Samsung releases pair of jeans that can't do anything except cover your legs and hold a Galaxy Z Flip 3 With the exception of iPhone fans, have you ever bought a mobile and thought, "I'm going to base my entire identity around owning this item of cellular technology"? No? OK, well, don't tell Samsung Australia, which has partnered with Dr Denim, "one of Australia's most beloved jeans brands" apparently, to release the Z Flip …
So, I started by thinking you were wrong about this idea, but not as you may think that the Z3 Flip is a bad idea. I love mine. folding phones are A Good Thing.
Nor are custom jeans a bad idea. I could be tempted.
No the reason that this is not thought through is that, looking at the pictures, the phone doesn't fit in the custom pocket.
Yup, had to double take on the picture, it's not deep enough!
Also seems to be in the wrong place to me. Sit down in a car, bench seat, waiting room chair, aircraft seat etc and the phones almost certainly going to fall out at some point, either immediately, depending on how tight the pocket is, or after a short while (especially in a car, train, plane, bus etc due to vibration).
I have plenty of trousers (aka pants to left pondians), combats etc. that have pockets in that location, but they all have velcro, zip or button down lids precisely because things fall out if you don't!
i spend a lot of time in airplanes - even throughout the covid restrictions, and the traditional pockets below the waist line simply arent accessable while stuck in a cramped airline seat.
A professional pilot I met once had pants with the cargo pockets with the opening angled forwards - to be accessable whilst seated.
IT DOESN'T MATTER
The whole idea is that people will take the piss out of them and laugh at them (and share on social media about how ridiculous / crap it is).
Et voila! Free marketing.
There's no such thing as bad publicity
(mostly, unless you are Prince Andrew or someone like that)
This post has been deleted by its author
OK these jeans are utter tosh, but frankly I call bullshit on modern phones being the right size for regular pockets. My current phone (Sony Xperia X Compact) fits happily in my pocket. But now just 5 years later, the smallest available Android phone i have found is 2cm longer. Most are between 3-5cm longer, and at least 1-3cm wider. How the hell do you people fit those tablets in your pocket?????
It never suprises me to see people walking around with phones in their a$$ pockets, because they will just not fit in the front pockets. Modern mobiles are not pocket friendly... And as for the 90's being worse - my Ericsson T28 fit beautifully into my pocket thank you very much...
I will agree these modern Flip phones are crap though. I tried one of the Z Flip's out in a store just recently, and it just felt awful to use. I guess I'm just not the target market, but I dont need massive amounts of screen real estate, if I want to watch something I'll use a Tablet, PC or TV. If I want to play, I'll use my PC. All i want is a bit of light surfing on the go and something that will fit comfortably in one hand, and in my pocket. Is it really so hard Phone Manufacturers? Really???
/End Rant...
Yeah, the author of the article seems to have either very different trousers or an older phone. Not too many can (comfortably) fit into the front pocket of my jeans. Cargo trousers, yeah, but I can fit like 10 cans of beer into the pockets of those (the proper army style camo ones).
Problem is: we are a niche market, and don't replace our phones semianually ('cause we sat on them / bent them in the arse pockets).
I would also like a dual SIM card, and a dedicated SD card slot. And the specs should not be utter shite (not do I need the latest and greatest, it's a phone, not a prosthetic for my self esteem!)
Have to agree, even my ancient OnePlus 3, which has a 5.5" screen, is small compared to many modern phones, and I have it in my back pocket whilst moving around as it doesn't fit comfortable in the front pocket when walking. (I wear jeans about 90% of the time out the house).
It will fit in the front pocket at a pinch (ouch, literally sometimes!), and I tend to do this in crowded places, especially if pick pockets are known to operate in the area.
And for ref, it's not like I have tiny pockets. I'm a 6' bloke with a medium (to slight comfy) build, and the jeans are just regular ones with normal sized pockets.
All that's really needed, is for jeans makers to just make the front pockets deeper, so the phone sits on your flat part of the upper thigh, rather than next to where you bend at the top of your leg.
Absolutely agree.
Previous phone was a perfectly acceptable size (Sony Xperia Z5 Compact), and even in a protective case it fitted very nicely in any pocket you could choose to mention.
Decided I wanted a 'rugged' phone with a decent step up in spec from the Z5C and chose a Ulephone Armor 8 Pro, feck me it's HUGE. And it's not the largest thing on the market either (I deliberately chose a screen as small as I could with the other requirements of better spec than the Z5C)
Its getting rather difficult to find any phones with a decent spec and a screen under 6".
So, let me get this straight.
They've declared that this phone is the best thing since sliced bread, that it's the fashion statement of the year (not being in the slightest bit fashion-conscious myself, I am not able to categorically refute this, but I somehow doubt it). Having declared this, they've decided that absolutely anything else isn't worth carrying around because this phone is simply better! So they begin redesigning clothing with -one- pocket, that fits precisely -one- thing, pointedly removing any other utility from the garment.
How narcissistic can they get?! Like, almost every pair of men's jeans created today are built with decently sized pockets because clothing manufacturers like wasting cloth?
At least they'll only be wasting 450 of them, rather than thousands.
