Steve Litchfield

It's an old, old story, of course. Boy meets girl, no wait... the OTHER old, old story. Android device manufacturer has a vision produces a genuinely different, stunning piece of hardware, then  gets swayed by misguided user complaints that "it's not close enough to all the boring stuff that's available elsewhere" and so compromises its vision in a redesigned version 2 that's nowhere near as 'pure' as the original. And, as a result, often gets abandoned or forgotten. I have some examples. I'll go chronologically. You may not have heard of the Planet Computers Gemini - an Android-powered landscape-first QWERTY clamshell phone that was simply stunning - I reviewed it here in Phone Show 340, so do go watch: Yes this was a full smartphone, despite not having an outside display - a system of LEDs told you who was calling. If ever that happened - 99% of my device use these days doesn't involve phone calls! The Gemini was opened for almost everything...

Folding phones have been very exciting to me as a geek, goodness knows I’ve owned or reviewed enough of them, but the physicist in me has always been sceptical. Glass isn’t supposed to bend and fold, and as for the intricate hinges, the less moving parts in a consumer device, the better. My friend Shane Craig’s latest video sheds light on the way manufacturers are not standing fully behind the tech, leaving you and I in the lurch. If the folding glass breaks and there are no signs of external impact (i.e. a drop) then it's always the fault of the tech, its inherent physical design and fragility .  So for manufacturers to turn round and say 'Oh, no, broken screens aren't covered under our warranty' is utterly ridiculous. They were the ones who invested millions into developing products using folding glass and they need to follow through with the usual warranties and support. If only so that the customer won't dismiss the brand when choosing the next device, whether...

Phone selection at the top end of the market is a minefield these days, in 2023. Or perhaps you're spoiled for choice. It depends on whether your glass is half empty or half full - or on the depth of your wallet! And I made a curious decision recently that surprised me - I rejected the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5 and Google Pixel Fold in favour of the two year old Microsoft Surface Duo 2 . I should emphasise that this wasn't a specs-based or wallet-based choice - I had the Pixel Fold in hand at the same time, and only recently had a month with the Galaxy Z Fold 4 (the 5 is only a minor update). So I had experience galore with the concept and form factors. Shane Craig is big into these devices too and I recommend you check out his YouTube channel . The device I hadn't played with, perhaps surprising given the sheer number of 'gift' devices showered on other tech YouTubers, was the OnePlus Open , but although this is a super slice of technology, its insistence of tryin...

In my three weeks of Pixel Fold video review Shorts , I'd been slowly coming to the conclusion that, despite being slightly outgunned in the raw specs department (screen brightness, chipset, charging speeds), Google absolutely nailed the form factor. What's needed is a phone that's manageable in the hand and yet which unfolds to a decent tablet size. Samsung's Z Fold series gets all the basics right but is over-tall and over-slim when folded, while OnePlus' new Open foldable is almost as tall and wider, making it a large phone to start off with. Plus the latter omits a 2023 essential - Qi wireless charging and isn't waterproof... See my concluding Short in particular (a blog embed isn't perhaps the perfect container for a portrait video, but hey...), in which I list all the reasons why the Pixel Fold is the foldable right now: The key phrase in my video is perhaps 'compact'. Although heavy, the Pixel Fold sits just right in a pocket and in the ha...