October 14, 2019 6 min to read

But Can Your iPhone 11 Do THIS?!! - The NEW Galaxy Fold

Original video published on Sep 14, 2019

• I'm not a huge mobile gamer, but after playing a few games on this phone it's a very different experience to play on such a large screen. I would even consider it to be a better gaming experience than a lot of tablets.
• The Galaxy Fold is very capable of multitasking but I think the issue comes with constant manipulating the windows and panels.
• Quite often I feel like people want to see this fail, people want to see Samsung crash and burn on a product like this. Are you kidding me? You want this thing to crush it. You want it to be super successful so that we can get a $500 version of this in a few years.

So you’ve watched a whole bunch of iPhone 11 videos and you’re seeing all the cool innovation that Apple brought this year.

It’s all very exciting stuff, but can your iPhone 11 do this?

Galaxy Foldable Screen

The “fixed” version of Galaxy Fold:

1. Added plastic tabs to prevent dust from getting in on the sides
2. Tucked the plastic surfaced sheet underneath the trim so you can’t peel it off
3. Tightened up the gap on the spine to minimize the dust that gets into this device

This is going to be a conversation about the whole idea of foldable phones. I’ve used this for a week at this point and there’s some stuff I want to share with you.

Let’s Start With The Crease…

When I first played with this device with Lewis from Unbox therapy, I remember being really tunnel-visioned on the crease. I think media at that point had really brought attention to the fact that there was a crease on the Galaxy Fold. However, this time around because I expected the crease to be there, it wasn’t nearly as noticeable for me anymore. Some people may still focus on the crease, but most people will just learn to ignore it.

Galaxy Fold Crease

I do think that it will be very difficult for Samsung’s marketing and sales team to convince people that this crease isn’t a big issue. Because for the first time you see this, your brain just thinks: “There’s no way you’re going to ignore that.”

I Want To Talk About Usability…

This is probably the most important discussion to be had about folding phones.

• Multitasking - During Samsung’s presentation, they tried to showcase multitasking as one of the main features of a foldable phone. Now having used this for a little bit, it is very capable of multitasking but I think the issue comes with constant manipulating the windows and panels. When you’re on a desktop or a laptop, there are shortcuts to open and adjust the windows and it’s very quick to move things around. However, with your phone, it’s all through your fingers to constantly move the panels left and right and it’s not a particularly fluent experience. Overall I don’t think people will be multitasking as much as they’d like to.
• Large Screen Experience - The large screen experience is excellent for browsing the web, reading books, looking at spreadsheets, texting emails, and anything else that can take advantage of a large screen. However, when I thought it would be really good for media consumption but it’s actually not because of the aspect ratio. Most videos will just take up a portion of the display and a lot of the screen is not all that useful when it comes to modern video formats. It’s not terrible because you can fill up that negative space with something else (e.g. Look at Reddit while you’re watching a youtube video), but it’s not a better media consumption device even with the larger screen.
• Gaming Experience - I’m not a huge mobile gamer, but after playing a few games on this phone it’s a very different experience to play on such a large screen. I would even consider it to be a better gaming experience than a lot of tablets. Normally on a regular phone, your hand covers the vast majority of the screen and it just gets in the way of the game you’re playing. On this device it’s something else, the screen is bigger so you’re seeing more details and your fingers are off the main area of the display. Now, I will say that for developers, they do need to tweak their games to optimize the use of a folding screen. I’m seeing less of the game terrain on this big screen than I would on a rectangular display. Nonetheless, the overall gaming experience is just awesome on the Galaxy Fold.

The Sore Spot…

The sore spot of this device is the fact that it is a $2000 smartphone. To be honest, I feel like Samsung have to price it at this ridiculous price point right now. No self-respecting company would make this crazy innovative stuff and sell it for anything less than that. They want to keep this device as a high margin product, this $2000 phone is meant for someone who can easily and comfortably drop $2000 on a phone this year and then just replace it next year with another $2000 phone. That’s who this phone is for, not for us…

Would You Buy The Galaxy Fold If It Was $500?

The current smartphone market right now is just filled with stale options. We have bigger notches here, smaller notches there, an extra camera here, it’s all minutia. I think for a company like Samsung to make something that’s truly innovative, something that’s fundamentally different from everything else out there is cool.

Yes, this is far from perfect. I think the average user would not enjoy this phone in its current state regardless of its price tag. But this is just step one. Quite often I feel like people want to see this fail, people want to see Samsung crash and burn on a product like this. Are you kidding me? You want this thing to crush it. You want it to be super successful so that we can get a $500 version of this in a few years.

But if this was $500 would you buy it? If foldable phones were the same price as regular phones, would you actually prefer this over regular phones that are lighter and easier to hold? I’m curious what’s you think.