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Most people view foldables as a way to be more productive when they don’t have a laptop or tablet around. I bought mine to replace my laptop entirely. As weird as it sounds, I find it difficult to go back to using a conventional PC.
I Now Only Carry One Device
As someone who works remotely around my family members' different schedules, I need to be flexible. Sometimes, the best time for me to work is at a grandparent’s kitchen table while the kids are playing. Sometimes, it’s at the library. Sometimes, it’s in the car.
I used to carry around a messenger bag with me all the time. I kept my laptop, a charger, a hotspot, and a mouse in it. If I opted to use a tablet instead of a laptop, I would also bring along a Bluetooth keyboard. Sometimes, I also had a hefty DSLR.
Now that I’ve grown accustomed to working from a foldable, I can leave the bag at home. I keep mySamsung Galaxy Z Fold 5 (which we reviewed)in my pocket, along with an S Pen, whenever I leave the house. My phone has all the features, power, and capabilities I need to do my job.
Where and How I Work Has Changed
I was already accustomed to working from all kinds of places with my laptop. I spent years writing from a public library while my son was in pre-school. I’ve written from my car while it charged at a free level 2 public charging station. I’ve worked from the picnic tables of nearby parks.
Now, the list of places has grown exponentially. A foldable allows me to write while pacing around. I also regularlytalk to my phone via speech-to-textto give my fingers a break. This means I can work while pacing around the back porch, the driveway, or whichever room is quiet. I’ve written while sitting on a bench in the woods and glancing at the nearby creek. I jot a few notes down while waiting in the pick-up line for my kids after school.
I’ve also become a big fan of usingapps compatible with my S Pen. There’s a qualitatively different feeling to handwriting ideas rather than typing them up, which iswhy I make daily use of Samsung Notes.
Going back to a laptop means greatly limiting the places where I can work, and while I technically can stilluse speech-to-text on a laptop, I largely default back to hunching over the keyboard in front of me.
Accessories Are Everything
While I can type much more comfortably and quickly on my phone’s big inner display compared to a conventional phone, that’s not how I use the device for work or play most of the time. I’ve purchased a slew of accessories.
When I want a desktop, I connect my phone to a monitor. When I want a laptop, I connect my phone toa lapdock.
Pairing a Bluetooth controller andwearing AR glasses has become my favorite way to play games. I have portable monitors in different rooms of my house since some models are cheap and take up very little space. My wife and I prop one up in bed to watch movies together.
The nice thing is that none of these accessories have the artificial end-of-life that comes from no longer getting software updates; they’re just hardware.
My Phone Is Faster Than My Old Laptop
Book-stye folding phones are some of the most expensive premium phones you can buy. Mine has a Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor. When my phone came out in 2023, that was the most powerful mobile chip available for Android phones.
This processor, paired with 12GB of RAM, absolutely flies. Everything I’ve thrown at this phone has loaded quickly. With up to a 120Hz refresh rate, everything feels smooth. As any YouTube review will show you, this phone can handle intensive games like Genshin Impact just fine.
I can’t say any of this about the laptop it replaced. Don’t get me wrong; my laptop was never a powerhouse, but many of us are not rocking gaming PCs or professional ultrabooks. $400 Windows PCs or Chromebooks feel substantially slower than a modern high-end phone.
Is a foldable phone more powerful than a high-end PC? Hardly. But thanks to how well mobile devices manage memory, the experience of using one can provide a degree of speed that most PCs don’t quite match.
Samsung’s Foldable Is The Only One That Does It All
I chose a Galaxy Z Fold over the competition because, for the time being, it’s the most capable device. Sure, other options may have better cameras, more RAM, or faster charging speeds, but they lack lesser-known features that are what have enabled me to go all in on one device.
I’ve already mentioned the S Pen, which I love. It has become a vital part of my workflow. A stylus can provide mouse-like precision and allow you to hover over links, navigate dropdown menus, and perform other tasks that are awkward to do with fingers.
More importantly, the Z Fold hasan Android-based desktop mode called Samsung DeX. This comes up whenever I connect my phone to any type of external display.
When a task requires more space than what my phone’s inner screen can provide, I don’t need to switch devices—I can just connect my phone to an external display. It also means when I want to watch a movie at my parent’s house, I simply cast DeX to their Miracast-capable TV and stream the video from my own account.
The OnePlus Open and the Pixel 9 Pro Fold only support screen mirroring when connecting to an external display, which means your phone has to stay open, and black bars usually mar the experience. The first-generation Pixel Fold doesn’t support connecting to an external display at all.
Samsung’s multitasking is also more complete than its competitors, and it has better app compatibility across the board. The OnePlus Open has an innovative Open Canvas mode that I really like, but not every app works with it, and even fewer apps support being in a floating window.
Spending a few months with a foldable has changed how I work, play games, watch videos, and more. Overall, it has reduced how much I carry with me at any given time and has transformed the accessories I have throughout the house. Whenever I pull out my laptop nowadays, it feels like I’m going back in time because of the flexibility I have to give up.
