7 ms·

Flip phones were an important design constraint when phones featured physical hardware buttons. It was easier to flip open a phone to unlock it then press the w

Flip phones were an important design constraint when phones featured physical hardware buttons. It was easier to flip open a phone to unlock it then press the weird key combos that some phones used. With touch screens this is no longer a problem, and the design constraint for a flip phone is less relevant. If anything it now increases the time to unlock a phone if you have to flip it open first then authenticate with thumbprint or face scanner.

Shivetya 7y ago
I am interested in them from the savings in overall length which is the largest dimension. the side effect of folding of course being it may be come too thick. however I am still in the camp of hoping we have reached peak phone size and instead will see more offerings along the sizes of early smart phones.
hawski 7y ago
Flip phones are also smaller when folded, so they are more pocketable. That alone is more important for me than most considerations.
- ceejayoz 7y ago
  Smaller in one dimension. Thicker in the other.
  - staz 7y ago
    it's an object in three dimensions
    - ceejayoz 7y ago
      The point is that the fold causes a trade-off - x/y for z. I've got some pants with deep pockets but tight enough that my cased iPhone is too thick to comfortably fit. A folding phone like this wouldn't work at all.
  - lallysingh 7y ago
    Preferred that way, honestly. My galaxy s8 is too thin to hold easily for me. Especially with the bezel-less curved-edge screen.
    - ilikehurdles 7y ago
      I miss being able to reach the upper half of my phone's screen with one hand. We've normalized it a lot now, but compared to older smartphone generations it is downright awkward to hold a phone today. But I don't really miss flip phones per se. Just smaller smartphones. The galaxy s4 was around the upper limit of how big I'd like my phone to be.
      - entropicdrifter 7y ago
        The Galaxy S4 was pretty much the perfect phone for me. Just the right size for my small hands, replaceable battery, rootable OS, and plenty of power and storage expandability for the time.
      - NoodleIncident 7y ago
        I think most people just use the pinky shelf, or some other method of reaching the top of the screen. Iphones have that gesture to shrink the screen instead or something
  - Lx1oG-AWb6h_ZG0 7y ago
    The verge review said it’s no thicker than the original razr, and that was considered pretty thin when it came out.
  - hawski 7y ago
    My wallet is thicker, so it would be alright.
    - wyclif 7y ago
      I know what you mean, player. I got a bankroll in my pocket right now.
  - welly 7y ago
    I bought a thick, heavy duty case for my phone to make up for the lack of thickness/durability. Few if any mobile phones will stand up to average day to day knocks, drops and bumps. Unsure why phone manufacturers insist on trying to make their phones thinner and more fragile when everyone wraps them in a case of some description.
    - Sohcahtoa82 7y ago
      > Unsure why phone manufacturers insist on trying to make their phones thinner and more fragile when everyone wraps them in a case of some description. Because consumers don't actually buy what they say they want. I'm always seeing people demand more durable screens and longer battery life, and Motorola made the Droid Turbo 2 with a massive 3750 mAh battery and a truly shatter-proof screen. People dropped it from a drone onto concrete from over 500 feet and it survived [0]. It takes more than one smack with a hammer to break the screen. [1] And yet, nobody bought it, because when it comes to make a purchase, people still want phones that look sleek and modern, which means thin and a back made out of glass, because plastic is ugly, and metal interferes with wireless charging. Motorola's been producing phones for years that have the features people actually ask for. They made Android phones with physical keyboards up to 2012 [2]. I remember seeing polls about phones with QWERTY keyboards back then and so many people saying they want one, but when it came to actually buy, they'd rather get an iPhone with a screen that shatters if you sneeze. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTJOL5ikuZA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTJOL5ikuZA [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaiEIlPxnok https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaiEIlPxnok [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Droid_4 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Droid_4
- H1Supreme 7y ago
  Same here. I cannot stand the size of phone's today. Mine is 6" and I hate it. My old Motorola G3 was the perfect size. I'd still use it, if it didn't eat SD cards (and only have a 4GB hard drive).
  - coldpie 7y ago
    Yeah. I just got a new phone last week and after a bunch of research ended up settling on a Pixel 3a, which is even larger than the already-too-large 1st gen Pixel that it replaced. I hate it. There are no decent small (<5") phones on the market, and haven't been for half a decade. Sony's Xperia Compact line was the closest, but it 1) doesn't come with stock Android, 2) doesn't have a headphone jack, and 3) has been discontinued, which I guess indicates that these don't sell. Sigh.
    - rpmisms 7y ago
      I went straight from an iPhone SE to a Pixel 3a. I was really sad to give up my tiny screen.
    - bartread 7y ago
      > There are no decent small (<5") phones on the market This is a major reason behind why I've stuck with my iPhone 5S since the end of 2013. Unfortunately, after 6 years, the battery life is now really suffering, and it's starting to feel a little sluggish. Up until the last 6 - 12 months it's been a great phone though.
