Future Timeline

Now that foldable smartphones are a viable segment of the premium electronics market, Apple is working on its own foldable device—but it won’t be an iPhone. People familiar with Apple’s Taiwanese supply chain shared Thursday that the Cupertino-based tech giant is preparing a “larger” foldable device. The sources’ claims dovetail with earlier rumors regarding Apple’s development of a non-iPhone foldable.

Samsung’s Galaxy Z Flip 6 is hotly tipped to succeed the excellent Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 at Galaxy Unpacked this July, but it looks like the upcoming foldable will have one more clamshell rival to compete with when it does hit shelves in a few months.

ZTE subsidiary Nubia (aka the name behind some of the best gaming phones) has unveiled its first foldable device, the Nubia Flip 5G, at MWC 2024, and despite its budget-friendly price, this colorful clamshell shares more than just a form factor with the Galaxy Z Flip 5.

Known in Japan as the ZTE Libero Flip, the Nubia Flip 5G boasts a 6.9-inch folding AMOLED display (1188 x 2790) with a 120Hz refresh rate, as well as a versatile external display that can double as – wait for it – a camera, a music player, a calendar, a stopwatch, a voice recorder, a step counter, a weather app, and, of course, a plain old clock.

Samsung had the foldable market all to itself for several years, but competition is ramping up with OnePlus, Google, and Motorola all launching foldable phones in the past year. Some of these devices make meaningful hardware advantages over Samsung, but a new leak shows yet another iterative update to Samsung's flagship foldable. The alleged Galaxy Z Fold 6 renders show a phone that borrows the Galaxy S24 aesthetic but keeps Samsung's foldable formula largely unchanged.

The first thing you'll notice about the supposed Galaxy Z Fold 6 is that it has adopted a Galaxy S24-style frame, which was itself accused of aping the iPhone. The current Z Fold 5 has a rounded frame more like Samsung's 2023 smartphones.

There are still two screens, a cover display on the front and a larger foldable display inside. The measurements listed for these renders are the same: 6.2 inches on the front and 7.6 inches unfolded. The shape is a bit different, though. The leak says the Fold 6 measures 153.5 by 132.5 by 6.1 mm unfolded, which is 1.4mm shorter and 2.6mm wider than the Fold 5. Samsung's foldables have always felt a bit narrow, so even this small change will be welcome. This isn't the first time Samsung has moved in this direction. The Z Fold 4 was about 3mm wider than its predecessor.

Tadasuke wrote: ↑Wed Mar 27, 2024 11:16 am For me, it seems like new smartphones have been getting smaller and smaller upgrades as years go by (higher and higher prices at the same time). I had fully expected AR AI glasses fully replacing smartphones in the 2020s and even more impressive tech coming in the 2030s, but I was too optimistic as usual.

Seems like only AI might change this semi-stagnation.