Three years have passed, why are foldable phones still not popular?

At the beginning of this year, Huawei released a new folding screen mobile phone Mate X2, and recently a digital blogger revealed that Xiaomi may launch a clamshell folding phone.

In addition, Samsung recently released its own foldable flagship product for the second half of the year, of which the Galaxy Z Flip 3 is priced at $999, which may mean that Samsung is trying to give up the ultra-high price positioning of foldable phones. This actually reveals the manufacturers' anxiety about the prospects of foldable phones.

The author has previously pointed out that the future of the foldable phone market will be determined by how to bring foldable phones from concepts and samples to the general public, adapt to more software features, and improve hardware durability and 3D imaging features.

Three years later, the challenges and contradictions of foldable mobile phone products still exist

But from the current perspective, manufacturers have not figured out how foldable phones will get to this point, and the future is not optimistic.

Back in 2018, when the concept of foldable phones was first introduced, it sparked heated discussions and hype in the industry, and was considered the future form and trend of mobile phone products. Mobile phone manufacturers are also scrambling to launch the first foldable phone, trying to seize the right to speak and dominate in this field.

Although the product form innovation of foldable mobile phones attracts attention, the product contradictions brought about by the foldable form have not been resolved.

First of all, after folding, the internal components of the mobile phone, such as circuit boards and batteries, need to adapt to the requirements of the foldable screen and have a certain degree of flexibility. When operating the device, the internal components need to withstand a large number of bending and non-bending cycles. Therefore, the design process requires the internal force of the stack to be balanced to avoid affecting the display effect of the screen.

Judging from the product ideas in recent years, the key to folding a mobile phone lies in the hinge in the middle of the phone. Through the hinge, the phone can be folded with this hinge as the center.

When Huawei first released the Mate X, it stuffed more than 180 components into the hinge, thus achieving a "foldable" form. Both Huawei and Samsung claimed that the product had undergone rigorous durability testing.

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Samsung has used an invisible hinge since the previous generation Galaxy Z Flip, and its new Galaxy Z Flip3 5G is said to be able to withstand up to 200,000 opening and closing times. Huawei claims that the screen and hinge can be folded up to 100,000 times, which may not exceed this number in the life of the device.

But despite this, foldable phones still have many problems in the user experience due to their folding design and are still in an immature state.

First of all, in order to achieve foldability, manufacturers have adopted complex movable hinges with a large number of movable parts. This brings a new problem that dust and water can enter through the gaps in the hinge's gears.

iFixit previously conducted a dust test on the Galaxy Z Flip, folding the Z Flip and putting it in a bag of dust. After taking the phone out of the bag, iFixit shook off a lot of dust, but a lot of dust got into the inside of the phone and even prevented the hinge from opening completely. In other words, its nylon brush is not as effective as expected in protecting against fine dust.

The second is the smooth feel of the hinge design.

Foreign media The Verge once said that the Huawei Mate X hinge seems to have a sense of tenacity when operating. Huawei must have put durability first when designing it, because the hinge has strong resistance and it takes a little effort to open and close it, so you won't feel elegant and smooth when using it.

However, The Verge also stated that we are still a long way from the ideal foldable screen mobile phone, but Huawei Mate X is accelerating all this.

In addition, the current thin-film packaging technology for folding screens is also at an immature stage. Last year’s Samsung Galaxy Z Fold and Huawei Mate X used plastic to cover the screen, but users found obvious creases after experiencing it.

After the release of Huawei Mate X2, foreign media techradar stated in its experience article that "after unfolding, the screen crease seems to be wider than the crease we saw on the Samsung Galaxy Fold and Galaxy Z Fold 2, but once you start browsing content, you may ignore it."

According to current external evaluations, the crease of Samsung Fold2 is narrower than that of Mate X2, but it still cannot solve the problem of screen crease.

For mobile phone products, the screen crease problem is not an optional defect, but the core of the product experience. For mobile phone products that focus on screen visual experience, consumers are not very tolerant of screen creases, and they are also concerned about the wear and tear caused by daily use. Of course, it is difficult for them to pay for high-priced folding screen mobile phones.

The current problems with foldable phones, such as screen adaptation, compatibility, lack of Android ecosystem, high pricing, etc., essentially reflect the very high design cost of foldable phones.

Another problem is that after so many years of development, manufacturers still haven't figured out why users need a foldable phone and what unique experience advantages a foldable phone can bring. From the current point of view, the current folding screen is equivalent to an Android tablet when unfolded, with a larger screen.

But for a bigger screen, users sacrifice portability. In fact, many consumers are reporting that foldable phones are currently larger and heavier after being folded, and are not as convenient to carry as candy-bar smartphones.

