OCTOBER 2020 PCWorld 23with a couple thousand bucks to spend on
a phone. In my briefing, Samsung touted
the Galaxy Z Fold 2’s versatility as an
entertainment and productivity device, which
is definitely true, but it’s decidedly less
compelling when you’re traveling from the
kitchen to the living room rather than to and
from the office.
Even the Surface Duo (go.pcworld.
com/5duo), which has an equally high price
tag and uphill fight to lure customers, has a
better selling point. Microsoft makes no
attempt to hide the fact that the Duo is a
phone second and a productivity device first.
For better or worse, it’s embraced its flaws—
like the lack of a cover display and gigantic
bezels—to deliver a
device that gives
on-the-go Office
users something
they can’t get on
other Android
phones.
That might be
the biggest
obstacle the Galaxy
Z Fold 2 faces, even
more than the
luxury smartphone
slump: a lack of
identity. It’s as if the
first Galaxy Note
didn’t have an S
Pen or the iPhone
3G didn’t introduce the App Store. High-end
specs are great, but ultimately it needs
something to convince people that a $2,000
folding phone with a 7.6-inch folding screen
is more valuable than a $1,300 one with a
6.9-inch screen that doesn’t fold.
Even if Samsung has adequately fixed the
first-gen problems as it claims, the Fold 2
needs to do more than just not break.
Foldable phones are no longer the novel,
trailblazing devices they were just 18 months
ago, and while the Galaxy Z Fold 2 is
definitely a major improvement on the first
model, it still doesn’t have a unique use-case.
Maybe by the third-gen, Samsung will figure
out what to do with it.Even the Surface Duo has a better selling point.