From The Verge's review:

"All this week, I kept coming back to a thought about how we use our phones. We pull them out to check something quickly, but then, all of a sudden, a half-hour disappears scrolling Instagram or Twitter or whatever. It’s a real problem.

But it’s a problem I didn’t really have with the Galaxy Fold. When I was using the tiny screen, I just wanted to get something done quickly and put it away because the screen was small, and I wasn’t in a place where I wanted to unfold it.

On the flip side, when I was using Galaxy Fold unfolded, I was really using it. I had to hold it in two hands, and it felt much more like using a tablet, an active device I was choosing to use. It requires some small measure of intentionality — more than a phone, anyway.

I found myself using it in meetings, and nobody batted an eye. I was reviewing docs for the meeting, but I could have just as easily been messing around on social media. But think about the social rules of a work meeting: somebody messing around on their phone is a jerk, but somebody using a tablet is more likely to be doing something relevant. The Fold feels like a different device with different social rules, and that’s fascinating."

This is just my point of view, I don't claim this as an answer for anyone but myself. However, back when I was using Android and Windows Phone, I found that carrying an extra large phablet like the Galaxy Mega, Nexus 6, or Lumia 940XL gave me a very useful middle ground for the use cases you quoted from The Verge. The phones were big enough that at first glance (especially the Mega) they looked like small tablets, and were socially acceptable in work situations. Likewise, they were still phones so they fit in my (admittedly large) pocket even with a thin case.

I'm on iPhone now and I've "regressed" back to a relatively normal phone size with the iPhone 7. I almost got a Plus but I had an iPhone 6 before that and got comfortable with the smaller size. I'd probably be fine with the SE at this point, but since Apple has dropped that form factor I'm not going backwards.

So yes, I can see a place for a folding device when one needs to carry both a phone and a tablet, but for me at least, I can move to a phablet for that.

Personally I've never had a use for a tablet- I literally bought an iPad once and returned it the next day because it didn't serve a purpose for me. Of course that's not true for some people.

But I do sometimes have a use for the large screen on my phone, and I would definitely have a use for a smaller (one-hand-sized) phone screen, so having both of those available in one device appeals to me.

That's interesting, and actually made me want to read the review.

https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/19/18498904/samsung-galaxy-f...

My cynical side says that this will probably doom the whole idea of a foldable phone. The manufacturers want us to be distracted and spend that half an hour scrolling social media. They want us to be sucked in to using it constantly. They don't benefit from encouraging us to only use our gadgets when we've deliberately decided that we want to. And so it seems likely they'll kind of forget about this once the novelty wears off.

What effect this has on your desire to purchase and use devices is up to you.

If thats the best that can be said about it then it seems it really was a pointless device.

People routinely clamor for ridiculously-thick phones already so they can get huge batteries. I don't think the size (effectively two phones) is a big deal; I already carry 2 phones in my pocket pretty routinely with no problems.

This folding phone seems targeted at letting people carry a phone with a gigantic screen. People that are buying XL versions of existing phones (a surprising number of people) that want even bigger screens (that still fit in the pocket) seem to be the target, and/or people who want a 2-in-1 phone+tablet.

I don't really like large phones, but I do like using tablets. Having the choice between a phone-sized screen and a tablet-sized screen in a single device seems personally desirable to me; I don't really care much about the device size itself as long as it still fits in my pocket (unlike the tablet it'd be replacing).

> People routinely clamor for ridiculously-thick phones already so they can get huge batteries.

Not even that thick! When your battery is about 4mm thick and only takes up part of the phone, you can roughly double the battery life by taking the phone from 7.5mm to 10.5mm.

Tablets are too big to carry around, and phones are too small to use for non-trivial purposes.

A folding display solves that issue. Small when it needs to be, large when you want it to be.

Yeah, it's thicker than a typical phone, but that's usually not the limiting dimension when determining pocketablity.

> and phones are too small to use for non-trivial purposes

I think this is probably the sticking point for people who don't see the point of this. At least for me, there's no unserved gulf between my phone and a computer. I've had a tablet in the past, but there was really just no use case where the tablet was the top choice over both my phone and computer; I always preferred one of those over the tablet.

Just wait until you get older and your eyes start going, then you'll be faced with the choice of taking off your glasses and bringing the phone ridiculously close to your face, or using giant text sizes and seeing only 30 words per screen. Then will you see the sense of a large screen that is portable.

(I feel silly writing this, but just in case it's not clear, I am referring to a generic "you", and not you in particular.)

I use my ipad mini for reading and watching TV in bed without disturbing my partner.

For that it is a cracking little device, a phone screen is too small to read comfortably and if I'm watching a movie in bed the ipad is the perfect size.

