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Comment by mrheosuper | Hacker News Reader

Samsung is testing the water with their new passport-size fold phone. Looklike enough people demanded for smaller size phone.

Granted it is still considerably bigger than ip13mini, but it's step in right diretion

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The Z Flip is even smaller folded and has been around for years. The cover screen used to be very limited, but the made it larger and added more functionality over time. I think some people use the cover screen for daily messaging, etc.

Yup, the new phone size is in between the Flip and the previous Fold (now Fold Pro).

I would not take the release of this device as evidence that people wanted a smaller phone, no more than the release of the original iPhone Mini and Galaxy S10e, and to some extent the iPhone Air and the Galaxy Edge. Manufacturers are experimenting to see what form factors people will buy and it is entirely possible that this size will be phased out by both Samsung and Apple in a generation.

Samsung has a major advantage over Apple in that they have multiple generations of folding phones so modifying both their manufacturing and software is less of an issue.

I don't even think this counts because then you'd be paying for the brittle and useless big folding display as well, when all you want is the smaller outer one. Plus the worse repairability.

I just held it in my hands today, its reduced height makes it fit much easier in the pocket. Overall a better form in my opinion, the price tag still too high for me.

I’m hoping that with a supply of the passport-sized front screens it might become a new form factor for non-folding phones. Though again, ideally I’d like something Mini-sized or smaller.

There is a wave of 'blackberry-like' android phones coming soon (4:3 screen + qwerty keyboard) - Unihertz Titan 2, Clicks Communicator, Minimal Phone 2 to name a few.

I was ready to say that they were all too big, but looking at a comparison they’re surprisingly reasonable in size?

https://comparesizes.com/comparison/Unihertz-Titan-2-vs-Clic...

Not sure I’d want a physical keyboard, but it’s nice to have an option potentially.

Not sure if all, but some (Clicks i am sure) will offer touch-sensitive keyboards where you can swipe over keyboard to apply gestures as if was the screen itself, so its not such a dead space if you are not typing.

You can still navigate by interacting with the lower half.

It's funny that at some point we'll have completely different tech and all those screens would look like old tech :)

Anyway, I have fiddled with it few times in stores.

* It feels nice form factor for holding. but the folded 'passport' screen still feels it's not yet caught by websites or apps.

* The claims are Apple is suspected of doing this form-factor (and as a display manufacturer I guess Samsung could sniff it...), meaning Samsung tried to be first. like the Galaxy Edge.

I guess the discussion over the form factor would be more valuable in a year or so after Apple drops their product. If enough actors has similar form factor, I'd expect designers to caught up with it.

I have one and love it. In the early foldable days (7 or so years ago), manufacturers tried that form factor and eventually abandoned it because of other compromises.

Even MS tried with the surface duo but the device sucked in other ways. Now is a good time to revisit with advances in battery, thinness and heat management. I'd bet that's why Apple is finally doing it too to remain relevant in the massive Asian markets. Nailing the software makes it a fantastic device

Isn't the passport-sized Samsung Z Fold simply a rerun of the original Pixel Fold format?

And, as I understand it, it tends to give more usable screen space for viewing videos but is actually more difficult to use one-handed than the newer tall/narrow candybar format.

The normal Android one hand mode doesn't really help at all on the squatter passport format as it works by moving the content down, not across.

Samsung's 1 hand mode doesn't just shift the UI down, it downscales it to the left or right (swappable with a tap) so, for example, on my S24Ulta my one thumb can reach the entire screen height and width.

There were suggestions that they went this way as the intel suggested Apple might release one soon with a similar form factor.

The goal is that your phone will be your wallet. In EU we will have soon the EUDI Wallet, so why don't just replace your own classic wallet with phone totally?

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