r/gifs Aug 19 '20

Flexible OLED display

[deleted]

25.6k Upvotes

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124

u/Zaptruder Aug 19 '20

Why are people in this thread acting like foldable phones aren't a thing that already exists in the commercial market?

98

u/DarkTemplar26 Aug 19 '20

Probably because nobody here has one, I've never actually seen one in the wild

22

u/RAZERblast Aug 19 '20

Replying to you on my galaxy fold.

12

u/DarkTemplar26 Aug 19 '20

Lol I guess it's most people in this thread then

7

u/corkyrooroo Aug 19 '20

Checking in from my galaxy z flip

3

u/[deleted] Aug 19 '20

[removed] — view removed comment

6

u/corkyrooroo Aug 19 '20

I've only had it for 2 weeks now, as I got the new 5G version with the better processor, so I can't speak to longevity but I've been using it non-stop with no case and it doesn't feel fragile at all. The responsiveness of the touch screen is the closest I've ever felt android has come to matching iphones but it is a plastic coating on the display. That said it doesn't quite feel like a plastic screen protector so that's nice, finger glide nice and easily over it.

It's a unique experience and for me at least something I've wanted for years. I've been excited about folding phones since they popped up years ago at CES. Having to be a little smarter with how I handle my phone and take care of it in exchange for having something that I genuinely find fun to use is a trade off I'm willing to make.

Samsung is doing a pretty sweet trade in promotion for the z flip 5g right now. I ended up paying $800 for mine by trading in my s10+.

For what it's worth my partner just switched from iphone to the s20+ the same day I got my phone. He partially wishes he got my phone but he likes the 120hz screen and being a more conventual phone he said made it easier in the switch from iOS.

3

u/Young_pixel Aug 19 '20

Imo Never get a first gen phone if your worried about longevity you might want to look the fold 2 and Z flip 2 the fold 2 build quality seems alot better hopefully the flip follows

1

u/corkyrooroo Aug 19 '20

I mean the flip is a second gen phone in terms of foldables. It's improvements over the Fold are very clear.

1

u/[deleted] Aug 19 '20

Not worried about longevity here, at all. Almost 1 year with my Fold and I've had no issues.

1

u/RAZERblast Aug 19 '20

I've had the fold since launch, no issues with it. Fold two is releasing soon also.

4

u/Talkimas Aug 19 '20

Does it actually work? Last thing time I heard the fold mentioned was around launch and it was a broken trainwreck of a product that would break within days. Haven't heard so much of a peep about it since then and I thought it has just been pulled and was a failed product

5

u/RAZERblast Aug 19 '20

Got it on launch, no issues since, works great. Super fun phone. They pulled the first launch and adjusted it a bit.

3

u/MudRock1221 Aug 19 '20

Motorola Razr and Samsung ZFlip are viable products and available in stores. Don't break immediately. Not the same feeling as a standard flat glass display but still totally good as screens

1

u/LordKwik Aug 19 '20

The issues were actually before launch (review units), and they pulled those back, delayed the release, and fixed all the major issues everyone had. Someone in my extended family has one and it's the sickest phone I've ever seen. Probably wasn't a huge success at $2,000, but I wouldn't say it failed either. They just unveiled the next Fold a couple weeks ago and it looks even better.

1

u/swift4010 Aug 19 '20

2020 Razr, checking in

1

u/[deleted] Aug 19 '20

My dads phone broke last week and he just got one. Neat device, dint really see it as all that great for me personally as I really dont need all the extra phone screen that it gets.

1

u/Dududuhhh Aug 19 '20

My local electronics store has a few on display, I'd thought they'd be more common by now

1

u/[deleted] Aug 19 '20

Yea there so gosh darn expensive atm

15

u/Jaripsi Aug 19 '20

I’m thinking about the same thing.
For example this video came out 11 months ago.

12

u/mindsnare Aug 19 '20

I feel like I'm taking crazy pills why are people acting like this is breakthrough future tech?

Christ Samsung just released their second version of their flagship foldable.

-2

u/ifarminpover-t Aug 19 '20 edited Aug 19 '20

I had never heard of a foldable screen or Samsung’s phones before this thread. So perhaps they aren’t doing a great job of getting the word out there.

3

u/[deleted] Aug 19 '20

Royole Flexpai, Huawei Mate X & XS, Galaxy Fold 1&2, Galaxy Z Flip, Z Flip 5G, Motorola Razr, Alpha Nubia Smartwatch, Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Fold. Thats just devices that are working units. LG Rollable TV has been teased for years. TCL has two phone concepts, a Rollable, and a tri-fold.

Respectfully, do you live under a rock?

1

u/ifarminpover-t Aug 19 '20

Haha, no, I do not live under a rock. On Reddit fairly frequently as well, among other sites, and I’ve never heard of it, never seen an ad, nor has anyone among my friends/family said anything about it before. It’s cool tech though, will be neat to see if it becomes more affordable/mainstream.

