Samsung sees 95% drop in profits for a second consecutive quarter::Today, Samsung posted its Q2 2023 financial results. The report says Samsung’s profits have dropped considerably compared to last year.
and who even wants this? a couple of friends have them, and it seems like nothing more than a weird novelty. in sci-fi, the phone unfolds to become a tablet, not folds in half to become… uselelss while potentially damaging the screen for no good reason.
this is a classic example of one of those technologies that you think would be cool, but once you have it, you’re like, “eh, never mind.” but Samsung went all sunk cost fallacy and doubled-down on it, losing billions. brilliant!
I had flip phones before smartphones became default, I loved the intuitiveness of answering, locking, etc, and I love the idea of a foldable smartphone because of the size of the screen that you can get into a pocket
Same here, was on flip phones for the longest time. I loved the compactness. They became scarce some years ago so I started buying smart phones, currently a Samsung. That thing is huge and unwieldy. It does not fit well in a pocket so I don’t carry it around. I always have to find someplace to stow it, often in the center console of my car.
A folding smart phone could be a solution, but they’re all really expensive. I don’t spend a lot on phones and never will. Right now I’m looking to replace my under $300 Samsung with an under $300 Motorola. Functionally my Samsung works well, but I hate all the Samsung bloatware on it. I know Motorola uses a fairly stock Android image and hopefully it will be a bit more compact.
from what my friends have told me, that novelty wears off real quick, and is replaced with the concern it will break or wear out— which happens more frequently than manufacturers claim. if not the screen itself, then the hinges, which were a common problem with the old flip-phones, too, back in the day.
I mean, you like what you like. I’m just speaking from a practical standpoint in that any moving parts = a high manufacturing cost and higher rate of defect and breakage. the primary advantage of the “candy bar” form factor is that it reduces/eliminates moving parts and potential points of failure from the physical design.
I admit… I really do miss the idea, even the feel of flipping a phone shut. hell, I even miss slamming a phone down to end a call. angrily jamming my finger into a screen to end a call is REALLY unsatisfying, and often ends in my throwing my phone across the room, and I’ve thankfully developed the habit of throwing it at my couch to save on replacing expensive smartphones, lol. but, until tech evolves tot he point where we get phablets a la Westworld or Legion that can unfold into a super-slim tablet rather than fold down into a flip-phone from the past whose screen could actually just break at any moment because the tech was rushed…. yeah, I’m not interested.
I had a Motorola razr in 2021 that was a good phone, the crease never really bothered me but after 6 months of use the touch screen stopped working and then the pixels started going out on it before it stopped working entirely.
I loved the form factor but it’s just not reliable enough. I’d probably only buy another clamshell foldable if apple made it because I trust them not to rush a half baked product to market.
