Foldables are sort of boring now — and that’s great news for Apple
Foldables are sort of boring now — and that’s great news for Apple
折叠屏手机现在变得有些无聊了——这对苹果来说是个好消息
Folding screens are no longer novel, but they’re finally good enough for an iPhone. 折叠屏不再是什么新鲜事，但它们终于达到了 iPhone 所需的水平。
How it started
起源
Believe it or not, it didn’t all start with Samsung. Royole, a now-bankrupt manufacturer of flexible displays, was the first to release a commercial folding phone, the “charmingly awful” FlexPai. Samsung’s first Galaxy Fold followed a year later, plagued by a variety of faults that saw review units break within days. That launch went so badly that it prompted Chinese rival Huawei to delay the launch of its own Mate X foldable by five months; its unusual design with the foldable screen wrapped around the outside of the phone proved unpopular regardless. Motorola was next to join with its first Razr foldable, closely followed by Samsung’s similar Z Flip; we scored each 4/10 and 6/10 respectively. 信不信由你，这一切并非始于三星。柔宇（Royole）——一家现已破产的柔性显示屏制造商——是第一家发布商用折叠屏手机的公司，其产品是“迷人且糟糕”的 FlexPai。一年后，三星推出了首款 Galaxy Fold，但该产品因各种故障而饱受诟病，评测机在几天内就出现了损坏。那次发布非常糟糕，以至于促使中国竞争对手华为将其 Mate X 折叠屏手机的发布推迟了五个月；而其将折叠屏包裹在机身外侧的独特设计，最终也被证明并不受欢迎。摩托罗拉紧随其后推出了首款 Razr 折叠屏手机，随后是三星类似的 Z Flip；我们对这两款产品的评分分别为 4 分和 6 分（满分 10 分）。
To say it was a rough first two years for foldable phones would be an understatement, but things did get better. Samsung’s subsequent generations of foldables didn’t break half as easily as the first wave, and it learned the valuable lesson that integral parts of the display stack shouldn’t be as easy to remove as a screen protector. 说折叠屏手机最初的两年过得很艰难都算是轻描淡写，但情况确实有所好转。三星后续几代折叠屏手机的耐用性远超第一代，而且他们吸取了一个宝贵的教训：显示屏堆叠中的核心部件不应该像屏幕保护膜那样容易被撕掉。
More manufacturers joined the market, with foldables launched by Google, OnePlus, Oppo, Vivo, Xiaomi, Honor, and more. Prices slowly came down too — while flagship book-style foldables have hovered more or less around the $2,000 mark for seven years straight, cheaper models have appeared too. Motorola’s entry-level Razr is now $799, and last year Samsung introduced a cheaper FE variant of its Z Flip 7, for $899. 更多的制造商加入了这一市场，谷歌、一加、OPPO、vivo、小米、荣耀等纷纷推出了折叠屏手机。价格也慢慢降了下来——虽然旗舰级书本式折叠屏手机七年来一直徘徊在 2000 美元左右，但更便宜的机型也出现了。摩托罗拉的入门级 Razr 现在售价为 799 美元，去年三星还推出了售价 899 美元的更便宜的 Z Flip 7 FE 版本。
The hardware evolved over that period too. Foldables got thinner, lighter, and more durable; the creases got flatter and less visible, while some displays began to include stylus support too; the cameras started to catch up to standard slab phones. Perhaps most importantly, the form factors began to shift too. 在此期间，硬件也在不断进化。折叠屏手机变得更薄、更轻、更耐用；折痕变得更平坦、更不明显，一些显示屏也开始支持手写笔；摄像头也开始赶上普通的直板手机。或许最重要的是，外形设计也开始发生转变。
How it’s going
现状
Until recently, foldable phones settled into two broad categories: compact flip phones, by now with square cover screens that extend across the outside of the phone’s front; and larger book-style foldables that are thin when shut and almost square when open. 直到最近，折叠屏手机主要分为两大类：紧凑型翻盖手机（现在配备了覆盖手机正面的方形外屏）和较大的书本式折叠屏手机（闭合时轻薄，展开时近乎正方形）。
This has slowly begun to change. Huawei was the first to push new designs, starting with its Mate XT trifold, then followed by a wider Pura X flip phone, and this year the Pura X Max, wider still. Samsung launched its own Galaxy Z TriFold late last year, and last month shifted its Galaxy Z Fold 8 to the same squat shape as the Pura X Max. 这种情况已开始缓慢改变。华为率先推动了新设计，先是推出了 Mate XT 三折叠手机，随后是更宽的 Pura X 翻盖手机，今年又推出了更宽的 Pura X Max。三星去年底推出了自己的 Galaxy Z TriFold，上个月又将其 Galaxy Z Fold 8 改成了与 Pura X Max 相同的矮胖形状。
