Are Foldable Phones Worth The Price?

Dear Reader,

Unlike Heena, all her friends had flip phones growing up.

So, when she came across Samsung’s Flip 4 as an adult, she couldn’t resist buying it.

“It was pink, it looked like a cigarette case. I didn’t have a utilitarian reason for buying it,” she told me.

Heena’s reason for buying a foldable is unusual.

For most buyers, analysts told me, the appeal is more practical: more screen space in a phone that can still fit in your pocket.

Two-thirds of foldable sales now come from book-style phones, which open sideways to reveal a larger screen, compared to flip-style phones, said Tarun Pathak of Counterpoint Research.

Apple’s new foldable, too, is a book-style phone.

And it costs almost Rs three lakh in India. Samsung, Motorola and Google offer foldables starting at around Rs 80,000.

So, what exactly do you get for that money?

For Rajneil Kamath, a consumer tech enthusiast, the answer is productivity.

Buying a foldable has been “life-changing,” he told me. He uses it to review Google Docs on the go and run YouTube and X side by side.

He chose the Google Pixel Fold over Samsung’s foldables because he prioritised durability.

And that brings us to the other side of the equation.

Foldables are expensive, and they come with other compromises. Navkendar Singh of IDC pointed to cameras, battery life and durability as some of the potential downsides.

So, what’s the point of a foldable phone? And is the extra utility worth the premium?

Hear from consumers and industry experts in the latest episode of The Signal Brief.

You can find The Signal Brief on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts.

Thank you once again for listening and supporting us. We’d love to hear from you; write to us at [email protected] or find us on Instagram or X at @thesignaldotco.

Best,
Kudrat
on behalf of The Core

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