Originally bought the device for testing and it ended up been the thing I spend the most time looking at after a desktop/laptop.

Enough that I'm considering buying the new ipad mini and giving the old one to my stepson.

And most phones are already insanely thin. Older phones were substantially thicker than this and I never had a problem putting them in my pocket.

Are you a woman who wears USA women's pants that are nearly always skin tight and have pockets 40% the size of men's pockets?

Women usually put their phones in a purse.

And there is the assumption that this will improve greatly over future iterations.

I really didnt mind when phones were thicker. I'd be happy if my phone was thicker now if it meant having a bigger battery. I'd be even happier if my phone was thicker now and it meant I had a screen that's (optionally) twice as big in my pocket. Just some things off the top of my head that I'd like to have a bigger screen, but not carry around a tablet for: taking notes, maps in the car, gaming, netflix.

The phones now are considerably larger though. Combined with old phone thickness it would add up.

I've been waiting 20 years for a small phone with AR glasses and virtual keyboard and touchpad. What I don't want is a bloody folding phone, which is still too ridiculously small to actually work on. Damn.

Nobody needs a folding phone, but nobody strictly needs a lot of stuff. I'm waiting on them releasing a digital scroll, personally. I'm sure I don't need one though.

One advantage is accessibility for people with limited vision. A folding phone can have about the same screen area as a small tablet, while still fitting in a pocket or handbag. A larger screen is immensely more comfortable to use if your font size and UI has been scaled up by 300%.

This only applies in a hypothetical future where someone figures out how to make a durable folding display though.

I have bad vision (something like -8), but phone is the device I don’t have any problem with. I just keep it at 10-15 cm from me eyes and I can use it very comfortably. Can’t say it about Laptop for example, not usable without glasses.

Most women's pant front pockets stopped being able to hold a phone many phone generations ago, and I personally rarely feel comfortable leaving my phone in my back pocket where it will easily fall. Moreover, most skirts or dresses don't have pockets at all. Women seem to have adjusted just fine to phones that don't fit in their pockets, I doubt that the rest of the population will have trouble adjusting.

Additionally, I read a lot more when I have my tablet with me, as it's easy to pop it out and read an article or chapter when I'm waiting for the bus, etc, and it's not tedious to read on like it is on my phone, as the tablet has a larger screen. I also rarely carry my tablet around as it seems superfluous with my computer and phone.

That's why I, at least, am jumping at the chance to have a device that is both easier to read, and not as big as my tablet.

I'd love a folding phone. I often find myself doing several things at once which requires a lot of switching back and forth between apps (say I'm chatting with a friend while browsing the internet, or I remember something while chatting and I want to send him a link, but I need to find the right page first - or I want to take notes and would like to have whatever reference I'm using open without having to switch back and forth).

I love the multitasking on my iPad, so a smartphone that can turn into a mini-tablet that might support similar forms of multitasking sounds awesome to me. I'm just gonna wait until somebody releases a model that doesn't cost me an arm and doesn't break within a week.

Would a Psion-like PDA like the Cosmo Communicator [1] be a more workable solution compared to a hard-to-engineer folding screen? When closed, the PDA acts like a phone. When you open it, you have a bigger screen and a keyboard for entry.

[1] https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/cosmo-communicator#/

Here, here, here! jumps around

I would love to have a phone that I can open up to tablet size, so I only need one device for both jobs. Find something too big for the small screen? Open it up, continue. Taking out the tablet works (especially with the various sync techs for websites), but is not really a "nice" workflow.

Here's one interesting use case (horizontal keyboard with angled screen): https://media.wired.com/photos/5cb3ce0eeaad993a02ff5d52/mast...

I would buy it. A large screen in a compact package? Yes, it's thicker, but it's not too thick, and the huge screen you get in return is great.

Too bad I don't trust Android.

> Who would ever need a folding phone?

I can't imagine a use case for this that would make it appealing to me. But apparently there are a lot of people who can.

Different strokes and all that.

I would take a folding phone in exchange for a mechanical keyboard, but most phones have neither, and I think they're worse for it.

I definitely miss my G1 - I loved the slide-out keyboard, and the "trackball" pointer device. If I could have those two things in a modern phone, perhaps slightly thicker with a larger battery, that would be almost perfect.

But what perfection would actually look like to me would also being able to use a bluetooth mouse and keyboard, and (somehow) outputting the video to a real monitor. At that point, it would be a suitable on-the-go replacement for most laptop needs.

Have you seen devices like https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/cosmo-communicator#/ (and their previous version https://planetcom.squarespace.com/device)?

I keep being slightly tempted to get one as an on-call/ultraportable laptop, since it's possible to connect various USB-C bits as required.