Foldable phones inevitably come with compromises.
Seems like so far the compromises FAR outweigh the benefits. And I actually like the concept... maybe in 5 years?
iFixit has gone all Spanish inquisition on the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip, taking a sharp scalpel to the pricey foldable's innards and posting the pics online. What did it find? Not heresy, but somewhat of a mixed bag when it comes to repairability. The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip scored marginally better than the nouveau Motorola Razr, …
...and I'll say it again.
There is one change that made smartphones ubiquitous and kept their PDA/phone predecessors as niche products. Robust glass screens.
Prior to that, we had plastic displays which would scratch, crack, break or just give up if treated with anything other than utmost care. Always keep it in the case, always use a screen protector (no matter how much this fucks up responsiveness), never put it in a bag with other objects, never let your car's airco play on it on a hot day, etc ad nauseum.
When someone invents folding Gorilla Glass, these things may start to look like a good idea...
There was imho a bigger factor - putting media and the user experience first.
Big screen for videos, and marketed as a media device that removes the need to carry a phone, than a phone that doubles as a media device.
PDAs were heavily business orientated before, at least in design, and phones were phones first and foremost, no matter how much we used to play snake on the old Nokia bricks.
And there's me thinking it was the combination of beefier CPUs, capacitative screens and a touch-based UI that made them atrractive. I'd never had a screen break before. Because, IIRC, the first I-Phone had no 3G and no native apps but Apple was able to sell the dream. At the same time Blackberry and Nokia had manoeuvred themselves into tight corners.
And here I am to suggest yet another possibility: the functionality that comes with convenient personal internet access and the ability to write apps to make use of it. The old PDAs might have a phone connection in them, but it wouldn't be a data one. Then, there was enough data to receive and even send email, as long as you were a business and could afford the plan, but the typical consumer was still stuck on voice and text only. The smartphone also ushered in the revolutions of 3G and apps that expected to have it. True, it wasn't there on the early models, but adoption of those was primarily a small group that could afford the expensive hardware and still not cheap data plans. By the time the general consumer had a smartphone, they also had a data plan and a couple apps they used when away from home.
You're being a revisionist.
The BlackBerry was a PDA and a phone and was wildly popular as a result. There were other PDA phone combinations before the smartphone, going all the way back to the Nokia Communicator.
Apple's packaging of a startingly uncapable device as a luxury item with exclusive deals with networks was definitely an innovation and one the networks were happy to go with: 3G had until then been a bit of a flop because it was overpriced with little utility. Networks were desperate not to be seen as "data pipes" and, therefore, focussed on trying to offer products of marginal utility at premium prices (MMS, video calls) to justify the bandwidth charges.
The smartphone did, however, essentially end the competing war of mobile phone transport standards with the GSMA's 3G and later 4G carrying all before it. It was okay for the first I-Phone to be EDGE only in the US because Verizon had CDMA, but sales outside America required 3G and once Apple had got a foothold, it was willing and very able to dictate terms. So goodbye CDMA, IDEN and WiMax.
That last paragraph really hurt my brain as you repeatedly make generalisations with terms such as 3G and 4G but then reference specific technologies intermittently.
The GSM association doesn't own 3G, if you're referring to UMTS then its the 3GPP you should have referenced. When you say CDMA, are you referencing the 2G flavour or the 3G version CDMA2K? Whilst CDMA2K is very prevalent around the US, so to is UMTS with the majority of handsets capable of taking advantage of both technologies.
WiMax shouldn't be discounted, whilst its application is more suited towards mobile broadband, its certainly in user around the world, especially in rural areas due it having a larger range than LTE, one would thing broadband providers would jump on this to provide internet to our own rural blackspots in the UK, although I have heard that there is a limited WIMax network in London.
Makes me think of a line from a Bonzo Dog Band track, Rockaliser Baby...
"In September, 1937. I bought my wife a new electric iron for eight and sixpence. She's still using it everyday and it's never needed repair"
They just don't make stuff to last how they used to or eccentric geniuses like Vivian Stanshall, RIP.
Agreed, I’m old enough to remember toasters with flip down sides instead of being popups. They were inside only elements so you had to turn whatever to toast it evenly. I was a Chemistry monitor at school and we had one in the prep room we used for lunch. I would toast my sandwiches. it was good for that sort of thing. But you could replace pretty much all of it. I remember doing the element.
Popup toasters had replaceable elements as well, though the repair was usually a more involved affair due to access restrictions. So the fold down one would have gotten an iFixit of 10 and the popup 8 or 9. Now? the toasters are made of plastic and the elements are glued in. If it breaks you buy a new one. In the brave supposedly seeking CO2 Zero world this sort of thing is deeply depressing.
I also remember buying one which was too small, bread slices wouldn’t fit in it. So we had to find one with bigger slots. The first would have done pop tarts and the like.
i’m gluten intolerant (genuine 1990) and for toasted snags I use a George Foreman grill I scored for nowt off Freegle. Freegle is an excellent piece of internet. I have both donated and received from it. I also responded to a plea for help in getting kid’s bikes working again from a single mother just around the road. A good physical and mental workout that was. i got there though.
It's interesting how all the reviews talk of this highly specific "test" of dropping it in sand and wrecking the hinges. If I was daft enough to splaff over £1000 on a phone, you can be damned sure I'm going to look after it very, very carefully. Having said that, most "buyers" are probably renting them on a finance deal and paying £80-£90 per month and don't see that as a particularly large sum so actually give a fuck if it breaks. The insurance will replace it (and increase the premiums for those of us who DO look after our shit)
Whatever happened to wraparound the wrist bendy phones? With less of an acute bend angle, the screens could have a thicker layer of "glass". Wraparound the head type phones would have an even gentler curve and we could all look like McEnroe Cybermen, charging wirelessly by repeatedly holding our heads against lamp post charging stations