The best foldable screen smartphones

Until recently, smartphones with foldable screens were niche and expensive products. The situation is radically changed by the Blackview Hero 10 - a model with a clamshell form factor at a relatively affordable price.

The device will cost akin to a solid mid-range smartphone. The bendable internal screen of the model is made using AMOLED technology with a diagonal size of 6.9 inches. The image on the display is transmitted in a resolution of 2560x1080 pixels, and its refresh rate is 60 Hz - there is no increased "hertz" here. The hinge in the device's screen must withstand over 250 thousand folding/unfolding cycles. The picture is completed by a tiny external round screen - 1.9 inches diagonally, AMOLED, 390x390 pixels.

The model uses the popular mid-range MediaTek Helio G99 processor without support for 5G mobile networks. To improve performance, the smartphone has 12 GB of LPDDR4x RAM. And the device's data storage has a capacity of 256 GB. Blackview Hero 10 will cope well with any everyday tasks and will pull many mobile games, although not always at high graphics settings.

The device is equipped with a dual main camera of 108 + 8 MP format and a 32 MP selfie camera with a lens in the internal display. The smartphone is also “chipped” with an NFC module, equipped with a side fingerprint scanner and stereo speakers. The autonomous operation of the model is provided by a battery of exactly 4000 mAh, supporting fast wired charging with a power of 45 W - from zero to 48% it can be charged in about 20 minutes. Blackview Hero 10 brings the implementation of smartphones with flexible screens to the masses.

Motorola Razr 40 Ultra is a foldable smartphone with two full-color screens: an internal main foldable design and an external auxiliary one.

When unfolded, the device is difficult to distinguish from an ordinary smartphone. Although its main screen is narrower and “higher”, and in the middle you can still see a fold where the hinge is. The internal display measures 6.9 inches diagonally. This is a pOLED panel with a resolution of 2640x1080 pixels and a high adaptive refresh rate of up to 165 Hz. The same matrix is installed as an external screen with a diagonal of 3.6 inches, but its refresh rate reaches 144 Hz.

The smartphone's hardware platform is headed by the top "eight-core" Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 coupled with 8/256 GB of memory. Motorola Razr 40 Ultra will easily cope with any smartphone tasks, will please with stereo sound with Dolby Atmos support and decent battery life. The power core of the model is a 3800 mAh battery, charged with a power of 30 W via a wire and 5 W wirelessly.

The two "eyes" of the main camera - 12 + 13 MP - are built into the corner of the smartphone's outer screen. The device also has a front camera in the inner display (32 MP). It is noteworthy that the leading module of the dual camera has acquired an optical image stabilization system - it will come in handy both when taking photos and when recording videos. The smartphone can be bent at an angle of 90 ° and shoot in this position. The menu from the camera application will be displayed on one half of the inner screen, and the picture - on the other. This opens up much wider possibilities for shooting from non-standard angles.

Motorola was one of the first to enter the league of clamshell smartphones with flexible screens. The base model for 2024 was the Moto Razr 50.

The main AMOLED screen of the mobile device has a diagonal size of 6.9 inches, an adaptive refresh rate of up to 120 Hz and folds in half - when closed, the smartphone resembles a compact women's mirror or powder box. Moreover , the model is equipped with an external AMOLED display with a diagonal size of 3.3 inches, a resolution of 1066x1056 pixels and a refresh rate of 90 Hz. Part of the external screen is occupied by the "rounds" of the dual camera lenses and a photo flash.

The smartphone is powered by an eight-core, mid-range chipset MediaTek Dimensity 7300X, which is a priori designed for dual-screen devices. The model has 8 GB of RAM and 256 GB of built-in storage. The device does not have an expansion slot. However, the smartphone has reliable IPX8 water resistance.

As already mentioned, the dual camera of the device is harmoniously integrated into the external screen. It consists of a stabilized leading 50 MP image sensor and an ultra-wide one with a resolution of 13 MP. The selfie camera in the internal display shoots at a resolution of 32 MP. The smartphone is powered by a 4200 mAh battery, and also supports 30-watt wired and 15-watt wireless charging. In addition, the model can boast stereo speakers with Dolby Atmos, a full set of wireless communications and a side fingerprint scanner.

Samsung's clamshells are arguably the king of the foldable smartphone arena, with the Galaxy Flip6 joining the lineup in 2024.

The Flip series promotes the concept of bending the main display in half in a vertical plane. The 6th model of this line has a Dynamic AMOLED 2X panel with a diagonal size of 6.7 inches, a picture resolution of 2640x1080 pixels and a dynamic refresh rate of up to 120 Hz. The hinge here was replaced with a new one, so that the characteristic "fold" in the center of the inner screen was less noticeable. In general, the display of the device is "under the cover" of tempered glass Gorilla Glass Victus 2.

On the outside of the smartphone case there is a smaller auxiliary screen - it extends to 3.4 inches diagonally and also has a refresh rate of up to 120 Hz. With the help of plugins, the external screen can be used independently to launch any applications. By the way, the Samsung Galaxy Flip6 will easily handle any mobile programs - the flagship Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processor is installed inside the smartphone, supported by 12 GB of fast LPDDR5 RAM and fast UFS 4.0 data storage of 256 GB.

Special attention in the smartphone is paid to the advanced AI assistant Galaxy AI. It will help optimize work processes, come to the rescue in creative tasks, when photographing and video shooting, during correspondence and communication. In addition, the model received a dual main camera 50 + 12 MP (with optical stabilization of the leading sensor), NFC and Wi-Fi 7 communications, a 4000 mAh battery with two-way wireless charging. The case of the "clamshell" from Samsung has basic protection from dust and reliable protection from water - IP48.

The debut of the first vertical "clamshell" from Xiaomi took place in the summer of 2024. It was the Mix Flip model - a truly flagship smartphone that can be fully used both folded and unfolded.

When closed , half of the device's body is occupied by a 4-inch AMOLED screen with a high pixel density of 460 ppi and an adaptive refresh rate of up to 120 Hz. Over 200 different applications run on the gadget's external display, and a two-way speaker allows you to receive and make phone calls without having to open the device.

The internal bendable screen has exactly the same high pixel density. This is an AMOLED panel with a diagonal size of 6.86 inches with a maximum resolution of 2912x1244 pixels and a dynamic refresh rate in the range of up to 120 Hz. The smartphone is powered by the most powerful eight-core Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset, coupled with 12 GB of LPDDR5X RAM and an internal UFS 4.0 storage of 512 GB. There are simply no impossible tasks for the smartphone.

A part of the external display space of the Xiaomi Mix Fold is reserved for the needs of two large "eyes" of the main camera from Leica. The leading photo module of the device is represented by the LightHunter 800 sensor with a resolution of 50 MP and optical stabilization, and to help it is allocated a 2x telephoto lens (also 50 MP). For shooting selfies, the internal screen has a cutout for the 32 MP front camera lens.

The smartphone has a capacious 4780 mAh battery that supports fast 67-watt wired charging. The model also has Wi-Fi 7, an NFC chip, a proprietary IR port, a side fingerprint scanner, and stereo speakers with Hi-Res Audio. The device turned out to be powerful, technologically savvy, and, importantly, beautiful in terms of design - Xiaomi Mix Fold is a potential hit in the segment of vertical clamshells.