Is the "thickness war" of foldable screen phones really meaningful?

As early as February 2019, when our frontline team from 3eLife went to Barcelona, Spain, to bring you the first-hand reports of MWC, apart from the world's first batch of 5G phones, we also saw the earliest few "foldable screen models".

Of course, now everyone knows that due to the immature materials, the reliability of that batch of foldable screen phones in February 2019 basically became a joke later. But from the perspective of that time, people actually wouldn't blame the relevant manufacturers because almost everyone regarded foldable screens (especially the "large foldable" ones) as the next "top flagship" symbol in the mobile phone industry and hoped that such products could get better and better, truly delivering a user experience worthy of their price.

However, when we saw the new foldable screen phones so far in 2025, with their thinner and lighter bodies one by one, we felt a bit confused instead.

The increasingly thinner large foldable phones actually have quite obvious shortcomings

Why are we puzzled? Because today's foldable screen phones don't seem to represent the current strongest relevant technologies in all aspects. On the contrary, almost all large foldable phones of various brands have fallen into a fanatical pursuit of thin and light design and are willing to pay quite a high price for it.

For example, in the products of some brands, the ultra-thin large foldable phones either choose a less new and less high-performance SoC solution to achieve low heat generation and low power consumption. Or although they adopt the latest flagship platform, under normal temperature and without using an external radiator, the default performance scheduling is much more "timid" than that of the straight-screen flagships of the same period. In fact, it's equivalent to a discount in performance, not fully unleashing the performance of the SoC.

Another example is that compared with the straight-screen imaging flagships of various brands, those large foldable phones are usually more expensive. However, so far, none of them has used the truly recognized strongest 1-inch large sensor solution, and even the CMOS sizes of the ultra-wide-angle and telephoto secondary cameras often have to make many compromises.

Of course, it doesn't mean that all ultra-thin large foldable phones only have small rear cameras. But the problem is that when the body is thin and light enough, if it is paired with a large and prominent "Oreo" camera module, you can imagine the top-heavy feeling in the hand.

In addition, thanks to the rapid progress of high-density battery technologies in recent years, today's large foldable phones can still have a large enough battery capacity even after being ultra-thinned. However, since this increase in capacity is achieved by aggressively increasing the battery energy density, the result is that the fast charging power and efficiency of today's large foldable phones have not only made no progress compared with the past but may even have regressed.

Moreover, there is actually no real conclusion yet as to whether the ultra-high silicon anode design will have a negative impact on the long-term battery life. So, is it possible that these large foldable phones will be more prone to battery "sudden death" in the future? It's really hard to say.

Finally, compared with the "thick foldable" phones back then, these ultra-thin large foldable phones today have a rather ridiculous regression. That is, the ultra-thin body and the more compact internal space may indeed have affected the quality of the external speakers of these models.

You know, back then, some "thick foldable" phones even had four speakers installed, achieving a quad-channel effect similar to that of tablets on mobile phones. But for today's new models, if they can just make the positions of the normal dual speakers symmetrical, you'd almost want to thank heaven and earth.

Have you noticed the secrets hidden in color schemes and storage capacities?

So why is this the case? Don't the relevant manufacturers know that the "ultra-thin" design of these foldable screen phones will cause various problems?

To be honest, the manufacturers must be aware of these problems. So if you really look closely at the parameters of those "ultra-thin foldable screen" phones, you may notice an interesting phenomenon. That is, even within the same model, manufacturers may deliberately make distinctions in body thickness, weight, and even battery capacity.

For example, a certain foldable screen phone claims to be "ultra-thin", but actually only the models in a specific color are thinner and lighter, while the other color schemes are significantly thicker and heavier.

Another example is that a certain foldable screen phone claims to have achieved the highest battery energy density among similar products, but in fact, only the top - end capacity version uses a higher - density battery. For the other models that are destined to sell better, batteries with a lower energy density and smaller capacity are used.

What do these phenomena mean? In fact, this may be the result of manufacturers wanting both good publicity effects and to control the entry - level price of the products. But since those sub - models that are "not thin enough and have small batteries" are actually destined to have a larger shipment volume, it's inevitable to worry that these differences in detailed configurations hidden in appearance colors and storage versions may actually cover up some technical and quality control risks in the more radical designs.

The "thin foldable" phones are not perfect, but that's exactly why they are more in line with business interests

In addition, when looking at the entire product lineup of these brands, you'll find that today's ultra - thin foldable screen phones have actually become part of the manufacturers' differentiated model layout.

So what does this concept mean? For example, a few years ago, we could see the same configurations as those in straight - screen imaging flagships on some large foldable phones of certain brands, such as 1/1.3 - inch large sensors, liquid lenses, and even a non - redundant "quad - rear - camera" setup. But now, when a 1/1.56 - inch main camera, which is almost a "standard for the 2,000 - yuan segment" on straight - screen phones, can "dominate" in the ten - thousand - yuan large foldable phones, it's actually obvious that the relevant manufacturers are deliberately creating more segmented product positioning.

To put it bluntly, foldable screens may not be unable to achieve both high performance and top - level imaging. But if they do, how can manufacturers sell their straight - screen imaging flagships and straight - screen "gaming phones"?

So, what we see now is that the performance tuning of straight - screen imaging flagships is generally conservative, the imaging design of gaming phones is generally weak, and although the large foldable phones have the new selling point of being ultra - thin, they neither have full performance release nor a photography design that can threaten the imaging flagships. Although none of the three is perfect, that's exactly why they can be "completely segmented" in the market and won't interfere with each other's target audiences.

This article is from the WeChat official account "3eLife" (ID: IT - 3eLife), author: 3eLife Editor. It is published by 36Kr with authorization.