Narcissism has nothing to do with it. As someone already mentioned, we are talking about the bloody thing, and by transitivity acknowledging that the the stupid folding phones exist.
Mission accomplished for Marketing[1] Martinis all around!
[1]Yes, I know that this comment is part of the problem, so I avoid writing the brand and model.
Plenty of cargo pockets to store stuff, belt loops to hang stuff from, & best of all is when worn commando allows a decent mooning to uppity weirdos that insist on wearing (tight/skinny) trousers.
You get bonus points for wearing a sporran made from the scrotal sack of a large bull & storing packs of munchies inside-- see a pretty lass, reach into your sack, & hold out a packet of mixed party legumes while asking if she'd like to snack on your hot & salty nuts! =-D
*Runs away before someone decides to remove mine with a set of pruning sheers*
Given the deafening squeeing that happens any time someone of the fairer sex finds a garment with ANY pockets and the volume of that squeeing seemingly directly related to the size of those pockets, I'm guessing everyone.
-->Probably wondering where she's going to put stuff
not only that but shirt pockets are too damn small.
Phone on pants pockets !! They get bent or smashed when on tractor, motorcycle, boat or plane and inaccessible at all times. I want safari style shirts with big pockets top and bottom. (You thought I was going to write big breast pockets, didn't you ?) Carrying a phone in top pocket essential for ease of access and security. I use it as a backup navigation device when flying gliders. Easy access needed if I need to fire up XCSoar, but no, android smart phones are getting bigger with crappier daylight invisible screens. And yet the b* stylists are making all pockets smaller. Even my new emergency services shirts and jackets have smaller pockets and we usually carry a fair bit of stuff. Oddly, belly slack increased to merkin proportions. Kevlar motorcycle pants ditto. I digress.
In keeping with tenor of article, practicality is swept aside by clueless designer droids. You want a differentiated product that buyers will want ? Daylight readable screen. Dell did it once, Sony Experia good second. All others are a failure. Minimize Google snoopware, maximise backup and recovery to local storage, either PC or SD card.
Why not make pockets bigger? I don't understand the problem with big pockets. If you have them, and don't fill them up with stuff, they aren't going to take much more space than small pockets. Indeed, a larger pocket may be an advantage because it gives you space to carry other, more important things, like your keys or purse/wallet/cards, without having to carry a coat or bag to keep them in.
OK, so nowdays, your phone probably can take the place of your keys, cards and wallet, but with the best will in the world, that is *really* not a good idea.
Agreed. Although I'm not sure if I want a standard sized phone that folds in half or a standard size phone that opens out to double size. I can think of situations where both one or the other would be of benefit to me. Maybe I'll wait for a 10" tablet that folds twice into 1/4 size :-)
Better yet, something the size of a large, fat fountain pen that pulls apart down it's length, unrolling a flexible A5 sized screen.
I am not interested in a foldable phone, my 6.2" phablet is adequate for phone use.
Where I do want to see the technology deployed, is in laptops.
15" seems to be becoming the standard, but even 17" screens are becoming harder to read as I age.
Plugging in a 2nd monitor is the default response, but that brings in the same issues of dragging multiple pieces of hardware around or doing without, if there is not a free monitor available at your point of use.
Ironic that you cited your own article's comment of "despite the lack of features like waterproofing" and didn't notice that it was referring to the previous versions of Samsung's folding devices, not the ones named in this article.
The Z Flip 3 is waterproof, to reasonable (for a phone) tolerances.
It's also awesome if you want a nice small phone that fits easily into your pocket. I've noticed all the people that assure me their 6" screen behemoth fits into their pockets never actually carry it there; my phone stays in my pocket when I'm sat down too, as I'm not a slave to it.
The folding screen does have its disadvantages and I wouldn't recommend it for everybody but so far I'm really happy with it.
"With the exception of iPhone fans, have you ever bought a mobile and thought, "I'm going to base my entire identity around owning this item of cellular technology"?"
Consider the connection between these two statements - "For a time in 2019, folding phone fanaticism gripped the industry, with world+dog" and "No one cares anymore. We're all a bit haunted by the events of '20/21". In other words, when folding phones first appeared, an awful lot of people were interested in having them. When the opportunity to be seen having one was no longer there, suddenly they all lost interest. Apparently there are quite a lot of people who base their identity on non-Apple tech enough to only want things when they're able to show them off to everyone else.
Who remembers the old clam shell phones.... the Motorola StarTac... the slimline Motorola Razr.
Foldable phones have been done before and were hugely popular at the time for offering a form factor which provided the same functionality as their full sized siblings... today however people who want them want to have more screen real estate than the current phones allow, or they want the same screen size in a smaller sized device when not in use.
For my part my S21 fits nicely in the front pocket of my jeans and has enough screen for me to do what I need on the move. In the future if there is a folding option which proves to be robust and either gives me a bigger screen from the same or similar size to my current device or allows me to halve the unused device size when not in use, then I will likely board that band wagon again having been a fan of the older folding devices... one things for sure though... they can keep their 1 pocket jeans and I will stick to having pockets that I can use for multiple purposes and not just to store my tech!
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