There’s a WORLD of difference between showing how a phone SHOULD work out in the field and actively trying to break that phone. If you try to break a phone, you will eventually succeed.

Torture tests are dramatic and fun to watch, but they don’t deliver much practical information to consumers. We should try to help inform consumers on what the expected “range of durability” might be for a product, not just show a dramatic failure clip.

Nowhere is this more precious right now than on folding phones.

Looking at the view counts on the videos and articles from top reviewers, we can be pretty sure those discussions are only reaching a tiny fraction of the overall smartphone buying population. Consumers are not turning to techies like they used to for education on current tech trends.

It seems more people are “taught” what to think about consumer electronics by the ads they consume from the marketing departments of the manufacturers making these products.

As companies work to make hinged phones more exciting, we should be concerned about how those phones are portrayed in advertisements. We need a “sweet spot” of lifestyle footage to help prime the correct expectations for customers. Showcasing the products in appropriate situations helps inform how those products should be used.

Manufacturer ads are a necessary resource for consumer education.

Almost every folding phone manufacturer is “doing this wrong”.

Foldables are still a relatively new product category, so companies need to ride a fine line. They can’t misrepresent the durability of their products, but delivering too little information leaves a vacuum of expectations. With bendy plastic screens and hinges, too little information might be almost as bad as outright misrepresentation.

We take lifestyle abuse for granted on glass-faced slate phones, but those have been around for over a decade now. Commercials for folding phones should also be product showcases that demonstrate the manufacturer’s expectations for durability. This doesn’t need to be overt. Just show the phone being used in situations where the company would be confident the folding action would survive. It’s easy for me to type this, but digging through some of the current ads for folding phones, it’s fairly uncommon.

Samsung

Samsung is the company with the most experience producing folding phones, and their marketing is the most mature. I really appreciate the current slate of videos showcasing the Z Fold. Most of these ads are built around a single feature, but the action of opening the tablet is deliberate. There’s a purpose to each example of opening the tablet. The tablet is rarely shown “on the go” while open, and that sets a specific expectation.

 

“Use the outer screen on the go, and when you can sit and focus on the larger screen, THEN open the larger display. This is the safe way to use our product.”

I feel this is a reasonable way to showcase the expected use of the Z Fold.

Z Flip commercials are similarly feature focused, though they sometimes take a more stark approach to the look of the video production. It’s almost a 50/50 split between “models using the phone in a featureless void” type commercials and the cute horror themed “join the flipside” ads. Still, the focus on the Z Flip 5 feels similarly “practical”, where the new cover display is the highlight, and then the phone is opened for specific tasks.

 

There’s only ONE demonstration I take issue with, which is a model “clipping” the inner display to the pocket of a pair of jeans. You should probably never put that kind of “clipped” pressure on the hinge or the plastic screen.

Otherwise, I think Samsung is the example other companies should be following.

Moto

Like Samsung, Moto has a few generations of RAZR under their belt, and the images on the Moto home-site seem a bit more informed on how the RAZR should be used. There are simple lifestyle demonstrations of individual features, and each of these sample images show the phone in real places.

 

Beyond showing the phone propped up, I also appreciate the phone being shown in a “tent” mode, which is a practical way to reduce the potential of scratching pieces of the phone.

Unfortunately, companies like Moto don’t put nearly as much money into videos or TV commercials. Moto’s video ads fall into the same trap as many of the other companies on this list. Showing the phone floating through a nebulous space, animated to move the hinge, free of even human hands holding the phone.

 

What does this tell the potential consumer?

Beyond “it folds in half”, almost no additional information is delivered. Not even a cursory example of how to hold and open the phone.

We COULD be demonstrating this folding action in real life locations that would subtly inform the user where it might be safe to use a RAZR. Instead we just have computer animation.

Xiaomi

Xiaomi might be the current worst offender of this “nebulous space” video practice. Some videos almost seem designed to confuse the viewer’s eye on the actual dimensions of the product, and videos of an empty dark void further blur how a foldable might function.

