There was a time when smartphone makers couldn’t stop talking about thickness.

Every new phone was thinner than the one before it. A fraction of a millimeter disappeared, and another manufacturer would proudly announce that it had shaved off a little more. Thinner was progress. Thinner was engineering. Thinner was apparently something we were all supposed to care about.

We spent years making smartphones thinner and thinner.

And then we decided to fold them.

Suddenly, the same industry that spent more than a decade squeezing every last millimeter out of smartphones started building devices that are effectively two pieces of phone stacked together, separated by a hinge, and then proudly presenting the whole thing as the future.

Congratulations. We made phones thin so we could eventually make them thick again.

And the funniest part is what we’re getting in exchange: a phone that unfolds into a tablet.

We already have tablets.

The smartphone was already doing its job

A smartphone used to be a remarkably straightforward product.

You take it out of your pocket. You look at the screen. You tap something. You put it back.

That’s it.

The screen doesn’t need to unfold. The phone doesn’t need to transform into another device. There isn’t a hinge that needs an annual engineering upgrade. You don’t need to open a case before opening the phone before finally reaching the screen you actually wanted to use.

It is just a phone.

And then the industry apparently decided that wasn’t enough.

The foldable pitch is easy to understand. Put a larger display inside something that can still fit into a pocket. When you need the bigger screen, unfold it.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with the engineering behind that idea. In fact, getting a large flexible display, hinge, battery system and all the associated components to work reliably inside a portable device is an impressive technical achievement.

But engineering something doesn’t automatically mean we needed it.

Because if the thing you ultimately want is a larger screen, there is already a product category specifically designed for that.

It’s called a tablet.

We spent years making phones thinner for this?

The irony becomes difficult to ignore when you look at the history of smartphone design.

Manufacturers spent years reducing thickness. Components became smaller. Internal layouts became more sophisticated. The entire industry seemed obsessed with making phones slimmer.

Then foldables arrived and said, essentially:

“What if we put two phones together?”

The result is a device that can be substantially thicker than the traditional smartphone when folded.

And that’s before we put a case on it.

So let’s appreciate the journey.

We spent years making smartphones thinner.

Then we added another display.

Then we added a hinge.

Then we added the structural components needed to make that hinge work.

Then we put a protective case around the whole thing.

And now we’re discussing folio cases.

We thought folio cases were for tablets.

You know, because tablets are large, flat devices that actually benefit from a cover that folds around them.

Now we’re putting folio cases on folding phones.

The phone folds.

The case folds.

You open the case.

Then you open the phone.

And eventually you get the large display you bought the phone for.

We’re not using a smartphone anymore. We’re opening an origami project.

The tablet is just sitting there

This is where the whole category starts to become wonderfully circular.

Smartphones are becoming tablets.

Laptops are becoming tablets.

Smart refrigerators have tablet-like displays.

And tablets are just sitting there wondering what they did to deserve all of this.

Why does every product category need to become something else?

Laptops are laptops.

Tablets are tablets.

Folio cases are folio cases.

Smartphones are smartphones.

A laptop doesn’t need to fold itself into a tablet just because it technically can. A tablet doesn’t need to become a phone. And a smartphone doesn’t necessarily need to become a tablet just because somebody figured out how to put a hinge in it.

The industry seems increasingly fascinated by the question, “What else can this product become?”

I’m more interested in the question:

“Why can’t this product just be what it is?”

Microsoft was already opening the door

Microsoft deserves a place in this story because it was experimenting with the idea long before today’s generation of flexible-screen phones.

The Surface Duo essentially took two smartphone-sized displays and connected them with a hinge.

In the real world, it could feel less like some revolutionary new computing experience and more like opening and closing a pair of tiny doors.

Two screens.

One hinge.

A bezel in the middle.

Somewhere, someone looked at that and said:

“Yes. This is the future of phones.”

Microsoft had already shown the larger Surface Neo concept before the Surface Duo arrived, pushing the same basic dual-screen idea into a bigger device.

Again, the technology was interesting. The engineering was interesting.

But you could still look at it and ask:

Where the hell are we going with this?

And then the Surface Duo 2 came along, because apparently one round of this wasn’t enough.

The funny thing is that Microsoft wasn’t even technically making a single foldable screen with the original Duo. It was using two displays connected by a hinge.

So in a way, it was the most literal version of the joke:

Take two phones and attach them.

Then we started folding in every possible direction

Huawei eventually went in another direction with the Mate X and its outward-folding design.

The display folded around the outside of the device rather than disappearing inside it.

Why?

Is this a smartphone or a purse?

The basic appeal of folding something is that you can make it smaller and, ideally, protect the thing you’re folding.

An outward-folding display flips that logic around. The screen remains exposed while the device is folded.

So now you’ve got a beautiful flexible display spending its folded life on the outside of the phone, waiting to meet whatever else happens to be sharing your pocket.

Then came the first-generation Galaxy Fold.

It looked like someone had heated a smartphone until the metal became soft, folded it at a random point and said:

“Ship it.”