      - CDSlice 7y ago
        An SE would be good for you if you can find a used one for a good price. It has the guts of the 6s in the body of the 5s so it should last you a few more years at least
        wyclif 7y ago
        I was surprised to discover recently that you can still buy a new (not reconditioned) iPhone SE direct from Apple but the link to them is on the refurbished part of the site.
- Abishek_Muthian 7y ago
  Being smaller has its accessibility benefits as well for those with smaller hands(palms).
- zigzaggy 7y ago
  My thoughts exactly. I've been thinking about going back to a flip phone and using on of these pocket computers or a tablet for my computing. Sometimes I have my phone for the sole reason of needing to be available for family or work. Sometimes I have my phone because I want to read or kill time. I like to think if I split these devices up, I could free up some pocket space and disconnect a little more. I've already closed down all my social media except for my pseudonymous twitter account. Even that has been up for the chopping block with all this impeach pit chatter.
outime 7y ago
>It was easier to flip open a phone to unlock it then press the weird key combos that some phones used. That depends if you had a lock code - in such case it was irrelevant back then already. Also it wasn't like you'd check the phone hundreds of time per day as most of the people do nowadays so it wasn't a big annoyance to unlock by pressing e.g. two keys in the keypad, but maybe that's just me. One thing that many people appreciate as well was receiving a call and just open the phone to answer it.
- paulsutter 7y ago
  Nobody had a lock code on the old Razr. What would you be locking? The ability to place a call?
  - mffnbs 7y ago
    Your text message history was rather private
    - mattacular 7y ago
      Text messaging was available in the razr era but not nearly as ubiquitous as it is today. Relatively few people used it, and you were limited to sending and receiving small amounts of text only or maybe a very low res image (remember what early camera phones were like?) so those limited uses were also less likely to contain any sensitive data.
      - mffnbs 7y ago
        Texting was extremely common for my social circles at the time.
      - yardie 7y ago
        T9 was quite well used throughout the world during that era. Predictive spelling originated with Nokia. Just a few quick taps could spell out an entire sentence. It was less well used in the US where you were charged a relatively exorbitant rate for sending and receiving texts. $.05/SMS + $.25/MMS
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
aquova 7y ago
I think this phone has two main appeals. One is the smaller form factor, and the second is the nostalgia for those who owned a Razr back when it was the big hit item.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
acdha 7y ago
There's one other consideration: with a flip phone, the screen can be protected by a hard surface where scratches don't affect usage. If they have an Apple-class thumbprint / face scanner with basically unnoticeable delay, the slight delay for flipping it open might be a reasonable tradeoff for the huge durability improvements for active people and there could be some nice mitigation techniques such as their small display for anyone who doesn't want to flip it open to see if they have a message.
- SkyBelow 7y ago
  How much damage occurs when the phone is in use and thus open? And how much durability does the screen itself lose to become foldable?
- jordache 7y ago
  > the screen can be protected by a hard surface where scratches don't affect usage. I think this argument is really grasping as straws. How critical is longevity of screen, during the life span of a smart phone? Sure it gets damaged, here and there. No where near approaching a problem, where the market dictates a hard cover over the screen.
  - newnewpdro 7y ago
    Considering the number of people I see using smartphones with cracked screens I'd say it's a problem worth engineering to prevent.
  - zamadatix 7y ago
    Depends both on what you do for a living and how you treat electronics. Some people don't use screen protectors, others have a screen cracked so bad they have a hard time reading from it.
  - acdha 7y ago
    People are using phones for longer than they used to and at least anecdotally screen cracks are a popular reason for finally upgrading. If I walk around the city it also seems to be a popular service based on the number of shops using their advertisement space for it.
djsumdog 7y ago
I knew people who worked as servers who liked these styles of phones because they could text (with any type of prediction turned off of course) while the phone was opened in their pocket .. between doing rounds of their open tables.
- ChuckNorris89 7y ago
  Wow, I haven't thought of this usecase before. Sweet that with keypad phones you could use your muscle memory to text without looking at the screen.
emrehan 7y ago
Flip buttons could have instantaneous fingerprint readers.
proc0 7y ago
My LG Stylo has this super annoying wake feature that works when you either shake the phone, or touch the screen a lot. It keeps turning on in my pocket just because of movement and sometime certain textiles allow my leg to even swipe the lock screen and press random stuff. Having a hardware button is better, but not perfect as depending on where it is, you could be accidentally pressing it when it's tumbling around in a backpack etc. Really the best solution to unintentionally waking your phone (at least for me) would be a flip phone.

