It's a book, it's a tablet... It's a phone!

Foldable phones are all the rage, and there's more coming

- FE FEATURES

BACK IN 1996, Motorola brought around a revolution in the world of phones and started a storm — to be more precise, it created what is notably known as the first flip phone, the StarTAC series of 'clamshell-style wearable' phones.

The rage died down a few years later but was followed up with something equally interesting. In 2008, Nokia started toying around with foldable phones — bringing out the Nokia 6600 Fold, which again was known to be a clamshell-style device.

Exactly a decade later, in 2018, the world got its first commercially available foldable smartphone — the Royole FlexPai, with a 7.8-inch screen that folded outwards. It was soon followed by Samsung's Galaxy Fold, Huawei's Mate X, and Motorola's Razr Plus hitting the market shelves.

New launches

Now, more updates and models are expected in the next few months. Samsung is expected to be launching its next-generation foldable phone — Galaxy Z Fold7 Ultra — at the next Galaxy Unpacked event in July this year. The company, in a statement, noted that the new model will be more user-friendly as it will be "slimmer, thinner, (with a) lighter design," and will be its "most advanced foldable."