Samsung reveals new folding stuff for people who like flaunting wads of folding stuff Changed banks lately? Samsung thinks you're more likely to have done that than to have changed from iOS to Android. The company's inertia-buster is its new Galaxy Z Fold2, a 5G device that will cost around $1,799 and unashamedly be marketed as a luxury item. "It really is a status symbol," Samsung staff told The Register at a …
I played with one in the Samsung store, check out the case, it covers 1/4 the body, the right hand side rear, the one and only part that isn't a delicate screen waiting to be smashed is the part it protects.
You can't carry it in your pocket because it is too big and will break, and you can't put it in your bag with your keys and coins and cards because the case won't protect it, and coins lint and sand will get into it.
It's nice to 'open' and pose, but once its open it looks like a small cheap thick Chinese tablet, so you'd have to keep opening it and closing it in your fancy restaurant hoping people will notice its a foldable, and be impressed.
I've ordered a Tab s7+ tablet, you'd think the salesman would be keen to let me play with their zfold2 phone, given I just bought their most expensive tablet with accessories, yet he was very reluctant when I started even opening it and trying to see if it would fit in a jacket pocket... I think his face tells me all I need to know.
I think if I need to impress, I'll whip out my 12.4 inches, and start doing air gestures with my pointer. "It has enough energy to go for 12 hours!" I'll say out loud. Man will I look cool! Only problem is, it's rigid all the time and I can't fit it in my pants, but that's normal for me. "Does this tablet come in blue?"
I fondled the previous one, and TBH I thought it is a device that has potential. Right now yeah I wouldn't buy one even if I had that money to throw around. But I can see something like this (with a stylus) or the MS surface duo being a useful little tool for emails and light office stuff when out and about, or entertainment also if about when not wanting to carry a laptop or tablet.. i didn't think it was that big pocket wise although I didn't try and put it in my pocket, but it didn't seem a lot bigger than a s20+
i just right now think the price is too high and the tech too new.
It can probably do at least the first two if you get it nice and warm streaming video; tiny ironing board and tiny panini press seem like achievable functions. #3 is up to your imagination, and #4 and #5 will probably be optional add-ons if the device succeeds.
Apple seemed to do well enough when they put the price up to > $ 1000 for their phones and for some people the price is what makes it a status symbol. I would the market for these devices would skew very much to Asia where mobile devices are used for more services than in the West. And also, outside Japan, where Apple has less cachet. Certainly Samsung thinks so to have adopted a yearly release schedule. It would not surprise me to see them do even bigger ones if they think they have the material problems solved / can live with the lower yields, because the next iteration is the notebook killer.
I have a Planet Gemini so I understand the appeal of a device that can replace a tablet at times, though admittedly it was the keyboard that I thought would be most useful. Unfortunately, Planet have dropped the ball on QA and after sales: I've had to replace the keys twice and it's only had two firmware updates, which haven't resolved all the problems. So, while I had it with me on my last holiday, I found I actually used my S10e with a cheap external keyboard instead, not perfect but certainly usable.
Phones started off massive, but computers were even more massive back then. Then everything got smaller, then computers kept getting smaller while phones started getting bigger again.
I'm not really sure what the difference is between this and a macBook Air in terms of how useful it is as a telephone.
Having owned scores of Samsung phones, tablets, smartwatches TV's and other tech over the past decade, I can vouch that they have ALL worked, have been supported and in most cases have lived up to the expectations of the premium price. I am very satisfied as a consumer of their products.
Your rather childish statement...debunked.
Well, there's a place in the market for the 'let's build it just because we can' approach - there's 8 billion people on the planet, so someone might buy it.
There's also a place in the market for extensive studying of what people need to do, devising a good way of doing it and then imposing these ways on users.
And neither approach is perfect, and the companies involved won't ignore the market for ever.
The result? Samsung phones are now less likely to incorporate features nobody asked for, and, coming from the other direction, Apple eventually made bigger phones and allowed 3rd party keyboards.
Yeah pretty sure approximately zero iPhone owners are going to buy this thing. When people switch from iOS to Android it is not because "oh I really wish there was a folding phone that's heavy and unfolds into a nearly square shape which is the most useless form factor of all!"
I'll bet this sees fewer sales than their first folding phone. The hype for folding phones in the popular press is over, and the kind of people who like to be the first to try something new already tried one last year. Maybe there's a tiny band of dedicated believers who have been waiting for the second generation Fold, but not enough to sustain Samsung's R&D for a third one.
> I'll bet this sees fewer sales than their first folding phone. The hype for folding phones in the popular press is over...
I just got more excited.. Guess it depends on your preconceptions and what you seek in personal tech.
Wish I got the money, but I could try and have the boss buy it for me instead :)
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