 

I find this little different than toy commercials from when I was a kid, and action figures were almost stop-motion animated to seem cooler than they really were. We wrote laws about misrepresenting toys to kids in commercials. I feel “anti-gravity” folding phone commercials violate the spirit of those regulations.

Beyond FTC guidelines though, the Xiaomi Mi Fold is such a cool piece of tech, and there are so many things you can DO with it, it seems like a wasted opportunity to showcase it in this stark a fashion.

Google

Google’s videos regularly fall into the same bland trap as Moto and Xiaomi videos.

 

Animated CG phones floating in space, bending on their own, but we occasionally see a human hand at least holding a Pixel Fold. These videos are fairly dull when we consider the years Samsung has already been working to show a “folding tablet that turns into a phone”. We don’t really need to introduce that concept. It’s too simple. We should be working harder to show what the tablet can do beyond opening and closing.

 

Most of the sample images on the Google store site are similarly stark, but there are two or three images of the fold being held and used in a location shot. It’s such a small consideration, but that helps elevate part of the conversation on the expected use of the Pixel Fold. It’s not much, but “it’s safe to open while sitting at a restaurant” is better than nothing.

Honor

Lastly, Honor is making some incredible headway in foldable design. Building one of the sleekest mini-tablets yet, we should commend the engineering involved.

Again, it’s a shame that most of the Honor V2 site is stark floating phones in nebulous space, but currently Honor showcases one use for the Honor camera that I feel is borderline misrepresenting the phone.

 

A surfer runs by on the beach, and the camera is propped up to take a shot where the shutter is triggered by the action of someone running by. The camera tech seems fine, but is Honor actually recommending someone take a phone, with a plastic screen, and a hinge, out to a beach, which is covered in sand and saltwater? That seems like one of the least hospitable places we might take a foldable.

Some folks might say I’m overreacting to a “fun” demonstration of a specific camera feature, but as we’ve seen, there is PRECIOUS little applicable lifestyle demonstration for any of these products.

I completely believe that, free of other educational opportunities, someone might take that example as an endorsement of the activity.

“Honor showed the phone being used at the beach, so it’s probably fine if I take my expensive fragile folding tablet down to the beach.”

How else do we reach consumers?

I was recently on a call with some Google product and PR reps. They were really gracious about showing features and answering questions. When I asked about the expected use of the product, they seemed a little surprised that I would ask about the durability.

As a reviewer and online commentator, I feel the conversation I would host, should lean into the company’s claims about use and durability. However, foldable manufacturers make VERY few claims about using these products out in “real life”.

I made a passing comment like:

“Well, you wouldn’t want me showing this off down at the beach and in the sand…”

To which there was general agreement.

“So what are the kinds of situations or places I should be showing the screen open?”

There really wasn’t an answer to that question. I worry the folks at Google were taking my question as an open criticism of the product, but that’s where we are still. There is VERY little guidance from any brand on how these devices should be shown in operation.

Even though I’ve spent quite a bit of time with several models of Z Fold and Surface Duo, each new folding tablet feels like a new exercise in “ramping up” to daily driver use. I have to test in tiny incremental baby steps before I feel comfortable really leaning on a foldable like I might a traditional slate phone.

My Pixel Fold now has an outer display glass screen protector, and some clip on bumpers (thanks to the recommendation from Michael Pepper Tech), but I’m still getting more comfortable USING the phone in the rocky and dusty suburbs around my neighborhood. I’m definitely not ready to take it on one of my longer bike rides or one of the more technical hikes around this area.

There’s this GULF of space between “only use the outer display outside, and never open it unless it’s totally safe” and “try to break the phone the first day I get it”. Somewhere in-between those extreme bookends is the likely consumer experience, but it doesn’t seem like the manufacturers know yet what that really looks like…

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A part of this coverage was made possible thanks to the folks at #TeamPixel and a #GiftFromGoogle. No influence or editorial oversight from Google or affiliated PR was offered in producing this editorial.