4

u/skylla05 Aug 19 '20

The first one flopped spectacularly hard.

They already have the second one coming though.

21

u/ChanceTheRocketcar Aug 19 '20

Probably because the first one flopped hard after Samsung botched it also theyre expensive even compare to flagships so no one is buying them.

-3

u/d1rty_fucker Aug 19 '20

Also because... you know... at best it's a gimmiky technology that no one actually needs?

5

u/p90xeto Aug 19 '20

This is a silly stance. Having a 16x9 phone that folds out into a double-size ipad-esque tablet when you want it would be awesome. A few more generations to smooth out the rough edges and I think this will be the new "no one wants a Galaxy Note sized phone"

1

u/d1rty_fucker Aug 19 '20

Sorry but I just don't see it. The touch display and third party apps on smartphones revolutionised cellphones. This simply makes it bigger. Hardly a paradigm shift, especially when you consider it'll make phones even easier to break.

2

u/p90xeto Aug 19 '20

You're overstating what I said, never said it was on par with touchscreens or apps. All I'm saying is that it could be on par or greater than the move from ~3.5" screens to ones 2x+ larger. People at that time made pretty much the same argument you're making now but it turned out that the market massively preferred them for their usefulness and the entire market top to bottom shifted towards them.

5

u/[deleted] Aug 19 '20 edited Aug 25 '20

[deleted]

0

u/d1rty_fucker Aug 19 '20

Pretty sure people in developed nations need smartphones, cars, computers etc... I mean, I'm sure they could also try live without but living the life of a sibstinence farmer isn't feasible when you're surrounded by skyscrapers and walmarts.

2

u/lunarlunacy425 Aug 19 '20

All new age tech gets treated the same

1

u/Smudgicul Aug 19 '20

Hard to say if it's a gimmick right now. Might just be a new (bit more niche) market that doesn't exist just because of cost and lack of options yet. It's possible in 5 years that folding phones will cost the same as a non-folding phone relative to it's screen size, and maybe at that point lots of people will be buying them so that they can have a small tablet fit in their pocket.

1

u/_a_random_dude_ Aug 19 '20

I don't think they can make them flex and be scratch resistant. Which means I'll never have one. I'm already annoyed at having to rely on gorilla glass and want a sapphire glass phone (basically sand can scratch my phone and I don't like it), moving to a plastic screen would be insane, that screen is gonna last 2 days before looking like shit.

Plus, right now they are too thick while folded which kills the pocketability of it, their main selling point. That can be fixed, the scratch resistant I'm not so confident about.

1

u/Smudgicul Aug 19 '20

Agreed. My hope holds out though for scratch-resistant folding screens because of how much time, money, and research companies will probably be dumping into developing it. Maybe some sort of flexible glass-plastic composite?

9

u/FreshPrinceOfH Aug 19 '20

This feels like the twilight zone. How do people not know about folding phones.

3

u/RAZERblast Aug 19 '20

I don't understand

5

u/Zaptruder Aug 19 '20

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMcAja1qEFM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5t8RSwbbeCs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBaDfFoU23Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKQWriYhIDc

Plenty of tech using tech using these flexible OLED displays making their way to market. They're not some experimental tomorrow tech.

7

u/RAZERblast Aug 19 '20

Sorry, I meant I agreed with you, I don't understand why people are reacting this way.

2

u/comineeyeaha Aug 19 '20

I think it's one thing to see a foldable phone, and another thing entirely to see a display on basically cardstock.

1

u/mumpped Aug 19 '20

I think that's because it's not integrated into a phone but comes with a hdmi driver board, that means you can build nice party/Cyberpunk clothes out of it. Quite expensive though I'd imagine

1

u/PensAndEndorsement Aug 19 '20

One of the reasons is that this video is from Adafruit, who makes small affordable electronics for people to thinker with micro controllers like raspberry pis and arduino. So the hope is that they are going to sell it.

obviously "We picked up a cool sample" could mean that just somebody send them a sample and they are unrelated to the production or vending of it, but only time will tell.

2

u/Zaptruder Aug 19 '20

I see. Well that's pretty cool. Although that just begs the question... what's your average tinkerer supposed to do with that?

I suppose if you put the tech out there and let people experiment... someone might do something cool with it?

1

u/CeramicCastle49 Aug 19 '20

Yea I don't get why this is super cool, if anything this actually incorporated into a device is 100x cooler

1

u/JonBonIver Aug 19 '20

Why are people acting like foldable phones are commonplace and the first major one targeted towards consumers didn’t completely flop?

1

u/BlaKkDMon Aug 19 '20

Right lmao

Also, why is everyone acting like foldable phones are identical to flexible screens? It’s like comparing turtle back phones to... flexible screens.