Thinking About Foldables (Premium)

For consumers, the as-yet-unrealized dream of foldables and other hybrid devices is that they can replace two devices. As a technology enthusiast, I’m intrigued by foldables, a market that includes both true foldables like the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold2 as well as dual-screen mobile devices like Surface Duo. But as a pragmatist, I’m not quite sure the value is there … yet.

Anytime there’s a discussion about hybrid devices—devices that seem to span two previously existing markets—my mind wanders back to the original Apple iPad launch in 2010 and how then-CEO Steve Jobs framed the device.

“All of us use laptops and smartphones now,” he said. “And the question has arisen, lately: Is there room for a third category of device in the middle? Something that’s between a laptop and a smartphone?”

I’ve always had a problem with this introduction. The question… “has arisen”? Where? Were there really people out there wondering if they could somehow have yet another expensive device to buy?

The answer, of course, is no. That question arose, obviously, inside of Apple, whose business model at the time was entirely based around selling expensive devices over and over again to the same customers. The only way Apple could add value, then, was to sell another device, not add tablet-like features to the Mac, as Microsoft had done with Tablet PC. And that device was the iPad.

But Jobs got things off on a better foot once he got past obscuring his true intentions.

“The bar is high,” he said. “In order to really create a new category of devices, those devices are going to have to be far better at doing some key tasks. They’re going to have to be far better at doing some really important things. Better than the laptop. Better than the smartphone.”

Jobs then carefully laid out the tasks at which iPad would be superior—web browsing, email, sharing photos, watching videos, enjoying music, playing games, and reading ebooks—and then spent a good deal of time demonstrating those capabilities.

Now, any Microsoft fan who (re)reads those words today would surely think of Panos Panay and his Surface team, which are collectively obsessed by creating new categories of devices, despite the fact that they’ve never done so successfully. The only truly successful Surface device is the Surface Pro form factor, which Microsoft did not invent. But we can accurately give them credit for formalizing this form factor and inspiring several PC makers to create me-too PCs that are, charitably, very similar.

But if you think back to my earlier comments about Surface Duo, and the weird lack of justification for what Microsoft is marketing as a dual-screen device, or just watch the firm’s Surface Duo press introduction video for yourself, you will find no such justification. Instead, we get the very obvious fact that two screens are sometimes better for the types of productivity tasks that people typically don’t do on phones today.

What Microsoft can’t explain away is why Surface Duo is worse at some key tasks than a smartphone, tablet, or laptop. And why we need yet another device that doesn’t really appear to replace another device. Best case scenario, Surface Duo is a phone that can sort of replace your mini-tablet. But most people aren’t using mini-tablets anymore because our smartphones have gotten so big.

Today, Samsung formally unveiled its Galaxy Z Fold2 foldable smartphone. At $1999, it’s even more expensive than Surface Duo. But it offers many of the same productivity benefits of Surface Duo—its big internal display folds open and lets you access two apps side-by-side, just like Surface Duo—while offering some key benefits; you can actually snap and arbitrarily three apps on its internal display.

More to the point, the Galaxy Z Fold2 soars where Surface Duo fails. Unlike the Microsoft devices, it’s an excellent smartphone too. It’s not just a weird tweener device with no clear use case.

What does “excellent” mean for a smartphone? It means it is literally a smartphone, albeit a slightly chunky one when closed, that looks and works like a smartphone and fits in your pocket. It means it has an excellent multi-lens rear camera system that works when the device is open or closed and offers unique capabilities when used while the device is open. It means it has two selfie cameras, one for when it’s open and one for when it’s closed. It means it has NFC for mobile payments, just like a real smartphone. It means the display you can access when the device is closed is the same size and aspect ratio as the screen on a real phone and has a high refresh rate (120 Hz). It means that it’s customizable, in this case with both body and hinge colors. It means that there is an impressive ecosystem of cases and other accessories.

In other words, the Galaxy Z Fold2 is basically everything that Surface Duo is not: A sensible hybrid device that is a great phone and a great mini-tablet, all in one. It has unique software capabilities that Duo lacks, including that multi-window layout stuff I mentioned above and App Continuity, which lets you move apps back and forth between the outside displays (the Cover Screen) and the main (folding) screen. On the inside it’s modern, not last year’s technology, and with a three-generation-old processor, as with Duo, and 5G capabilities. It has a much bigger battery (4500 mAh vs. 3577 mAh).

And yet.

The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold2 isn’t perfect, of course. It’s very expensive, though I think the points above help justify the extra cost compared to Surface Duo. And that folding screen is still an early-generation version and is an unknown from a reliability perspective.

But let’s go back to the original thinking about hybrid devices and the dream of one device that can replace two others. When Apple announced the iPad, it claimed that we were now in the post-PC world, and that customers would embrace this new form factor and drop laptops. That hasn’t happened: Windows 10 alone is installed on over one billion PCs and Apple’s Mac business is still going strong. But the iPad has, regardless, emerged as a legit third device form factor. Indeed, there are no non-iPad tablets that measure up in any way at all.

Could a foldable like the Galaxy Z Fold2 or Surface Duo see similar success?

Short term, yes and no. Both devices allow the user to expand the display they’re looking at dramatically, which can be useful in many situations. Maybe you’re nearsighted and want to read, watch a movie, play a game, or use Maps on a bigger display, for example. But because only the Samsung is an excellent phone, it is inarguably the better choice. Surface Duo exists in a made-up world in which PC-like productivity tasks outweigh traditional smartphone tasks. The Samsung offers both.

Do either really replace two devices? Maybe. If you maintain a phone, tablet, and PC, the Samsung could replace your phone and tablet. That Android is less compelling as a tablet than an iPad is a problem, but that’s something that Samsung could address over the long term. Because the Surface Duo is not a viable phone replacement for most, it’s more of a non-starter for most.

There is another potential outcome here, of course. In the same way that the phablet form factor was once a weird outlier—one that maybe not coincidentally originated at Samsung—but became the norm for all smartphones, perhaps foldables will evolve to become the normal form factors for all smartphones too. This is a more desirable outcome for those who prefer small screens, because there’s no reason we can’t have devices with smaller outside displays too. That’s kind of a win-win, when you think about it.

Ultimately, that’s sort of how I see the market for foldables going, assuming Samsung and others can get over the reliability issues with foldable displays. And while I’m not personally read to pull the trigger on a $2000 Galaxy Z Fold2, I do see the appeal. And I could see a thinner, more reliable version of this device in my future.