Foldable smartphones: the best models of 2022 | Articles | Phones

Fold­able smart­phones with flex­i­ble touch dis­plays have long been a real­i­ty. Many man­u­fac­tur­ers began to devel­op this direc­tion, releas­ing gad­gets of var­i­ous designs and sizes. In 2022, top fold­able smart­phones are offered by Sam­sung, Xiao­mi, Huawei and Motoro­la. Con­sid­er mod­els that real­ly deserve atten­tion.

The range of fold­able smart­phones is get­ting wider every year. Source: ixbt.com

Samsung Galaxy Z Fold3

This fold­able Sam­sung smart­phone was cre­at­ed using Dynam­ic AMOLED 2X, a tech­nol­o­gy that sup­ports fre­quen­cies up to 120 Hz. The size of the inter­nal screen is 7.6″, and the diag­o­nal of the exter­nal screen is 6.2″. The dis­play has a float­ing frame rate that adapts to the image on the screen:

• in games — 120 Hz;
• in the menu and set­tings — 90 Hz;
• in TV shows — 60 Hz;
• in films — 30 Hz;
• when read­ing — only 1 Hz.

Auto-chang­ing fre­quen­cy saves bat­tery pow­er. Even with active use of the phone, the bat­tery lasts all day. It charges very quick­ly — in 25 min­utes up to 50%. From 0 to 100% it takes about 1.5 hours.

The smart­phone can be used as a minia­ture lap­top. Source: mobile-review.com

The smart­phone has one orig­i­nal mode of oper­a­tion. If the dis­play is not ful­ly opened, but only 90 °, the upper part of it will act as a screen, and the low­er part will turn into a key­board or con­trol pan­el. When you open the cam­era appli­ca­tion, pro­fes­sion­al set­tings will appear below, when work­ing with text — a key­board, in a video play­er — but­tons and a rewind bar.

The Sam­sung Galaxy Z Fold3 has a dis­creet self­ie cam­era. It was not built into the cutout, as is usu­al­ly the case, but placed under the dis­play. The qual­i­ty of pic­tures tak­en with this cam­era is slight­ly low­er than with tra­di­tion­al non-hid­den lens­es, but the entire dis­play area is used. When play­ing games or watch­ing videos, there is no round black notch that would dis­tract the user.

The Fold is the smart­phone that replaced the Note series in Sam­sung’s flag­ship line­up. Smart­phones sup­port the pro­pri­etary S Pen sty­lus, but you need to buy it sep­a­rate­ly. S Pen sup­port is also imple­ment­ed in the flag­ship Galaxy S22 Ultra.

The Galaxy Z Fold3 is avail­able in basic and Pro ver­sions. The main fea­ture of the lat­ter is sup­port for ges­ture con­trol from a dis­tance of up to 5 meters. This fea­ture allows you to give pre­sen­ta­tions, remote­ly con­trol the cam­era, adjust the vol­ume of music or acti­vate the voice assis­tant.

Advan­tages:

• water­proof hous­ing with IP68 pro­tec­tion;
• large high-qual­i­ty screen;
• float­ing fre­quen­cy up to 120 Hz;
• S Pen sup­port.

Flaws:

• poor qual­i­ty of pic­tures tak­en on a self­ie cam­era;
• big weight (271 g).

Huawei Mate X2

At the begin­ning of 2021, Huawei showed a new fold­able touch phone — Mate X2. Its pre­de­ces­sors were Mate X and Mate XS. This mod­el is not yet sold on the Russ­ian mar­ket, but it can be bought in Chi­na. There are two ver­sions — 256 and 512 GB.

Unlike the two pre­vi­ous mod­els of fold­able smart­phones, Mate X2 began to fold the dis­play inside. Also, the body added strength. When fold­ed, it looks like a thin smart­phone with a 6.45” OLED dis­play. The screen size when unfold­ed is 8”. It is one of the largest gad­gets in its class.

Huawei Mate X2 is one of the largest fold­able phones. gsmarena.com

Huawei Mate X2 is pow­ered by a pow­er­ful Kirin 9000 chip, which is famous for ener­gy effi­cien­cy — it saves bat­tery pow­er, cop­ing with all the tasks assigned to it. Also on board is 8 GB of RAM and a 4500 mAh bat­tery. Imple­ment­ed sup­port for fast charg­ing from a stan­dard 55 W pow­er sup­ply.

The advan­tages of a smart­phone users include a high-qual­i­ty cam­era and good sound. A stereo sys­tem with two speak­ers was installed in the smart­phone. There is also a face unlock and a fin­ger­print scan­ner.

Advan­tages:

• pow­er­ful ener­gy-effi­cient Kirin 9000 chip;
• large 8‑inch screen;
• com­pact dimen­sions when fold­ed;
• good cam­era.

Flaws:

• Google ser­vices are not work­ing.

Samsung Galaxy Z Flip3

The next Sam­sung fold­able phone on our list is the clas­sic flip phone of 2022. The body is made of qual­i­ty mate­ri­als. For exam­ple, the frame and hinge are made from aero­space alu­minum alloy. It is so strong that it is almost impos­si­ble to scratch it.

The dis­play is pro­tect­ed by Corn­ing Goril­la Glass Vic­tus, and the smart­phone also meets IP68 dust and mois­ture pro­tec­tion stan­dards. This means that the phone can be immersed in water up to one and a half meters for 30–60 min­utes.

