally started - and in its current state, we think it doesn’t have space in the smartphone market.

First introduced to the mainstream masses by Samsung and Huawei, folding phones aim to combine the portability of the everyday smartphone with their opportunities provided by a larger tablet screen. As seen with the recent Galaxy Fold, the concept includes the mending of two screens, which can be bent in half or opened depending on just how much screen real-estate a user may require.

In concept, combining two everyday technology products into one could be quite brilliant, but in actuality, the product shows more than a few flaws. For starters, combining two products that were always meant to be used separately creates what ultimately doesn’t achieve the perfection of either or. This is especially true in the age of the iPad Pro, where tablets have started adapting into work machines instead of the media giants they were always treated as.

Samsung has resorted to their own custom skin in the form of DEX

This issue is especially true when software is taken into consideration. On the tablet side of the spectrum, more desktop based experiences have been the driving force of allowing tablets to be more than media consumption devices. Apps such as the full version of Adobe Photoshop have now been made for the iPad, making this multi-tasking centric interpretation of what a tablet can do feeling very archaic.

But for those that think that this first generation technology can progress just as easily as smartphones did, think again. Earlier this year, Google announced that it was shifting its focus from Android tablets entirely to its Chrome OS platform. Though this could be subject to change as folding phones amass popularity, from the get go the platform is disadvantage in terms of support.

Google has moved to Chrome OS for large screen devices

Lastly, but certainly not less important than software is hardware. If the failure that was the first batch of the Samsung Galaxy Fold is to be taken as an example of what this technology can achieve in its first generation, we have quite few things to worry. From the flimsy build quality to the natural bend in the middle of the flexible OLED used for its tablet functions, dual screen phones are not only more expensive, but come with a significant higher risk attached to them.

At the end, what this entails that whilst slowly progressing what seems like a slowing industry, folding phones are not only fundamentally broken, but disadvanted in both their hardware capabilities and future software - leaving them at what can only be described as an awkward space in the current smartphone market.