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If even the largest smartphone feels too small for all that you want to see on your handset, you may be ready for your first foldable phone.
Samsung, a pioneer in foldables that dominates the category, has just unveiled the Galaxy Z Fold5, available in August. The bendy-screen device morphs into a small tablet that opens like a book.
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With a lofty $1,799.99 starting price, it costs the same as Google’s first foldable, the Pixel Fold, which the search giant revealed in May. Samsung also announced the Galaxy Z Flip5 that costs about $1,000 and has a more compact clamshell design. The Flip basically unfolds into a typical smartphone rather than a tablet.
This new version of the Flip has a 3.4-inch outer display, or in Samsung-speak a Flex Window, that is far larger than prior models and potentially more useful for displaying widgets, seeing notifications and capturing selfies without having to open the device.
However, a look at those price tags hammers home that this niche is a splurge.
Foldables are gaining momentum
Foldable phones, which boast features older adults may come to appreciate, appear to have genuine momentum. Anyone can shove a closed hybrid phone/tablet in a pocket or purse just like a regular smartphone.
Right now, the number of foldable phone users in the United States is small, about 4.7 million units in 2022, according to a report from Hong Kong-based Counterpoint Research market analysts. That’s about 1.5 percent of U.S. smartphone owners, who numbered 307 million in 2022, as indicated in a research report from another market research firm, Statista.
But 28 percent of U.S. smartphone users that Counterpoint surveyed indicated that they are “highly likely” to go for a foldable as their next purchase. Counterpoint estimates global foldable smartphone shipments will exceed 100 million by 2027.
International Data Corp. recently forecast the global foldables market to reach 48.1 million shipments in 2027, growing by more than a quarter for each year until then. Since a Chinese manufacturer introduced the first foldable smartphone in 2018, the screens have become more durable and the build more sleek. The launch of Samsung’s first Galaxy Fold had to be postponed by several months in 2019 after some early reviewers reported problems with the folding screen.
“Foldable phones remain the one positive talking point in a [smartphone] market that declined more than 11 percent in 2022,” IDC says.
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