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The world is inundated with smartphones, and most of them look the same—rectangular slabs of metal or plastic with large panes of glass. I find this dull, and I’m no longer interested in this type of phone. I want more.
I Never Quite Liked the Modern Slab
I was already over the form of modern smartphones back before I ever even got my hands on one. In the early years of the iPhone and the Motorola Droid, there were touchscreen feature phones that attempted to mimic the look. After all, there were many of us who couldn’t yet afford an expensive smartphone along with an even more expensive data plan. I owned one such phone, using only a touch screen to place calls, send texts, and listen to music. It was novel, but that quickly wore off. I went back to phones with buttons.
My first smartphone was the Kyocera Milano, a tiny little device running Android Gingerbread (never to receive an update to the next version of Android, as was very common then and still an issue among some of the cheapest phones). It had a qwerty keyboard, not unlike my very first feature phone, the Samsung Alias. I liked this phone enough that my next phone would be the Kyocera Rise. This was the phone I had when I started my career at Android Police, before eventually making the leap to the now iconic HTC One M7, the first phone I bought as a married and settled adult.
The nature of writing for an Android site meant I was incentivized to own something running stock Android, so I also bought a Nexus 5. At this moment, I owned two of the hottest phones on the market—and the excitement quickly waned. It was at this time, in 2013, that my interest in slab smartphones peaked. I had no desire for neither the HTC One M8 nor the Nexus 6. I didn’t want a Samsung Galaxy S phone either, which I considered cheap-looking and garish at the time (a sharp contrast withhow I feel about modern Samsung phones). I liked the promise these devices had, but they felt limited by their form.
They Lack the Features I Need
I write often now about using my smartphone as my PC. I’m writing these words on a Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6, as I write all of my words these days. When Iwrite with dismay about the Z Fold 7losing support for the S Pen, it’s because I write thousands of words a week using mine. I nowchoose a stylus over a keyboard and mouseas my primary way of interacting with a PC.
Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6
The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 is a foldable smartphone that combines the functionality of a tablet with the convenience of a phone. It features a large, flexible internal screen that automatically picks up where you left off on the cover display.
My book-style foldable phone has all the capabilities I need from a computer. It has powerful software, a large enough screen tohave multiple apps open side-by-side, and can utilize external devices ranging from external monitors to portable SSDs. I use it to read the chat while on a Zoom call, to easily copy passwords into login forms, and to work with spreadsheets.
Modern slab phones can do most of these things, but I find the experience to be miserable. The screen is tall and narrow, impractical for desktop websites and most forms of multitasking. I find narrow screens to be unpleasant to type more than a couple sentences on. The few that offer a stylus, like theMoto G Stylus 2025, feel too cramped for my tastes, like trying to write out a manuscript on a sticky note.
It’s no wonder so many people use phones just for scrolling through endless feeds. That’s one task the form-factor feels well-suited for, but that was never the reason I wanted a smartphone. I was drawn to theidea of a full PC in my pocket, and now that I’ve experienced one, it’s harder than ever to go back.
More Exciting Phones Come Out All the Time
Most people have yet to use a foldable phone, so it can feel a bit jarring to realize Samsung is on the7th generation of this device. For comparison, there was nothing novel nor new about the iPhone by the time we got to the iPhone 7. By that point, Apple’s phone was already ubiquitous. Foldables have not taken the world by storm, but they’re here, and they offer some of the most exciting designs available today. I’m excited to someday try outa Samsung tri-foldin a Best Buy and imagine the shape my next computer might take.
Ilike the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 7, a flip foldable that finally supports both wired and wireless Samsung DeX. I couldpair it with a lapdockand use that as my PC instead, like I used to do with my Moto Edge+ 2023, the phone I’d likely still be using if Motorola’s desktop mode had been as robust as DeX.
Even if I were to go back to having a laptop, it’s tempting to pair it with something like the Blackberry-style Unihertz Titan 2, whose Bluetooth keyboard takes me back to my roots.
Then there’s theMinimal Phone, which not only has a physical keyboard, but an E-Ink screen. It would have been my dream come true back in my years of carrying around a Light Phone 2.
Minimal Phone
The Minimal Phone is a smartphone running a full version of Android on an E-Paper display. The phone also packs a 35-button keyboard, expanding its appeal beyond those looking to reduce phone addiction and reclaim their focus. It also makes for a nice pocket eReader.
The only slab phone calling my name right now is theFairphone 6, whose repairability has always appealed to me. Too bad, as just a basic slab phone, it’s still as limiting as any other slab without a desktop mode. Besides, I’m someone so careful that Icarry my phones around naked, and it’s fine. I love the idea of a phone that can easily be repaired, but I’ve rarely needed to actually repair one.
Occasionally I’m drawn to the ideal of a slab phone, primarily for their thinness. But now, I’d just order the super-thin Z Fold 7 instead. That device also shrinks the gap between foldable cameras and those of traditional flagship phones.
I get that most people don’t quite see the point of a foldable. But me? I just can’t see any compelling reason to purchase a slab phone—not even cost. After all, Ibought my Z Fold 6 for less than the price of an iPhone Pro. And if I needed something less expensive than that, I’d probably opt for something quirky with buttons instead.
