Samsung is throwing itself a party tomorrow with a couple of guests of honor: its foldable phones. We’ll likely see some updated watches and earbuds, but really, it’s a birthday party for the Z Fold and the Z Flip. They’ve been around for years now, but last August was when they really hit their stride with the most mainstream models yet.
We’re probably not going to see any dramatic upgrades or shocking price drops this year because Samsung doesn’t need to produce any of those thrills. It owns the foldable phone category, and it likely will for some time. It’s a foldable party with a guest list of one: Samsung.
Lest we forget, early iterations of the Fold and Flip were a little half-baked: awkward, too expensive, and not durable enough. But they got better. Last year’s Z Flip 3 and Z Fold 3 felt almost normal, with robust water resistance and better usability.
The Fold 3 offers a durability rating that allows you to do this kind of thing.
Photo by Dieter Bohn / The Verge
Meanwhile, the rest of Samsung’s competitors seem to be stuck on early design iterations or not showing up at all. LG threatened to bring a rollable phone to market shortly before it quit making mobile devices altogether. The 2020 Motorola Razr is overpriced, underwhelming, and overdue for an update. TCL talks a big concept game but has yet to deliver a foldable that anyone can buy.
It’s a different story if you live in China, where Oppo and Huawei offer foldable devices, but they’re limited to that market. And I haven’t forgotten about the Surface Duo (though almost everyone else has — sorry, Dan). But the numbers don’t lie: in 2021 Samsung shipped 10 million-ish foldable devices, with an 87 percent market share. It’s still a tiny piece of the overall smartphone market, but it’s definitely something to celebrate if you’re Samsung.
It’s a tiny piece of the overall smartphone market, but it’s definitely something to celebrate
Anyway, why Samsung? It’s a company that has leveraged its unique position to take the foldable experiment as far as it has. For one, it could afford to fail. The first first Fold was an unmitigated disaster, and the product that Samsung finally shipped was only a bit better. Launching, and then unlaunching, then relaunching an experimental, niche device ain’t cheap. Samsung apparently sells enough refrigerators to underwrite this kind of thing — a smaller company like TCL probably can’t take the same sorts of risks.
Samsung, as a company, also has the right ethos to lead the way in foldables. You won’t see Apple launching a phone with an experimental new form factor and shaky long-term prospects. It would rather get on board when there’s a sure thing. Google just figured out how to make a flagship phone that doesn’t fold and seems to be in no hurry to launch one that does. Samsung is willing to bet on something new and, most importantly, stick with it through the early growing pains. And hey, …….
Source: https://www.theverge.com/2022/8/9/23297794/samsung-galaxy-unpacked-august-2022-z-fold-flip