Who the fuck thought this was a good idea?
@coolboymew
I've never seen one that got actual use out of it. I've seen a few in store displays, and they don't have any real noticeable crease to speak of. Maybe slight bumps or lumps, because the screen isn't hard glass, so it's not a perfectly flat surface. They look perfectly usable imo.
But those phones don't get real use, so I've got no clue how they end up IRL.
@coolboymew I'd guess: 90% of the time use it as phone, 10% use it as a tablet. When they need to read some pdf or something, flip it open. Maybe even watch a movie while on a plane, or something. Just random small things from time to time.
@coolboymew For some people the price is not an issue.
samsung said no no guys its fine. sold them, they all started breaking within weeks/first month.
there is probably some incredibly high science way to make this work out, but it just amounts to making it slightly easier to crumple a tablet in to a pocket, at great increase of complexity because now you have to get self annealing plastics involved, so like
are we just doing this because we can?
@icedquinn @coolboymew
>are we just doing this because we can?
A bit because of this, for sure.
I've watched a few teardown videos every now and then, and it seems they've improved a bit over the years. First models had terrible hinges, that got dirt trapped in them and broke them. Now apparently that's a solved issue.
They've even managed to make it hard to fold them the wrong way around.
There's definitely a lot of complexity involved, including some kind of weird ultra-thin glass that is flexible enough to fold, but also protects the screen from scratches from dust in your pockets (cause if you try to actually scratch the folding screen with something serious... yeah... zero protection).
But considering everything, it is an interesting achievement. And while the need is niche, as long as someone finds use out of it, and the companies are making their money back, who am I to complain.
@icedquinn @coolboymew
Weirdly enough, there is a small segment of people that do some kind of small work on the go, for whom something like this works great, because they basically need a tablet sized thing every once in a while to view/edit a document. Not complicated work, just slight edits while on the field. Like adding a row in a spreadsheet. Menial stuff. So why carry 2 devices around, when you can have 1.
@coolboymew @alyx they break easily when someone folds them the wrong way
I have no idea what anyone does with these