Hey, if we’re doing quirky pones only 1% of users will ever consider buying again can you bring back hardware keyboards please?
“nah, you cunts had your chance” -Blackberry.
hey, can you bring back removable batteries too, since we are at it?
Good news! EU passed the law they have to be back in 2027 (IIRC)!
Good news! EU passed the law they have to be back in 2027 (IIRC)!
i’m aware! i hope they come to my country too!
This was an interesting video / project I quite enjoyed.
For those with ADHD or just don’t have the time to watch:
He bought a Samsung Flip with a broken inner screen, removed the screen and split the phone in half, and turned it into a modern take on a slide phone.
To do so, he 3D printed a custom mold to replace the bottom half of the phone, and then shoved a Blackberry keyboard into it. Designed a custom hinge so that instead of flipping the phone open, you slide the keyboard out from behind and it drops below the cover screen—which is now the main screen—because he used a 3rd party launcher to make it behave as such. That way the phone is fully functional without the inner screen.
The only thing he didn’t do (nor did he attempt to), is figure out a way to move one or both of the cameras. Since the phone no longer flips open, the two main cameras are now both selfie cameras and there is no main camera(s).
Tl;Dr: he cut a phone in half and gave it a keyboard.
Yes, please and thank you.
Honestly, if I could get a phone that unfolds to a tablet size like that + Desktop Mode, I’d combine it with a portable keyboard and trackpad combo and be perfectly happy using that as my laptop solution. One cellular plan, large screen, and super portable too, not to mention phone controllers like the GameSir and Backbone for when I want something more gaming handheld-esque, Linux ARM64 virtual machines, and more!
It would be nice if one of the folds could be left folded at the bottom to give you a keyboard.
Think about the current dual-screen laptops. That would be cool, but I’m not sure how usable a keyboard of those dimensions would be. Not discrediting the idea, though; I’d love to see it too.
Side note – imagine a fold-out accessory like the Mcon controller but thinner and lighter. That could make for a cool keyboard, no?
Not really - keyboards need to be much farther from the screen than that. Laptops are terrible for the same reason. Maybe your body can accept that bad ergonomics, but mine cannot. which is why I carry a separate keyboard for my laptop and phone. (plus mechanical keyboards are much better anyway)
Valid arguments. Laptops are not ideal for everyone, and even the “best” ones are hardly “one-size-fits-all.” Still, considering the percentage of the world that does rely on them over bringing around a mechanical keyboard and bunch of other accessories, laptops aren’t necessarily the BEST computers – they’re the “go” computers. I’m just suggesting that with future tech, folding phones and proper accessories could also begin to fill that gap. Think of Android’s desktop mode and the lapdock – the phones are getting powerful enough to do “real work” for a lot of people, had their phones just had the same screen sizes and proper keyboards.
I mean I wouldn’t look at this as a laptop replacement, just something I could use that way in a pinch. Lots of clamshell phones in the early 2000’s had this layout and it worked pretty well.
If you really wanted to use this as a laptop much better to carry another little folding keyboard with you.
That’s why I mentioned the keyboard accessory, be it some advanced folding keyboard with iPad Magic Keyboard-like tech or something of the sort. Sure, it’s not replacing laptops anytime soon, but again… think of the iPhone. “An iPod, a phone, and an internet communicator.”
I’m surprised Jobs didn’t add “a camera” considering how for most people, smartphones have now encapsulated all four of those already. Sure, if you REALLY want the best out of each of those categories, you’ll almost always be better off carrying each individual item, but in terms of ease of use and convenience, smartphones win just about every time for those categories. In the future, I could see devices like these becoming the next “mini laptops” for most people, assuming we get to a point of comfortable prices and well-made accessories.
in the early 2000s*
Exactly. Think the iPad Smart Connector, and even better with a Magic Keyboard-type hinge that could hold the device up when you didn’t need a folio-type stand.
I just want a phone that can fold out for reading comics, sounds pretty nice, only reason I bought a tablet was the constant zooming required, I forget to bring my tablet places constantly or just don’t want to because its another thing to carry around
Look at my new phone!
I personally am waiting for the OLED handkerchief.
Fuck everything, we’re doing five folds!
Calm down Ben .
Well we are up to 7 blade razors!
bonus:
My siblings, there are stockpiles of refurbs to last us until the end of capitalism or life on earth.
I’m using a 9 year old phone rn now and I’ve got zoomers oooing over its “minimal” design (lol it’s just old).
I had the perfect phone. Sony XZ2 Compact. released in 2018 so not even that old
5" screen. No headphone jack, but I was honestly just glad to have a screen that small. Ran LineageOS like a dream.
Then came the 3G tower shutdown. Now, the XZ2c is capable of 4G LTE calling. Lineage even had the settings option for it unlocked (as opposed to stock). So I call up my carrier and ask them to please enable 4G LTE calling for my phone so that it’ll receive calls again.
Turns out, the major carriers in the US decided not to support 4G LTE calling for the XZ2c. There’s a line of code sitting somewhere that could be flipped to “true” and my perfect phone would work again. But no, fuck me for wanting to resist CONSOOM NOO FONE EVERY SIX MONTH.
