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spartanatreyuyesterday at 11:58 PM3 repliesview on HN

> I think the Duo looks great.

I could not disagree more.

There are 3 ways to fold a phone:

1) The trifold: A phone that folds out into a tablet. (e.g. https://consumer.huawei.com/my/phones/mate-xt-ultimate-desig...)

2) The clam shell: a phone that folds down into a more compact form. (e.g. https://www.jbhifi.com.au/products/samsung-galaxy-z-flip8-5g...)

3) The book: an awkwardly squashed phone that folds out into two awkwardly squashed phones taped together. (e.g. https://news.microsoft.com/surfaceduo/)

The trifold fits in your pocket.

The clamshell fits in small pockets (making it popular for women).

The book in a pocket is just uncomfortable (assuming it fits in at all).

They looked at all the folding phone formats and went with the worst possible one: the one that you can't fit in your pocket comfortably.

Further more, they looked at the worst book fold and decided to associate themselves with it by stealing its name, The S̶u̶r̶f̶a̶c̶e̶ Apple Duo: https://news.microsoft.com/surfaceduo/

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Apple releasing this is exactly what it looks like when there's no one helming the wheel.


Replies

whywhywhywhytoday at 10:06 AM

Anecdotal obviously but clamshell is the only one I've known people using, but it's several who switched from iPhone to Android for that form factor and yeah it's all women which is what really surprised me they didn't go that route as I thought that was the foldable that was most successful, not the Surface Duo phone to phablet size.

sevenseacattoday at 4:28 AM

You ladies have pockets?

ngcazztoday at 4:06 AM

fwiw, Apple had a PowerBook Duo line in the mid 90s, so maybe that's the reference

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