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'The One Feature That Keeps Me From Recommending Flip Phones' (theverge.com)

(Monday August 18, 2025 @11:00AM (msmash) from the fair-enough dept.)


Dust is that [1]"feature" or drawback , The Verge's reviewer Allison Johnson argues. Samsung's head of smartphone planning Minseok Kang told her earlier this year that creating dustproof foldable phones remains technically challenging but "not impossible." Current flagship foldables from Samsung and Motorola carry IP48 ratings that protect against particles larger than one millimeter, while traditional smartphones at similar price points offer full IP68 dust and water resistance. The durability gap persists five years after Samsung's original Galaxy Fold experienced screen failures from small particles entering the hinge mechanism.



[1] https://www.theverge.com/the-stepback-newsletter/760031/foldables-flip-phones-flaw



But is there enough demand (Score:3)

by Valgrus Thunderaxe ( 8769977 )

for companies to invest in and improve this format of phone? I've owned several flip phones way back to the Star-Tac and I wouldn't want this now over a monolithic touch-screen phone.

Most of the time when I hear pro-"flip phone" arguments it's from people that don't want "smart phones", but most of these flips phones are Android (smart) phones just in a different format and can be made to do anything any other Android phone can do.

They may be small markets... (Score:2)

by Viol8 ( 599362 )

... amongst business travellers on short tripes who just want to take a single device with a reasonable sized screen (ie no tablet or laptop), and of course the usual techno-fashion victims. Its too bulky for it to be a mass market phone.

Re: (Score:3)

by thegreatemu ( 1457577 )

"Flip phone" in this article is referring to foldable touch screen smart phones, unlike every other use of the term.

Re: (Score:2)

by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

TFA calls them "flip phones" but the ones it talks about are folding phones. There are flip phones on the market, but that's not what TFA is talking about.

I'd like to get a folding phone for the larger screen. They seem durable enough now - I take care of my phones. Would be nice if the screen was a bit harder maybe, and I'd like a reasonable case. Main thing is a strap hole. Best way to avoid dropping your phone.

The problem is they all seem over-priced and under-powered. I know that big folding screens cos

Crease (Score:2)

by war4peace ( 1628283 )

My OCD hates that bloody crease.

Re: (Score:2)

by Valgrus Thunderaxe ( 8769977 )

This is about flip-phones, not foldable phones.

Re:Crease (Score:4, Informative)

by nightflameauto ( 6607976 )

> This is about flip-phones, not foldable phones.

The headline says flip phones, but the summary speaks of foldables. If only Slashdot had editors look things over at some point in the process.

Re: (Score:2)

by thegreatemu ( 1457577 )

To be fair, TFA also refers to flip phones and foldables interchangeably, and it's impossible to tell what they're actually talking about.

Re: Crease (Score:3)

by oneiros27 ( 46144 )

No, it's about foldable phones.

Whoever wrote the headline must be AI or young enough to not know there's a major difference between the two.

Re: (Score:3)

by unrtst ( 777550 )

> This is about flip-phones, not foldable phones.

Bullshit. The title is, but TFS and TFA are about foldables. Go reread them. TFS has "fold" in it three times, but not a single "flip".

Re: (Score:1)

by Zangief ( 461457 )

right, but I think the term just means "foldable" now

it's not like there are many important real flip smartphones right now

Re: Crease (Score:2, Redundant)

by yuvcifjt ( 4161545 )

There appears to be no difference, or very minor between foldable and flip phones - the first opens horizontally, while the latter opens vertically.

Re: (Score:2)

by nightflameauto ( 6607976 )

> There appears to be no difference, or very minor between foldable and flip phones - the first opens horizontally, while the latter opens vertically.

There's a yer momma joke in there somewhere, I'm just not caffeinated enough to see it.

This "brain-damaged" epithet is getting sorely overworked. When we can
speak of someone or something being flawed, impaired, marred, spoiled;
batty, bedlamite, bonkers, buggy, cracked, crazed, cuckoo, daft, demented,
deranged, loco, lunatic, mad, maniac, mindless, non compos mentis, nuts,
Reaganite, screwy, teched, unbalanced, unsound, witless, wrong; senseless,
spastic, spasmodic, convulsive; doped, spaced-out, stoned, zonked; {beef,
beetle,block,dung,thick}headed, dense, doltish, dull, duncical, numskulled,
pinhead; asinine, fatuous, foolish, silly, simple; brute, lumbering, oafish;
half-assed, incompetent; backward, retarded, imbecilic, moronic; when we have
a whole precisely nuanced vocabulary of intellectual abuse to draw upon,
individually and in combination, isn't it a little <fill in the blank> to be
limited to a single, now quite trite, adjective?