My biggest gripe is a lack of low-end phones with massive screens that aren’t high-end.

Both my parents are octogenarians with declining vision. I just want to get them into an iPhone whose screen they can actually see easily, but without going into that low-functionality “assistive access” mode.

Because it doesn’t help if the interface doesn’t allow you to tell apart two different phone numbers for the same person. Like, literally - it just shows the label, not the phone number, and when both numbers have the same label…

Huh? It's the one real smartphone innovation I've seen in the last decade or so. A phone that can become a tablet would be very useful.

Worst is definitely losing the sd card slot.

I've been using a Galaxy Flip for years. Never going back to the big slab. Rumors of screen life are pure internet bullshit.

I love mine, had a folding for for 5 years now. Currently using a Razr. They work great, display works for about 2-3 years is my experience. It's usually cheaper to buy a new one than repair as the display assembly is a new chassis with the hinge.
I don't use a case, the display is protected by closing it, but Motorola included one and they include the protective screen cover (mandatory). As flexible display technology improves, I expect they will last longer.

A whole group of folding phone haters has emerged, normal people just don't buy the thing they don't want. Theses people go on crusades blathering on about their opinion, of which I couldn't care less about. They seem to be triggered by the area where the display bends ( I don't notice it) but it is there and I can feel it, how fragile the device is but I see people with broken displays on regular phones all the time, and the price ( they can't afford one? ). I assume they just need a proper hobby.

I used to be a fold hater until I got one..now I've had 3 folds and never going back to a boring slab phone AND a mini tablet , my fold 7 is a all in one that fits in my pocket and weighs the same as a mini tablet minus the extra phone. My gf got my old fold and now lives off it as she runs 3 apps at once on it. Before she lugged around a s23ultra and and 13inch tablet.

The secret is to buy last year's model used at 1/3 the price of new and the haters are people who never actually used one especially for multi tasking multi windows which is why they don't understand them. I was one til I did.

I got an "open box" OG Pixel Fold for $350 last November. Everything else new or refurb in the price range was just another rectangular slab. I like the squarish aspect ratio for chess and reading but 16:9 video comes with black bars coving 1/3 of the screen. I dislike the taller foldables that came after and I assume it'll be much more than 2 years before the new passport shaped foldables are available as refurbs for less than $500 so if/when this one conks out I'll be back to using a slab phone as a hotspot for an ipad mini.

AI is the worst thing to happen to smartphones.

Nah. The worst possible thing they could be is the second worst thing.

The worst thing to happen to smarohones was when Androids stopped coming with slide-out physical keyboards.

Fuck Apple for many reasons, but the onscreen keyboard is the most egregious and unforgivable of those reasons.

The worst thing to happen was the boring black rectangle format winning and all other designs disappearing. You don't have to buy a foldable if you don't want to. It's next to impossible to buy anything that's doesn't look like every other phone on the market.

How do you even make a protective case for these? Seems like it's too easy to drop it and crack the screen

Still literally zero good reason for them to exist

Two bricks held together with a hinge is weaker than just a brick... Who would have thought...

These are absolutely a gimmick. A fun gimmick for sure, but not worth the prices for flagship phones these days, especially when cheaper non-folding phones are more durable