The smart­phone has a small exter­nal screen with a diag­o­nal of 1.9”, which dis­plays phone num­bers for incom­ing calls, mes­sages and time. You can also use it when cre­at­ing a self­ie on the main cam­era.

When unfold­ed, the Galaxy Z Flip3 can be con­fused with a reg­u­lar smart­phone. Source: gsmarena.com

The diag­o­nal of the main screen when unfold­ed is 6.7”. The gad­get can be bent halfway at 90°, and then the low­er part will turn into a stand with a con­trol pan­el when watch­ing videos or adjust­ing the cam­era. But the key­board, as in the Galaxy Z Fold3, is not here.

Advan­tages:

• com­pact dimen­sions;
• pro­tec­tion against dust and mois­ture IP68;
• qual­i­ty body mate­ri­als.

Flaws:

• no key­board when the screen is fold­ed 90°.

Motorola Razr 5G

In 2020, the com­pa­ny cre­at­ed a sec­ond fold­able phone, the Razr 5G. It fixed the mis­takes of the pre­de­ces­sor. For exam­ple, they imple­ment­ed sup­port for reg­u­lar SIM cards, not just eSIM.

Motoro­la Razr 5G screen size is 6.2”. This is an OLED screen that folds down to a very com­pact size of 91.7 x 72.6 x 16mm. A small addi­tion­al dis­play was placed on the out­side, which allows you to read mes­sages, see the num­bers of incom­ing calls, and con­trol the audio play­er. Not the most pow­er­ful proces­sor to date, Snap­drag­on 765G, was installed in the smart­phone. The amount of RAM is 8 GB, and the built-in mem­o­ry is 256 GB.

Motoro­la Razr 5G is very sim­i­lar in design to the leg­endary Razr V3. Source: ixbt.com

The smart­phone has a 48-megapix­el cam­era. You can also take self­ies on it — in this case, an exter­nal screen is used. There is also a sep­a­rate front mod­ule for 20 megapix­els. The bat­tery capac­i­ty is small — 2800 mAh. This is due to the com­pact body.

The body frame is made of alu­minum, the hinge part is made of stain­less steel, and the screen is pro­tect­ed by Goril­la Glass 5. The smart­phone has NFC sup­port and built-in fin­ger­print scan­ner.

Advan­tages:

• com­pact­ness when fold­ed;
• tak­ing a self­ie with the main cam­era;
• qual­i­ty body mate­ri­als.

Flaws:

• not a flag­ship proces­sor.
• small bat­tery capac­i­ty.

Xiaomi Mi Mix Fold

In the spring of 2021, Xiao­mi intro­duced its first fold­able smart­phone, which many fans of such gad­gets imme­di­ate­ly want­ed to buy. Mi Mix Fold has made a strong com­pe­ti­tion to the flag­ships from Sam­sung. It folds with the screen inside, and the mech­a­nism can with­stand up to 1 mil­lion open­ing and clos­ing cycles. On aver­age, a user opens a smart­phone from 150 times a day. The most active do it up to 300 times. Even in the sec­ond case, 1 mil­lion cycles will last more than 9 years.

The inter­nal screen is an 8.01″ AMOLED matrix, which is com­pa­ra­ble to the com­peti­tor Huawei Mate X2. The smart­phone has worked well mul­ti-win­dow mode. It can use the entire dis­play area while per­form­ing mul­ti­ple tasks at the same time. The dis­play is divid­ed in half, or all open win­dows can be placed in dif­fer­ent places. The exter­nal AMOLED dis­play has a diag­o­nal of 6.52”.

Struc­tural­ly, the Mi Mix Fold is very sim­i­lar to Sam­sung’s Galaxy Z Fold3. Source: tehnobzor.ru

A pow­er­ful Snap­drag­on 888 proces­sor was installed in the smart­phone. The amount of RAM depends on the ver­sion — 12 or 16 GB. The size of the inter­nal stor­age for files is 256 or 512 GB. Xiao­mi Mi Mix Fold is equipped with a pow­er­ful 5020 mAh bat­tery with fast charg­ing up to 67 watts.

The smart­phone has three cam­eras on the back of the case: a 108MP main cam­era, a 13MP wide-angle cam­era and an 8MP depth sen­sor. There is also a 20MP front cam­era. The smart­phone has been sold in the domes­tic Chi­nese mar­ket for a long time, and fans of the series are look­ing for­ward to the new prod­uct — Mi Mix Fold 2. The pre­sen­ta­tion should take place in the sec­ond half of 2022.

Advan­tages:

• large dis­play at 8.01”;
• qual­i­ty cam­eras;
• pow­er­ful proces­sor and a good sup­ply of RAM.

Flaws:

• offi­cial­ly not sold in Rus­sia.

Conclusion

If two or three years ago, fold­able smart­phones seemed like a curios­i­ty to many, now they are active­ly gain­ing pop­u­lar­i­ty and are sold all over the world, includ­ing in Rus­sia. For users look­ing for a com­pact device, the Sam­sung Galaxy Z Flip3 or Motoro­la Razr 5G will do. For those who want to get a full-size fold­ing smart­phone, we can rec­om­mend Xiao­mi Mi Mix Fold, Galaxy Z Fold3 from Sam­sung or Mate X2 from Huawei.