Closed, it was tall, narrow and chunky. Open, it became a tiny tablet with a substantial amount of bezel surrounding the display.

It looked like the world’s thinnest school duster.

And somehow, that was just the beginning.

Because once you’ve folded a phone once, the next logical question in the gadget industry apparently becomes:

“What if we fold it twice?”

Hello, tri-folds.

At this point, the next flagship shouldn’t have a screen size.

It should have a fold count.

The hinge is the progress

This might be the strangest part of the entire foldable era.

Every year, the phone gets another generation.

And every year, we hear about the hinge.

A thinner hinge.

A stronger hinge.

A redesigned hinge.

A more durable hinge.

A hinge that folds flatter.

A hinge with fewer moving parts.

A hinge that supposedly makes the whole thing better.

The hinge is the progress.

Harry Potter had The Chamber of Secrets.

Foldable phones have the Chamber of Hinges.

Imagine buying a refrigerator and the manufacturer spending half of its launch presentation explaining how much better the door hinge is this year.

“Introducing our revolutionary new refrigerator. The food is basically the same, but look at this hinge.”

We’d laugh.

Yet with foldable phones, the hinge has become one of the stars of the show.

And at least a refrigerator has a legitimate reason to open and close.

Clamshell phones: “Will you marry me?”

Then we have clamshell phones.

These are arguably the most straightforward foldables to understand. The phone folds shut, becoming smaller, and opens again when you want to use it.

But visually, the whole thing starts to feel like a tiny technological marriage proposal.

“Will you marry me?”

No.

I just wanted to make a phone call.

The phone closes.

The phone opens.

The phone closes again.

At least the phone has a committed relationship with its hinge.

It’s another example of something we had already solved. A conventional smartphone didn’t need to perform an opening ceremony every time you wanted to use it.

Take it out.

Use it.

Done.

Now put a folio around it

And then we get to the cases.

This is where the thinness argument becomes almost too perfect.

We made phones thinner.

Then we made folding phones thicker.

Then we put cases on them.

And Apple has taken the whole thing into particularly entertaining territory with folio-style cases for the iPhone Duo.

We thought folio cases were made for tablets.

Apparently not.

Now the phone itself folds, and the case folds too.

So the product experience becomes something like:

Open the folio.

Open the phone.

Find the right position.

Enjoy the giant screen.

And if Logitech decides to join the party with a foldable keyboard, please, by all means, finish the transformation.

Logitech, if you’re making folio cases, we’re hoping you’ve got a foldable keyboard somewhere too.

Because if the iPhone Duo is essentially trying to give us an iPad mini experience in a smartphone-sized package, we might as well complete the ritual.

Add the keyboard.

Prop it up.

Type on it.

Congratulations.

We reinvented the tablet.

And yes, you still have to touch the thing

There’s another wonderfully mundane part of the foldable experience that becomes funny once you think about it.

You have to physically open the phone.

Imagine someone with perfectly normal hands that get sweaty occasionally. Maybe it’s a hot day. Maybe they’ve just exercised. Maybe they’re nervous before an important meeting.

They pick up their foldable and want to use that beautiful inner display.

First, they have to grip the device and unfold it.

Now imagine someone with hyperhidrosis, a condition that can cause excessive sweating, including in the hands. For that person, excessive sweating isn’t simply an occasional sweaty-palm moment.

The foldable still expects them to grip the device and open it.

So before they can enjoy the big inner screen, they’re handling the outer surfaces again.

The phone’s biggest feature requires you to physically handle the phone before you can use it.

And fingerprints are apparently included for free.

The point here isn’t the condition.

The point is the interaction.

The same-app problem

Then there is the software side of the “look how much screen I have” argument.

A foldable can give you plenty of display area. You can split the screen, run multiple windows and take advantage of multitasking features.

But here’s a funny request:

Can I run the same app twice, side by side?

Sometimes, yes, depending on the operating system, app and device. Sometimes, not in the way you’d expect.

And if you want two separate instances of an app, you may need an app-cloning feature.

Xiaomi, for example, has built-in Dual apps functionality that can create a second instance of supported apps.

Which creates an amusing conversation:

“Look at my giant foldable screen!”

“Great. Can I run the same app on both sides?”

“Well…”

“Do I need to clone it?”

“Yes.”

“Does the phone have that?”

“Depends.”

Xiaomi: “I’ve got a setting for that.”

The hardware can be incredibly flexible.

The software still has to catch up.

And that matters because a bigger display isn’t automatically a better experience. The software needs to know what to do with the extra space.

Otherwise you’ve spent all that money engineering a larger screen just to discover that the app still thinks you’re holding a phone.

Big Tech has its own magic spells

There is another thing Big Tech loves almost as much as hinges: giving ordinary concepts spectacular names.

Foldable.

Flexible.

Dual-screen.

Adaptive.

Multi-form-factor.

Next-generation computing platform.

Suddenly, you’re not holding a phone that folds.

You’re holding a revolutionary adaptive computing experience.

Harry Potter had Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.

Big Tech has the Marketing Stone.

