Samsung launches Galaxy Z Fold3 and Z Flip3 foldables

[KultiVator]

xCloud works really well on the fold - I use it with a FlyDigi Wee 2T (£30 ish on banggood et al) and it fits in the controller perfectly in full screen mode. Plays well, and despite the borders you do get a boost to screen real estate.

I'm quite the fan of xCloud - works great for a quick fix of gaming wherever you can park yourself in a comfy chair ;-)

The relative jump in screen sizes is hard to quantify without imagery, so here's something I've sketched out to scale...

http://www.teksploder.com/kultivator/xCloud.png

The aspect ratio of each screen has a massive bearing on how content is constrained - the jump in size from a regular sized smartphone (e.g. the S10) to the Fold 3 is quite modest for the extra outlay. For the same kind of money you're into Surface Pro / iPad Pro territory and both offer a massive jump in view size for xCloud - but are, of course, far less pocketable.

(iPad Pro 12.9 offers approximately the same overall scale as the Surface Pro - just with slightly taller black bars padding the gameplay area)

[DOA_Draven]

That's an awful lot of money I could use on more important things in life. I'm happy with my budget phone of £100, it make phone calls, which is all I really need while out and about.

[Ttaskmaster]

That's an awful lot of money I could use on more important things in life. I'm happy with my budget phone of £100, it make phone calls, which is all I really need while out and about.

Yeah, but so long as enough people buy this then the features and tech will eventually filter down to us peasants... just not so many that companies think charging car money for a phone is normalised.

[Zhaoman]

Can't lie it's definitely very cool and desirable but, having thought about it, nearly 2 grand is approaching silly money for what it is. It just seems to me even though it's the third gen, the technology still just doesn't seem quite mature enough yet given the limitations that are still there i.e. the crease down the middle of the screen, the short battery life, the thickness and the exorbitant price. When using it folded (which is probably most of the time for me come to think of it) it's essentially a gimped phone with double the thickness. The Fold 2 was a big improvement on the Fold 1 and I was hoping the Fold 3 would bring another big leap but it doesn't seem to have materially improved that much from the Fold 2 in terms of size, screen and overall usability.

Perhaps with breakthroughs in battery and screen tech we will start to see all day battery life, a much sleeker profile and more durability etc along with a lower price that would truly bring a folding phone/tablet into the mainstream. To me it still feels like an expensive niche product for enthusiasts that comes with a lot of drawbacks.