Fuck capitalism I’ll never forget what they took from me
That’s a beautiful phone. I’m sorry to hear of your tale of woe. Sadly, there are many like it
Why is the fact that it’s before the iPhone 17s reveal important it’s not like the iPhone 17 is a folding phone all that Apple have a folding iPhone at all.
It is because Apple has been dominant in the premium smartphone market for years, including in China. Huawei have started to make a big dent in that tier in China after eating Apple’s lunch in the lower price categories.
This is a feature that Huawei brought to market before Apple, which was kind of a first. Until recently, they were just following Apple’s innovations. It’s early and I wouldn’t want one now, but I wouldn’t be surprised if smartphones-that-fold-out-into-tablets was the standard by the end of the decade.
Samsung have been eating apple’s lunch for years. In terms of market share Samsung basically have all their own way.
How much of that is because Samsung actually offers <200USD phones, a market segment Apple ignores?
It’d be good for comic ebooks, PDFs, documents. Pretty much stuff you’d use with a tablet. I see the appeal of a one device covers it all. Phone, tablet, if it had a solid desktop mode, office productivity. Don’t have faith in these mobile first OSs to do it all well though
Lol whyyy
so we can play MIDI accordian songs. Who doesn’t love that.
I’ve only ever heard about these folding screens breaking super easy and fast.
Unless the tech is better now it feels like planned obsolescence
Finally, someone understands 🪗
Employer: “Why are you late again?”
Employee: “Sorry, I had to unfold my phone a few times this morning. It will happen again.”
Please pack a keyboard on the back of the lowest third, so you have a smartphone-with-keyboard if ⅓ folded up.
This guy did just that:
Thought it was a really cool idea / project. Essentially a modified Z Flip.
I admit i had to stop watching after 5 minutes. Do kids like videos cut confusingly and …hyperactive like this one nowadays?
Oh, you havent seen the videos where someone literally includes random other videos on the screen at the same time cause they got bored editing?
Do they enjoy it? Probably not but hey they got bored.
meh…I just bought a Samsung Flip 7 and it’s great. Apple will invent it next year.
It’s slated for invention in 2031. Gotta stick to the 6 year rule. Can’t be too blatant about IP theft.
Looks stupid, I’d much prefer a more powerful tablet that’s cheaper. Gimmick.
While I get the sentiment, you can’t really fit a tablet in most pockets. While a tri fold phone would fit just fine.
This isn’t for situations where a more powerful device is needed. Power doesn’t matter when watching a video, or reading a book, or scrolling the internet. Sometimes you just need more screen.
I may be an outlier on Lemmy, but I explicitly want a decent trifold device. Specifically for the situations I listed. I’m not looking to use the tablet “mode” for performance hungry tasks, I just want more screen sometimes.
Wasn’t their last folding phone super fragile
Who needs or wants this. The use is quite limited. One fold, alright, but 3??
i’m the opposite way. i see no use for a phone that folds in half. i like my phones to be usable one-handed, and having a clamshell shape that folds out into something i can’t reach my thumb over is just dumb. but if i can have a normalish candybar phone that unfolds into a whole-ass tablet in my pocket? absolutely.
…but not for $2500. maybe for like… $1000. that’s twice what i paid for my last phone.
Eventually they‘ll go full circle (literally) and come back to scrolls.
the only advantage i can think of is to maintain more traditional tablet aspect ratios. single fold phones tend to have a very square screen when opened.
I’ll be releasing 15 fold shortly, hold on to yo butts!
As long as it wasn’t too cumbersome as a phone, the option to have a full on tablet that could fit in your pocket is somewhat attractive. I don’t have much use for a phone that folds into a bigger phone (current foldable market), but if this was done right I could see some appeal.
I see your three and raise you seven.
That looks really hard to hold.
Edit: also, it’s less than half the speed of a year old iPhone according to geekbench scores… so wooo I guess.
Powered by Huawei’s self-developed Kirin 9020 chipset and running on the company’s proprietary HarmonyOS ecosystem, the Mate XTs boasted a 36 per cent performance improvement, Richard Yu Chengdong, chairman of Huawei’s consumer business group, said during the launch event in Shenzhen on Thursday.
Honestly the iPhone performance is over rated now.
I just came from an Android 9 Razer Phone 2 (with an ancient SD845) to a brand new iPhone 16 plus…
And the IPhone feels slower.
The UI is slower. Scrolling is more stuttery. Heavy webpages that ran fine on my Android phone crawl on the iPhone. It literally has the same amount of RAM (8GB), so it can’t run anything more complex either. And it’s more unintuitive too, with all these slow and wierd gestures just to do basic things, while other features are convoluted.
And I used to be a massive iOS fanboy. I just want my jailbroken iPhone 5 back :(
You went from a 120 Hz display to 60 Hz, literally half the speed. Could’ve gone 13 Pro or Pro Max and had a better experience. Yeah, it sucks. Apple really gimps their non-pro models with displays. The Plus is just a base iPhone but bigger.
Yeah, I know :(.
I only got a Plus becauise it was at a deep ‘loss leader’ discount from AT&T, literally cheaper than old 15s. Can’t complain too much over that, I guess… And I only left the RP2 behind because it microphone is likely clogged with dust, and I’m a little worried about security on it.
Yuk