If it is not easy to carry, its usage scenario may be similar to that of a tablet. In today's world where mainstream full-screen mobile phones are all larger than 6.3 inches, a 7-8 inch high-priced tablet may not have much actual market demand. Android tablets themselves lack a market and software ecosystem.

However, some people will say that Samsung's latest foldable phone, the Galaxy Z Flip 3, is only 1.9 inches in size before unfolding, and can be easily put into a pocket. But if you look at this mini foldable phone, its screen is only 1.1 inches after folding, and half of the body can be used as a "base".

But in this way, whether it is the control experience after folding or using it as a tablet after unfolding, it loses the experience advantage of the large screen. It is actually more like a flip phone with a "foldable" appearance.

In the 14th century, there was a logician in England named William of Occam. He proposed a rule for solving problems, namely, "Do not add entities unless necessary." People call it "Occam's razor."

He believes that we should simplify things and make complicated things simple, and not waste more things doing things that are less useful.

What "Occam's razor" tells us is that when it comes to solutions, we should not artificially complicate things. Extra things may not necessarily be beneficial. On the contrary, they may more easily cause trouble.

In fact, if we look back at the current situation of foldable mobile phones, it undoubtedly conforms to the "Occam's razor". Manufacturers have spent a lot of energy and research on how to solve the problem of foldable phones.

For example, folding left and right, folding up and down, folding inward and outward, Huawei's folding screen mobile phones basically fold left and right; Samsung's Galaxy Fold folds left and right, Galaxy Z Flip folds up and down, and Royole FlexPai 2 folds left and right and inward.

But no matter how it is folded, manufacturers have not really thought about the fundamental question: Why do we make mobile phones foldable? If the purpose of folding and unfolding a mobile phone is just to get a tablet, it is not that useful and attractive to users. On the contrary, foldable phones make users worry about the loss of the screen and the life of the product.

The innovative direction of foldable phones: forget about screen enlargement and focus on folding

It is not convincing to ask users to pay a high price for a foldable phone just to get a larger screen.

Because today's large-screen mobile phones can already fully meet the screen size needs of most users in terms of visual experience. If users need a larger screen, the tablet itself is sufficient. Moreover, the existence of dual screens can greatly enhance the multi-tasking capabilities of the mobile phone.

Foldable phones are seen by consumers as a product that represents future trends, but if their playability and stability are not sufficient to support users' impulse consumption and continuous immersive needs, they will not be a product with lasting rigid demand.

From this perspective, if foldable screen mobile phones want to have a real breakthrough, they need to focus on the foldable form, start from the design idea of ​​"spatial dimensional innovation", drive the dimensionality of APP gameplay, and bring truly breakthrough and innovative gameplay.

Because each form of folding inwards, outwards, half folding, turning over, and bending actually brings the possibility of spatial innovation. The core value brought by the folding screen is actually more about upgrading the image display from two-dimensional to three-dimensional space - from two-dimensional to three-dimensional, from flat to three-dimensional, which is itself a dimensionality reduction attack on the original form.

For example, for games and applications based on AR, VR games, etc. that require three-dimensional images and three-dimensional space design, can foldable screens adapt to this development direction, form innovative gameplay, and drive killer applications?

Because the application software we are using now, whether it is social, short video or mobile payment, is more adapted to or dependent on straight touch screens, the current foldable phones have not brought an upgrade to the application experience.

In other words, it can also break through in the direction of productivity, better improve the software ecosystem and tool-based gameplay, and combine a laptop, mobile phone, and tablet into one, so that you only need to bring a mobile phone when traveling.

Only by forming differentiated innovative gameplay at the level of software and hardware integration can we attract some users to try it out and form a new market for backup machines.

However, some industry insiders have mentioned that the performance of smartphones is mainly limited by battery life and the development level of semiconductor technology. The limited performance also limits the form of applications running on the phone. From two-dimensional to three-dimensional, the battery life and semiconductor technology of smartphones also need to be upgraded. This is not something that can be achieved in the short term.

In addition, the key to the large-scale popularization of foldable screen mobile phones lies in their affordable prices. Consumers are willing to try new things and make mistakes, but the cost of trying new things and making mistakes is too high, which will form a huge market barrier.

But this is not easy to achieve. After all, the cost of production and assembly of folding screen accessories is there, and it is difficult to reduce or cheapen it in a short period of time. This requires time to achieve everything.

The calculation of mobile phone manufacturers is very obvious, which is to occupy a position first, occupy the commanding heights in technology or brand reputation, slowly iterate and optimize products, make friends with time, and wait for the wind to come.

However, manufacturers undoubtedly need to further think about the innovative direction of foldable screens. It cannot be denied that foldable phones may be a good direction to break the current deadlock of smartphones, but if the form and gameplay of foldable screens are just a tablet, then it may be a historical detour of trial and error in the mobile phone industry.