Foldable smartphone

Samsung foldable smartphones (front side)
Samsung foldable smartphones (back side)

A foldable smartphone (also known as a foldable phone or simply foldable) is a smartphone with a folding form factor. It is reminiscent of the clamshell (or "flip phone") design of many earlier feature phones.[1][2] Some variants of the concept use multiple touchscreen panels on a hinge, while other designs utilise a flexible display. Concepts of such devices date back as early as Nokia's "Morph" concept in 2008, and a concept presented by Samsung Electronics in 2013 (as part of a larger set of concepts utilizing flexible OLED displays), while the first commercially available folding smartphones with OLED displays began to emerge in November 2018.

Some devices may fold out on a vertical axis to into a wider, tablet-like form, but are still usable in a smaller, folded state; the display may either wrap around to the back of the device when folded (as with the Royole FlexPai and Huawei Mate X), or use a booklet-like design where the larger, folded screen is located on the interior, and a screen on its "cover" allows the user to interact with the device without opening it (such as the Samsung Galaxy Fold series). Horizontally-folding smartphones have also been produced, typically using a clamshell form factor.

The first generation of commercially released foldable smartphones faced concerns over their durability, as well as their high prices.[3][4][5][6] In 2023, around 1% of worldwide smartphone ownership was foldable smartphones.[7]

  1. ^ Gibbs, Samuel (7 September 2021). "Galaxy Z Flip 3 review: Samsung's cheaper, better hi-tech flip phone". TheGuardian.com. Retrieved 15 January 2023.
  2. ^ Cipriani, Jason (23 August 2022). "Samsung's Galaxy Z Flip 4 is the foldable phone most people should buy". CNN. Retrieved 15 January 2023.
  3. ^ Chen, Brian X. (2020-02-11). "Foldable Phones Are Here. Do We Really Want Them?". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2020-02-20.
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  6. ^ Detwiler, Bill. "Foldable phones: Why you should wait for a folding 5G Apple iPhone". ZDNet. Retrieved 2020-02-20.
  7. ^ "Ownership of Foldable Smartphones accounts for just 1% of total smartphones". Kantar. Shape your brand future. 2023-09-06. Archived from the original on 2024-07-24. Retrieved 2024-07-24.