I was excited to see one in John Lewis, none of the mobile providers near me have any on display, and so I dug in to it straight away,
It’s not high enough and the front screen offers a cut down iPhone experience with the silly right-hand sidebar squeezing things even further.
The main screen when opened is nice to see, but the few web pages I tried and viewing photos also somehow felt off.
I didn’t like it in the hand, I didn’t like looking at it and it dawned on me that it felt like a step back from my 17 Pro Max experience. At no point did it feel like it was doing anything better than the Pro Max and, indeed, most activities felt like they were being crammed into an impractical and off shape.
And two more things sit behind this rather disappointing experience-
The cracks in the screen, the gaps in the hinge and the other issues that seem to be appearing. It feels like a risk to buy it currently and even more so at £2,000.
I cannot see many people using this easily on a daily basis. If you are sat down all of the time and never need to do anything when moving it may fit, but for the rest of the population it’s a bit of a reach. It is simply not practical, as most foldables aren’t, and even less so because of the lesser height.
A foldable that is like a standard smartphone and which can double the screen size works OK, but even then I remain convinced that a slab phone works best for the 70% of the time you would not be using the phone open. You may, however, use the Duo more in an open state because the closed state is so tiny.
This is the first time I find myself questioning Apple’s quality control and, more importantly, its design credentials.
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