Foldables are going mainstream in 2026. Here’s why I’m still not buying one

More than any previous year, 2026 is likely to be the biggest yet for foldable phones. Samsung is set to release the Galaxy Z TriFold, Motorola is launching its first book-style foldable with the Razr Fold, and — most importantly — Apple is expected to finally debut its long-awaited iPhone Fold.

This is the big moment the foldable industry has been waiting for, and if you haven’t bought a foldable yet, there’s a good chance 2026 will be the year that finally happens. At least for some people.

I’ve dabbled with and tested various foldables throughout my career, and as interesting as I think the niche is, I still haven’t bought into it — and I don’t foresee that changing anytime soon. Here’s why.

The main appeal of a foldable is, naturally, its folding form factor — whether that’s making a flip phone more pocketable or getting the extra screen real estate of a book-style foldable. Manufacturers have made tremendous progress in delivering those designs while minimizing compromises to the rest of the phone, but compromises do still exist.

The Google Pixel 10 Pro Fold is a great example of this. One of the main appeals of a Pixel is the camera, yet to accomodate its folding design, the Pixel 10 Pro Fold has a severely compromised camera setup compared to the non-folding Pixel 10 Pro. Samsung isn’t immune to these trade-offs either. For as much as the Galaxy Z Fold 7 gets right, its battery life and charge speeds are severely behind its non-folding competition.

Foldables require sacrificing other vital specifications to achieve the form factor, and until we reach a point where that’s no longer the case, those trade-offs simply aren’t worth it to me.

It’s not just specs that take a hit with foldables — durability does, too. And while this has become less of an issue since the days of the original Galaxy Fold, it hasn’t completely dissipated.

Despite improvements in hinge design and technology, a foldable hinge will always be in danger of mechanical failure. Foldable screens will always be much more susceptible to cracks and scratches. Day-to-day use is far more taxing on a foldable than a non-folding phone, and that’s to say nothing about when foldables sustain more serious damage. Just a few months ago, the Pixel 10 Pro Fold failed a durability test so badly that its battery blew up.

Even if you treat your phone with kid gloves, using a foldable day in and day out carries a risk I’m not willing to make, especially if I’m spending $2,000 on said foldable.

For book-style folding phones, foldable enthusiasts will say it’s well worth dealing with worse cameras or shorter battery life for the enhanced productivity that comes with an 8-inch inner display. What’s better than running two apps at once or letting a website or spreadsheet stretch across a much larger canvas?

While those perks are nice, I’ve never quite found them to be anything more than minor conveniences that don’t outweigh the spec and durability compromises mentioned above. There are a small handful of apps I actually want to run side-by-side on a big-screen foldable, and even then, it’s not like it’s dramatically more convenient than using Android’s 90:10 split-screen mode on a slab phone. It’s cool having two columns for apps like Gmail and Google Messages to see more of them at once, but it doesn’t really make those apps any more useful than on a non-folding phone.

I’m not denying you can do more with a foldable, but at least for how I use my phone, it never translates into anything meaningful.

Flip phone foldables obviously don’t have the benefit of a larger tablet-like display, but being able to have a “normal” Android phone you can fold in half is undeniably cool. Of all the foldables I’ve tested, I’ve gravitated toward the flip phone form factor. Being able to reply to texts, manage notifications, and run apps on a small cover screen in a form factor I can easily use with one hand is the thing of dreams.

At least, until that dream inevitably fades. The first few days of using a phone like the Galaxy Z Flip or Motorola Razr are great, but within a couple of weeks, the novelty of the cover screen and flip phone design quickly wears off.

As much as I like the form factor in theory, so many daily tasks either require or are infinitely better on a full-sized smartphone display. As such, when I use a foldable flip phone, I gradually start ignoring the cover screen and just use it like any other slab phone — except one that’s inherently more fragile and has worse specs than an actual slab phone. And that point, why bother using a flip phone at all?

Last but certainly not least, there’s the price issue. When it comes down to it, foldables are still too expensive.

As much as I like the idea of the Motorola Razr Ultra, there’s no way I can justify spending $1,300 on it. I’m a diehard Pixel fan, but $1,800 for the Pixel 10 Pro Fold is far beyond what I’m comfortable spending on a phone. And that’s to say nothing of the $2,000 Galaxy Z Fold 7.

While we’ve seen some outliers, such as the $700 Razr (2025), flagship foldables still remain far out of reach for so many people, myself included. That needs to change, but the last few years offer no indication that it will — and especially not anytime soon, thanks to ongoing RAM shortages.

Do sales, trade-in promotions, and carrier deals make expensive foldables more accessible? Sure. But until retail prices come down, and come down dramatically, I’ll be watching foldables from the sidelines.