Durability has improved to the point where Google’s Pixel 10 Pro Fold was able to introduce an IP68 rating; Honor’s Magic V6 has since one-upped that with IP69. That phone is also the thinnest foldable on the market, and the one with the largest battery, two feats that have been made possible by silicon-carbon battery designs, a more energy-dense technology that enables smaller batteries with larger capacities. The latest foldables are barely thicker than flagship slab phones when closed, and almost as thin as the USB-C port when open, while packing batteries that last a day or two per charge. 耐用性已提升至谷歌 Pixel 10 Pro Fold 可以引入 IP68 防护等级的程度；荣耀 Magic V6 此后更进一步，达到了 IP69。该手机也是目前市场上最薄的折叠屏手机，且电池容量最大。这两项成就得益于硅碳电池设计，这是一种能量密度更高的技术，可以在更小的体积下实现更大的容量。最新的折叠屏手机在闭合时几乎不比旗舰直板手机厚，展开时则薄得几乎与 USB-C 接口相当，同时还能提供续航一到两天的电池。
Oppo’s Find N6 is almost as thin and long-lived as the Honor phone, but has another trick up its sleeve: an almost invisible crease. It’s still possible to see and feel the point where the inner screen folds, but only if you really hunt for it, and even then it can often be difficult to find depending on the light. OPPO Find N6 的轻薄程度和续航能力与荣耀手机不相上下，但它还有另一项绝活：几乎看不见的折痕。虽然仍能看到和摸到内屏的折叠处，但只有当你刻意去寻找时才能发现，即便如此，在不同的光线下也往往很难察觉。
As for cameras, this remains the one area where foldables still have work to do, but not too much. Recent foldables from Oppo and Vivo have had triple rear cameras capable of impressive quality, comparable to some slab flagships. But they still lag behind the top tier of Ultra handsets, while costing substantially more. Still, this may be one area where foldables never fully catch up — cost and design constraints likely mean that the best of the best cameras will be limited to regular phones for the foreseeable future, with foldables always a step or two behind. 至于摄像头，这仍然是折叠屏手机需要改进的领域，但差距已不大。OPPO 和 vivo 近期的折叠屏手机配备了后置三摄，成像质量令人印象深刻，可与一些直板旗舰相媲美。但它们仍落后于顶级的 Ultra 机型，且成本要高得多。不过，这可能是一个折叠屏手机永远无法完全赶上的领域——成本和设计限制意味着在可预见的未来，最顶级的摄像头仍将局限于普通手机，而折叠屏手机总会落后一两步。
Despite all these improvements, foldable phones remain an undeniably niche proposition: according to Counterpoint, they made up just 1.6 percent of the smartphone market in 2025. 尽管有所有这些改进，折叠屏手机仍然是一个不可否认的小众产品：根据 Counterpoint 的数据，2025 年它们仅占智能手机市场的 1.6%。
What happens next
未来展望
The tech behind foldable phones is now mature enough for even Apple to trust it: The first foldable iPhone is widely expected to debut next month alongside the iPhone 18 Pro models. The looming launch will be “a turning point for the foldable segment,” according to IDC analyst Francisco Jeronimo, in a report predicting Apple will claim 34 percent of the foldable market by value in its first year. 折叠屏手机背后的技术现在已经足够成熟，连苹果也对其充满信心：首款折叠屏 iPhone 预计将于下个月与 iPhone 18 Pro 系列一同亮相。IDC 分析师 Francisco Jeronimo 在一份报告中表示，此次即将到来的发布将成为“折叠屏领域的转折点”，并预测苹果在进入市场的第一年就将占据折叠屏市场 34% 的份额（按价值计算）。
What remains to be seen is whether Apple will have the influence to grow the foldable market, drawing in customers who were skeptical until now, or simply waiting for a foldable that runs iOS. This could be the tipping point that pulls foldables from a niche to the mainstream, though assuming Apple prices the phone at a premium, there will still be pretty strict limits to its reach. 目前尚待观察的是，苹果是否有足够的影响力来扩大折叠屏市场，吸引那些迄今为止持怀疑态度、或者只是在等待一款运行 iOS 系统的折叠屏手机的消费者。这可能成为将折叠屏手机从利基市场推向主流的临界点，尽管假设苹果对该手机进行高溢价定价，其覆盖范围仍将受到相当严格的限制。
Even before its first sale, the foldable iPhone has already had an impact. Remember Huawei and Samsung’s wider folds? It’s probably no surprise that they appeared just months before Apple’s foldable, which leaks suggest will be similarly wide. More companies are likely to jump on the bandwagon, with leaks p… 甚至在首次销售之前，折叠屏 iPhone 就已经产生了影响。还记得华为和三星更宽的折叠屏手机吗？它们出现在苹果折叠屏手机发布前几个月也就不足为奇了，泄露信息显示苹果的产品也将同样宽。更多的公司可能会跟风，随着泄露信息的出现……