Foldable or Slab? The Modern Smartphone Dilemma
It’s 2025, most of us can agree that phones are not that innovative anymore. Each year, it’s an iterative upgrade and it feels boring. Leave alone upgrades, some phones are being downgraded. But in the middle of this stagnation, foldables are on the rise! Let’s dive deeper and help you decide which one you should pick as your next phone.
Types of foldable phones
There are mainly two types of foldable devices: flip and book-style foldable phones. Both have their unique benefits. Tri-folds too are expected to come soon globally (but that’s a topic for another day)
Flip Phones
These look small at first but once unfolded, a tall, narrow looking smartphone is revealed.
In their compact form (often coming with a small outer display), they can be useful for:
- Checking notifications
- Taking selfies with the main camera
- Taking calls
- Able to do basic phone tasks without distractions
Book-style/fold-out Phones
These look like normal phones when folded and reveal a massive tablet-size display when unfolded.
These massive tablet-esque phones are useful for:
- Multitasking (usually involving 3-4 apps at once)
- Content consumption
- PDF annotations
- Photo and video editing
The Rise of Foldables
One of the biggest example can be seen with the upgrade from Samsung Z Flip/Fold 6 series to 7 series. The in-hand feel and outer display was MUCH better. The phone felt like a good overall package after so many years of iterative upgrades.
Drawbacks of foldables
Just like things in life, this has drawbacks too. Some notable drawbacks are:
- Usually high pricing
- Smaller battery sizes compared to slab phones
- Camera hardware not good for the price
- Mediocre cooling capabilities
- Durability compared to traditional slab phones
- No/limited IP ratings (except the Google Pixel 10 Pro Fold)
- Android at this stage isn’t well optimised for the big screen
- Low resale value
So what should you choose? 🤔
I would suggest buying a book-style foldable if you want to use it as your primary and only device due to versatility. Buying a book-style foldable device means that you can use it to do tablet-like activities with ease (such as content consumption and editing) while retaining phone-like functionality. In my opinion, buying ‘Flip’ devices are for novelty and fashion. Sure, you can easily pocket it easily and reduce your distractions, but buying a compact slab phone will do a similar job with MUCH better value.
At the end of the day, it’s the person’s choice on what type of phone they want to use. That’s the reason why these phones exist, to offer choice to consumers. Even with significant growth, it still can be considered as a niche product and slab phones do the job for 99% of the people.
Again, in my opinion, for big screen experience, buying a 300-500USD/ 20K to 50K INR tablet would do the job for most people.
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