Shivetya 7y ago

I am interested in them from the savings in overall length which is the largest dimension. the side effect of folding of course being it may be come too thick. however I am still in the camp of hoping we have reached peak phone size and instead will see more offerings along the sizes of early smart phones.

hawski 7y ago

Flip phones are also smaller when folded, so they are more pocketable. That alone is more important for me than most considerations.

ceejayoz 7y ago
Smaller in one dimension. Thicker in the other.
- staz 7y ago
  it's an object in three dimensions
  - ceejayoz 7y ago
    The point is that the fold causes a trade-off - x/y for z. I've got some pants with deep pockets but tight enough that my cased iPhone is too thick to comfortably fit. A folding phone like this wouldn't work at all.
- lallysingh 7y ago
  Preferred that way, honestly. My galaxy s8 is too thin to hold easily for me. Especially with the bezel-less curved-edge screen.
  - ilikehurdles 7y ago
    I miss being able to reach the upper half of my phone's screen with one hand. We've normalized it a lot now, but compared to older smartphone generations it is downright awkward to hold a phone today. But I don't really miss flip phones per se. Just smaller smartphones. The galaxy s4 was around the upper limit of how big I'd like my phone to be.
    - entropicdrifter 7y ago
      The Galaxy S4 was pretty much the perfect phone for me. Just the right size for my small hands, replaceable battery, rootable OS, and plenty of power and storage expandability for the time.
    - NoodleIncident 7y ago
      I think most people just use the pinky shelf, or some other method of reaching the top of the screen. Iphones have that gesture to shrink the screen instead or something
- Lx1oG-AWb6h_ZG0 7y ago
  The verge review said it’s no thicker than the original razr, and that was considered pretty thin when it came out.
- hawski 7y ago
  My wallet is thicker, so it would be alright.
  - wyclif 7y ago
    I know what you mean, player. I got a bankroll in my pocket right now.
- welly 7y ago
  I bought a thick, heavy duty case for my phone to make up for the lack of thickness/durability. Few if any mobile phones will stand up to average day to day knocks, drops and bumps. Unsure why phone manufacturers insist on trying to make their phones thinner and more fragile when everyone wraps them in a case of some description.
  - Sohcahtoa82 7y ago
    > Unsure why phone manufacturers insist on trying to make their phones thinner and more fragile when everyone wraps them in a case of some description. Because consumers don't actually buy what they say they want. I'm always seeing people demand more durable screens and longer battery life, and Motorola made the Droid Turbo 2 with a massive 3750 mAh battery and a truly shatter-proof screen. People dropped it from a drone onto concrete from over 500 feet and it survived [0]. It takes more than one smack with a hammer to break the screen. [1] And yet, nobody bought it, because when it comes to make a purchase, people still want phones that look sleek and modern, which means thin and a back made out of glass, because plastic is ugly, and metal interferes with wireless charging. Motorola's been producing phones for years that have the features people actually ask for. They made Android phones with physical keyboards up to 2012 [2]. I remember seeing polls about phones with QWERTY keyboards back then and so many people saying they want one, but when it came to actually buy, they'd rather get an iPhone with a screen that shatters if you sneeze. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTJOL5ikuZA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTJOL5ikuZA [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaiEIlPxnok https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaiEIlPxnok [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Droid_4 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Droid_4
H1Supreme 7y ago
Same here. I cannot stand the size of phone's today. Mine is 6" and I hate it. My old Motorola G3 was the perfect size. I'd still use it, if it didn't eat SD cards (and only have a 4GB hard drive).
- coldpie 7y ago
  Yeah. I just got a new phone last week and after a bunch of research ended up settling on a Pixel 3a, which is even larger than the already-too-large 1st gen Pixel that it replaced. I hate it. There are no decent small (<5") phones on the market, and haven't been for half a decade. Sony's Xperia Compact line was the closest, but it 1) doesn't come with stock Android, 2) doesn't have a headphone jack, and 3) has been discontinued, which I guess indicates that these don't sell. Sigh.
  - rpmisms 7y ago
    I went straight from an iPhone SE to a Pixel 3a. I was really sad to give up my tiny screen.
  - bartread 7y ago
    > There are no decent small (<5") phones on the market This is a major reason behind why I've stuck with my iPhone 5S since the end of 2013. Unfortunately, after 6 years, the battery life is now really suffering, and it's starting to feel a little sluggish. Up until the last 6 - 12 months it's been a great phone though.
    - CDSlice 7y ago
      An SE would be good for you if you can find a used one for a good price. It has the guts of the 6s in the body of the 5s so it should last you a few more years at least
      - wyclif 7y ago
        I was surprised to discover recently that you can still buy a new (not reconditioned) iPhone SE direct from Apple but the link to them is on the refurbished part of the site.
Abishek_Muthian 7y ago
Being smaller has its accessibility benefits as well for those with smaller hands(palms).
zigzaggy 7y ago
My thoughts exactly. I've been thinking about going back to a flip phone and using on of these pocket computers or a tablet for my computing. Sometimes I have my phone for the sole reason of needing to be available for family or work. Sometimes I have my phone because I want to read or kill time. I like to think if I split these devices up, I could free up some pocket space and disconnect a little more. I've already closed down all my social media except for my pseudonymous twitter account. Even that has been up for the chopping block with all this impeach pit chatter.

