Royole FlexPai
Right now technology is developing faster than ever and this period is considered another industrial revolution. With the introduction of foldable smartphones, they are said to be the largest development in mobile technology within the last 10 years. The company Royole was the first one to launch a folding phone- FlexPai. Although it was the first, the phone is treated as underdeveloped and buggy with a price of $1,300. Other companies like Huawei, Samsung and LG have announced that they will also be releasing their own version of folding smartphones in the year 2019.
Although Samsung and Apple are at the top of the smartphone’s market, Apple hasn’t published any news regarding their development of iPhone. It seems that every company is trying to release their products for the benefit of being first, as Samsung’s prototype model, which was showcased, looked bulky and impractical. As said by Samsung, the product is still in development and the prototype isn’t the final product. Despite the fact that the product isn’t finished, Samsung has announced that it will be launching it in March 2019 and that it will be mass produced at a price of around $1700-$1900. Furthermore, the operating system that will be implemented is the improvement of Android developed by Google, specifically for the use with folding smartphones called OneUI. It can be expected that at least the software of the phones will be top notch.
Huawei on the other hand, has already demonstrated their folding phone to Korean telecoms, and it is said that the product is in its final form. It is even more developed than expected and it will be offering the newest 5G network which Samsung is rumored to not have yet. Thus placing Huawei in the lead with the technology and the advancement of the product as Samsung still only has its prototype and not the final product. Huawei will launch their phone in June 2019, but the amount of copies made will be limited so the unknown price is expected to be much higher. Moreover, Samsung as well as Huawei will be demonstrating their final products on Mobile World Congress in February in 2019.
Samsung smartphone
LG is another company that isn’t falling behind, as certain leaks claim that it will be showcasing their folding smartphone during a presentation at CES technology show in Las Vegas in January of the year 2019. LG was rumored to release a folding device still back in 2017 and it has smartphones with flexible and curved screens like G Flex. This could’ve been for the experience of producing folding phones for the future. Microsoft is also planning to be releasing their own version of folding phones in the near future but this is still not confirmed.
Is it worth buying this folding smartphone instead of a traditional one? The producing companies claim that this new phone can replace tablets and laptops. If this is the case then it will definitely be worth having a 3 in 1 gadget which can fit in any bag or pocket. However, the phone is still a new product in the market so it’s an experimental product, thus the price is much higher ranging from $1300 to $1900, compared to regular smartphones. At the moment all of the tech companies are fighting for a competitive edge of being the first to launch a successful product, so the rush is causing a potential decrease in quality. Therefore, I think that at his stage it isn’t worth it, but in a few years when the technology will be more developed then these phones will be the best trendy product on the market. Maybe they will also be replacing the laptops, but at the moment the market isn’t ready for such a large change. It will take some time for these folding smartphones to be seen on everyday basis in someone’s palm.
ZTE Axon
Sources:
https://www.tomsguide.com/us/samsung-infinity-flex-foldable-display,news-28480.html
https://www.tomsguide.com/us/huawei-foldable-phone-rumors,news-28583.html
https://www.abacusnews.com/big-guns/can-huawei-beat-samsung-release-5g-foldable-phone/article/2174156
https://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/huawei-folding-smartphone-news/
I think that after launching a folding phones the demand for tablets might decrease. How do you think companies will cope with a situation in which one of their product cannibalise the other one? Will they differentiate those two products (smartphones and tablets) or maybe they will focus on creating only folding phones, which will replace tablets?
The customers will be buying the phones from the same company as they would if they were to buy a tablet. Therefore, the company wouldn’t be suffering from a decrease in customer loyalty or sales. This will be such a new product that snatching competitor’s customers will be much easier. Thus these companies will be focusing on perfecting and innovating the folding smartphone.
The future of the folding phones seems to be really interesting. It is puzzling how they will affect the demand for other mobile devices. More and more companies offer new models of folding phones and Xiaomi is one of them. They showed a video with the world’s first double-folding smartphone, which looks pretty cool. Check this out! 🙂