Fold: The New Generation of Smartphones

Over the last few years smartphone manufacturers have drowned us with smartphones, each new one loaded with fancier specs. It's been a huge wave. Came the IPhone X, something completely new, and the latest one we've seen is the Galaxy S10. But now something newer has come, the foldable phones. The first ones in this genre happen to be the Samsung Galaxy Fold and the Huawei Mate X. Despite being from the same genre and having somewhat similar specs these phones differ a little in their design. The Galaxy Fold comes with almost the same specs as the S10. So basically it's a flagship. It has the latest Snapdragon 855 octacore processor, 12 gigabytes of RAM, 512 gigabytes of internal storage, not expandable. It has a 7.30 inch OLED screen(primary) with a resolution of 1536x2152 pixels and the secondary screen is 4.60 inch with a resolution of 840x1960 pixels, the battery is 4,380 mAh. It comes exactly with 6 cameras, 3 of them are at the back one of them is 16 and two are 12 megapixels, it has two front cameras when it is unfolded, 10 and 8 megapixels, and it has a single 10 megapixels front camera when it is folded. Lastly it comes packed with the latest Android 9.0. That's some pretty insane specs and with all that the phone costs $1980 and that is very expensive. Now, let's talk about the Huawei Mate X. This one comes with a Hisilicon Kirin 980 octacore processor, 8 gigabytes of RAM, 512 gigabytes of storage which is expandable up to 256 GB. The phone comes with a single fold-able display unlike the two displays on the Galaxy Fold. The display is OLED and when unfolded is 8 inches with a resolution of 2200x2480 pixels, when folded the two parts of the display are 6.60 and 6.38 inches and have resolutions of 1148x2480 and 892x2480 pixels respectively. The phone has three cameras at the back, the cameras are 40, 16 and 8 megapixels, and it comes with Android 9.0 with EMUI 9.1. The phone does not have any front cameras, instead the rear cameras are used to take selfies, thanks to the phone's design and folding orientation, the part of the screen at the back of the phone beside the cameras is used to take selfies. To take selfies you just have to choose the option to flip the screen in the camera app then just flip the phone, the picture would appear on the part of the screen facing you, and the you just have to take the shot. One very impressive and practical photo related feature that the phone offers is that it allows the subject of a photo(if the subject is a person, of course) to see how the photo is coming, simultaneously as the photo is being taken, that's due to the dual screen of the device. The phone costs $2600. That's even more expensive than the Fold.

Fold: The New Generation of Smartphones

As the prices look, these phones won't be attracting a lot of customers. Perhaps later when devices like this are a little more common and less expensive, we'll see more of these. The phones obviously won't be attracting average phone buyers, I think they would pretty much only attract people who are looking for both a phone and a tablet in a single device. People want their phones to be sleeker and more compact as it goes. The fold concept being what it is today is much bulkier and a lot undesirable in comparison. The key selling point for these phones as of right now is only going to be the excitement of the people for this new mind blowing concept. To be very honest this technology requires a lot of improvement right now. It is not as feasible as it should be, not right now.

Getting back to the Fold and the Mate. Both these phones have their perks and drawbacks. Both of them have a fingerprint sensor on their sides. The Mate has an integrated power button with a fingerprint sensor which makes it much more comfortable to use, whereas, the Fold has a separate sensor and a separate power button, you have to first press the power button and then move your finger on the sensor. It would be kinda annoying. The Galaxy Fold folds inwards, this is a plus point as the primary display stays protected through this. Remember there is no screen protection for these devices yet. On the other hand the Mate X's screen folds outwards exposing both the parts of the screen and their junction. The Fold has glass back which allows wireless charging, plus it comes with a back cover(two separate parts of back cover). Though it does not have an earphone jack, the good thing is it comes with Samsung's wireless earphones. The Mate X does not support wireless charging but it has a pretty fast 'quick charge' feature, and it has an earphone jack. In the Galaxy Fold you can take a selfie in both the expanded mode and the compact mode, whereas, Huawei does not allow selfie in expanded mode. Overall, I can say that Samsung is providing a better and a more feasible fold-able phone for a more reasonable price than Huawei. The only plus points Huawei has are that it is somewhat sleeker, has a bigger screen and a better screen to body ratio, but the drawbacks of the phone cannot be undermined and for that, there is a difference of $620 between the two phones. Though I'm not a big Samsung fan, Huawei clearly is not being reasonable.

One more fold-able phone that is set to arrive and could be potential competitor is the Motorola Razr. The phone does not have as big a screen as the above mentioned devices but it sure is thinner, more compact and a familiar design.

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