Huawei to go: China's tech giant No1... in foldable smartphones

It seems that US sanctions are not holding back Huawei, as the Chinese tech giant has now risen to the global top spot in smartphone shipments, at least as far as foldable models go. The worldwide market for foldable smartphones grew 49 percent in the first quarter of 2024, compared with the same period last year, according to …

[VicMortimer]

Ugh

Unless there's a breakthrough in materials science, foldable phones (and anything with a foldable screen) are and will continue to be crap.

There's just no way to make a foldable screen that won't end up with an ugly crease within days to weeks.

[that one in the corner]

Re: Ugh

> are and will continue to be crap.

Maybe that is why TFA is full of vacuous statements such as:

>> The worldwide market for foldable smartphones grew 49 percent

>> made up 55 percent of foldable smartphone shipments in Q1

>> one of the top sellers in China's foldable market

>> most popular foldable phone in Western Europe during Q1

Not a single useful statement in the whole thing! Without some comparable numbers there is no actual content in this article (e.g. how large is the "foldable market" to the "rigid market"? Was the 49% growth because they sold 149 phones, an increase over the 100 they sold in the previous quarter? Is this sub-market worth $27.50 per annum or $2750000000?)[1]

> There's just no way to make a foldable screen that won't end up with an ugly crease within days to weeks.[2]

Not one single thing in the article actually claimed that any of the phones being discussed are actually useable - they could well all be being returned within a month and swapped for something more robust.

[1] yes, I could dig and find that out - but then if we all did that there would no point in bothering to read an article with this headline (was going to say "an article like this" but ...)

[2] I'm hoping that it turns out we can produce such a beast - or one of the alternative concepts, such as unrolling like a scroll, a much larger bend radius and it looks so much cooler on the shows and films that use the idea than some boring old folded-over design.