Another day, another foldable phone news story
Xiaomi have teased their foldable phone design for the second time and it looks pretty darn cool. The 10 second video shows the phone being used as a tablet before subsequently folding into a phone. You even get a glimpse of its gesture control as well. See for yourself in the video below.
https://twitter.com/xiaomishka/status/1110878077146615809
Thus far, foldable phones all have pretty much the same book like fold design. Xiaomi’s take on the foldable goes one step further by folding at both ends, which gives it a rather cool effect. The phone is rumoured to be powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 855 SoC with up to 10 GB RAM. The launch of the phone is supposedly penciled in for sometime in the second quarter of this year and is rumoured to cost just half the price of Samsung’s Galaxy Fold.
With Xiaomi now all but confirming its entry into the foldable phone market, it looks like everyone will soon be able to afford a foldable. This begs the question, are foldable phones the future or just a gimmick for companies to flex their tech?
A shift in the status quo
Its been slightly more than a decade since Apple revolutionized the mobile phone industry. The iPhone set the precedent for rectangular, candy bar shaped smartphones. It’s pretty much been the blueprint for every smartphone out there. That being said, it’s also a design that’s 12 years old. 2018 was a big year in the sense that it teased what is set to be the latest in smartphone form factors, the foldable.
First teased by Samsung, foldable phones went on sale this year but with such staggering prices, it seemed more like a marketing gimmick than anything else. Enter Xiaomi. The company’s upcoming foldable phone, rumoured to be dubbed dual flex, is indeed flexing on the competition by making the form factor more accessible to the masses, that is if rumours of its price are true.
A lower price point was always going to be a matter of when, not if. Foldables have a bunch of other concerns that need to be addressed if it is to dethrone the current form factor that’s been so successful over the last decade. They will need to be built to last. The bendy displays will need to be able to cope with all the folding and unfolding. The battery will also need to have enough juice to at least last a day without compromising on a sleek design. Thus far, both the Samsung Galaxy Fold and the Huawei Mate X look a little bulky when in it’s phone form.
Final nail in the coffin for Tablets?
Should companies somehow manage to address these issues, a change in the status quo looks inevitable. Not just for phones but also for tablets. Apple’s iPad has been dominating the already shrinking tablet market but with Apple having filed a patent for foldable technology in 2017, it looks like the tablet is effectively on life support.
Will foldable phones signal a new dawn for smartphone design and kill tablets in the process or is this just another flash in the pan? Let us know what you think!
