I wanted to love folding phones, but the novelty has aged fast

Let’s face it, cell phones, even the best ones, just aren’t that interesting anymore. They are all much more powerful than we really need, they all have cameras with several cool lenses and they all look essentially the same. I really expected the folding phones to give the industry a much needed adrenaline rush, but well over a year after their arrival, they disappeared like damp fireworks and left me disappointed.

I worked for CNET for a decade and, for most of that time, I specifically covered cell phones. I saw a lot coming and going. I’ve seen the rise and fall of the BlackBerry, I’ve seen strange phone ideas like the Russian Yotaphone with its second e-ink screen and I saw the brief trend of curved phones like the LG G4 and Samsung Galaxy Round. But in recent years, it seems that genuine innovation has been pushed aside, with all companies crying out to do what could easily be reviews of the same product.

Think about these phrases: “A big, vibrant screen”, “A great multi-rear camera setup”, “An attractive metal and glass design.” Can you think of many phones to which these feelings could not be applied? The result is that all phones are very good, but that means they are also boring. Each year’s update adds a few megapixels to the camera or a little more screen size. Or a small adjustment to a design that, fundamentally, remains just a rectangular slab.

I understand. Innovation is expensive and spending millions of dollars researching a new idea means that you need a guarantee that it will sell well. LG discovered this at its cost with phones like the strange modular G5, which didn’t sell well and now the company is supposedly looking for sell your phone business.

Then, when the folding phones arrived, my spirits improved. Here was the innovation. Here was this new technology that really brought me back when I first saw it in person and got me excited again about the possibilities that phones could become. I know I’m not the only one who loved the idea of ​​the phone you wear on your wrist like a watch and unfolds when you need the bigger screen. But where is that?

The folding ones we have are … good. THE Galaxy Z Flip and Moto Razr’s The shell design is elegant as it makes the phone’s large screen more accessible by folding it in half, while the Galaxy Fold 2 and Huawei Mate X they are essentially tablets that fold in half to become phones, which is also a good thing.

But apart from the folding screen, they haven’t really crossed the line. They have not changed the way we use our phones or brought about any revolution that is so innovative that it completely changes the face of the cell phone. They use the same version of Android, with just a few minor tweaks to some apps to provide a little bit of additional functionality, but little else. In fact, they are the same phone as before, but you can fold them in half. I find it very revealing the fact that I have the Galaxy Fold and the Z Flip in my house, but they are in a drawer among other previous phones and I don’t have much desire to take them out again.

And you pay very well for this unique feature, as all foldable phones cost significantly more than regular flagships from their respective manufacturers. This, in turn, means that adoption is low, which gives these companies – or third-party developers – little incentive to think of new and creative ways to use this technology. Over time, foldable phones may very well be launched on the pile of other tricks, alongside banana phones, Samsung camera / phone hybrid and 3D phone displays.

But I hope not. I hope it continues and evolves into something useful and exciting. I sincerely hope that Apple will take up the cause, as it has a tendency to adopt new technologies only when they can put them to genuinely useful use, although perhaps not always (I’m looking for you, 3D Touch)

But above all, I hope that no mobile phone company is not afraid to try to innovate and do something a little different. Phones used to be fun and the phone launch events were genuinely exciting to see what incredible new technology would be revealed this time around.

That emotion is no longer where it used to be. Now it’s a flickering ember in the back of the fireplace, with each generic phone launch threatening to be the bucket of sand that could put it out completely. There is a chance that folding phones may still be the kindling that turns that ember into a noisy hell, but I’m not crossing my fingers.