outime 7y ago

>It was easier to flip open a phone to unlock it then press the weird key combos that some phones used. That depends if you had a lock code - in such case it was irrelevant back then already. Also it wasn't like you'd check the phone hundreds of time per day as most of the people do nowadays so it wasn't a big annoyance to unlock by pressing e.g. two keys in the keypad, but maybe that's just me. One thing that many people appreciate as well was receiving a call and just open the phone to answer it.

paulsutter 7y ago
Nobody had a lock code on the old Razr. What would you be locking? The ability to place a call?
- mffnbs 7y ago
  Your text message history was rather private
  - mattacular 7y ago
    Text messaging was available in the razr era but not nearly as ubiquitous as it is today. Relatively few people used it, and you were limited to sending and receiving small amounts of text only or maybe a very low res image (remember what early camera phones were like?) so those limited uses were also less likely to contain any sensitive data.
    - mffnbs 7y ago
      Texting was extremely common for my social circles at the time.
    - yardie 7y ago
      T9 was quite well used throughout the world during that era. Predictive spelling originated with Nokia. Just a few quick taps could spell out an entire sentence. It was less well used in the US where you were charged a relatively exorbitant rate for sending and receiving texts. $.05/SMS + $.25/MMS

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

aquova 7y ago

I think this phone has two main appeals. One is the smaller form factor, and the second is the nostalgia for those who owned a Razr back when it was the big hit item.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

acdha 7y ago

There's one other consideration: with a flip phone, the screen can be protected by a hard surface where scratches don't affect usage. If they have an Apple-class thumbprint / face scanner with basically unnoticeable delay, the slight delay for flipping it open might be a reasonable tradeoff for the huge durability improvements for active people and there could be some nice mitigation techniques such as their small display for anyone who doesn't want to flip it open to see if they have a message.

SkyBelow 7y ago
How much damage occurs when the phone is in use and thus open? And how much durability does the screen itself lose to become foldable?
jordache 7y ago
> the screen can be protected by a hard surface where scratches don't affect usage. I think this argument is really grasping as straws. How critical is longevity of screen, during the life span of a smart phone? Sure it gets damaged, here and there. No where near approaching a problem, where the market dictates a hard cover over the screen.
- newnewpdro 7y ago
  Considering the number of people I see using smartphones with cracked screens I'd say it's a problem worth engineering to prevent.
- zamadatix 7y ago
  Depends both on what you do for a living and how you treat electronics. Some people don't use screen protectors, others have a screen cracked so bad they have a hard time reading from it.
- acdha 7y ago
  People are using phones for longer than they used to and at least anecdotally screen cracks are a popular reason for finally upgrading. If I walk around the city it also seems to be a popular service based on the number of shops using their advertisement space for it.

djsumdog 7y ago

I knew people who worked as servers who liked these styles of phones because they could text (with any type of prediction turned off of course) while the phone was opened in their pocket .. between doing rounds of their open tables.

ChuckNorris89 7y ago
Wow, I haven't thought of this usecase before. Sweet that with keypad phones you could use your muscle memory to text without looking at the screen.

emrehan 7y ago

Flip buttons could have instantaneous fingerprint readers.

proc0 7y ago

My LG Stylo has this super annoying wake feature that works when you either shake the phone, or touch the screen a lot. It keeps turning on in my pocket just because of movement and sometime certain textiles allow my leg to even swipe the lock screen and press random stuff. Having a hardware button is better, but not perfect as depending on where it is, you could be accidentally pressing it when it's tumbling around in a backpack etc. Really the best solution to unintentionally waking your phone (at least for me) would be a flip phone.