Give something a sufficiently impressive name and suddenly the ordinary question—“Do I actually need this?”—feels almost impolite.

The technology can be genuinely impressive while the marketing language surrounding it remains hilarious.

And that brings us to another annual tradition.

The camera’s long journey toward invisibility

Smartphone displays have spent years trying to get rid of the camera.

First came large bezels.

Then smaller bezels.

Then notches.

Then smaller notches.

Then waterdrop notches.

Then punch-hole cameras.

And then the punch-hole started traveling around the top of the screen like it had somewhere important to be.

Left.

Right.

Center.

A little too far left.

A little too far right.

Anywhere except invisible.

The industry spent years shrinking that little hole and moving it around.

Samsung has enormous display expertise, with Samsung Display supplying panels across the smartphone industry, including displays used by Apple. Samsung’s display business also produces panels for many other types of products.

So the whole progression makes for an interesting question.

If the industry can manufacture such sophisticated displays, why did the camera cutout become such a permanent roommate?

Of course, putting a camera under a display isn’t as simple as placing a sheet of glass over it. There are genuine technical problems involving light transmission, image quality and display performance.

But after years of bezels, notches, waterdrops and holes, Apple eventually engineered an under-display camera for the iPhone Duo.

Harry Potter had The Prisoner of Azkaban.

We have the Prisoner Under the Display.

The camera has finally been imprisoned.

And now you can’t see its cell.

Lenovo isn’t leaving laptops alone either

The foldable obsession didn’t stay confined to smartphones.

Lenovo has experimented with foldable laptops, transparent-display concepts and rollable laptop screens.

A laptop used to be wonderfully straightforward.

Open the lid.

Look at the display.

Type on the keyboard.

Close the lid.

Done.

Apparently, that was too easy.

Now the laptop can fold.

Or roll.

Or become transparent.

And we’re expected to look at this and say, “The future.”

At this point, I wouldn’t be surprised if a laptop announcement eventually said:

“The display is technically somewhere in the device.”

Laptops are laptops.

Let them be laptops.

Even the refrigerator has joined the tablet club

And all of this starts to feel like the same basic design philosophy taken to its logical extreme.

Two doors.

A large opening.

Something in the middle.

It starts looking like a French-door refrigerator.

And honestly, the refrigerator has a better excuse.

It actually needs a huge opening so you can get to what’s inside.

Some smart refrigerators have also adopted tablet-like displays that can show what’s inside, keep track of groceries and even suggest what you can make from them.

So while smartphone makers are trying to turn phones into tablets, refrigerators are quietly turning themselves into tablets too.

Everyone wants to be a tablet.

The actual tablet is sitting there like:

“What did I do to deserve this?”

There are still five Harry Potter jokes left

The foldable industry has already given us enough material for a small wizarding franchise.

The Philosopher’s Stone gives us Big Tech’s magical product terminology.

The Chamber of Secrets gives us the annual hinge obsession.

The Prisoner of Azkaban gives us the camera finally disappearing under the display.

But we’re deliberately leaving five titles alone:

The Goblet of Fire.

The Order of the Phoenix.

The Half-Blood Prince.

The Deathly Hallows – Part 1.

The Deathly Hallows – Part 2.

Those jokes are waiting.

Somewhere out there, the foldable industry is probably already working on them.

And then there’s the wildcard: Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.

That one is reserved for whatever foldable eventually makes everything we’ve seen so far look sensible.

Maybe the smartphone doesn’t need to become anything else

This isn’t an argument that foldables have no legitimate use.

For some people, the ability to carry a larger display in a smaller footprint can be genuinely useful. A clamshell can make a large phone more compact. A book-style foldable can provide more room for multitasking. The engineering required to make these devices work is impressive.

The problem is that technological possibility and technological necessity aren’t the same thing.

We can build a folding smartphone.

We can build a tri-fold smartphone.

We can build a phone with two screens.

We can build laptops that fold, screens that roll and displays that become transparent.

We can put a folio case around a folding phone and eventually attach a folding keyboard to it.

We can spend another year talking about how much better the hinge is.

We can spend another year moving a camera cutout around the screen.

We can give all of it a futuristic name.

But somewhere underneath all that engineering is a very simple product that we already figured out.

A smartphone.

For years, we made smartphones thinner and thinner. We treated every millimeter we removed as progress. We made them easier to carry, easier to slip into a pocket and, generally, more straightforward to use.

Then we decided the smartphone should become a tablet.

So we made it thicker.

We added a hinge.

We added another screen.

We added a case.

Then a folio case.

Then maybe a keyboard.

Then another fold.

And suddenly we’re carrying around a tiny transformer and congratulating ourselves because it can become something we could have simply bought separately.

That’s the part I can’t get over.

We spent years making phones thinner just to make them thick again.

Maybe the most radical smartphone design of all isn’t a tri-fold, a rollable display or a revolutionary hinge.

Maybe it’s just a phone.

One screen.

One body.

No hinge.

No folding ceremony.

Take it out of your pocket.

Use it.

Put it back.

Smartphones are supposed to be smartphones.

And honestly, that’s thin enough for me.