Are Foldable Phones Worth It in 2025? What's Actually Ready and What Still Isn't
Every flagship launch cycle now comes with the same question from at least a few readers: should I wait for a foldable instead of buying a conventional phone like the iPhone 15 or the Galaxy S24? Foldables have moved from novelty to a genuine third category over the past few years, and the honest answer in 2025 is more nuanced than either "foldables are ready" or "foldables are still a gimmick."
Where Foldable Hardware Actually Stands
The core engineering problems that plagued early foldables — visible creases, hinge dust ingress, and screens that felt fragile under normal use — have genuinely improved generation over generation. Samsung's Galaxy Z Fold and Z Flip lines, now several generations deep, use a stronger hinge mechanism and thinner cover glass than their first-generation predecessors, and competitors including Google, Honor, and OnePlus have all entered the segment with their own take on the same basic folding-screen formula. The crease is still visible under certain lighting angles on every foldable currently shipping — no manufacturer has fully solved this — but it has become far less noticeable in daily use than it was on 2019-era devices.
What has not fully caught up is durability under the exact stress conditions a phone actually experiences: pocket lint and sand working into the hinge mechanism over months of use, repeated folding motions numbering in the tens of thousands over a typical ownership period, and the inherent fragility of an ultra-thin flexible display layer compared to the rigid Gorilla Glass Victus 2 protecting a phone like the Galaxy S24. Foldable-specific insurance and extended warranty uptake remains meaningfully higher than for slab phones, which tells its own story about how confident even foldable owners are in long-term durability.
App and Software Support Is Still Catching Up
A folding screen is only as useful as the software running on it, and this is where the gap between foldables and conventional phones remains widest. Android app developers have been slow and inconsistent about optimizing for the unfolded, tablet-like aspect ratio that foldables offer — many popular apps simply stretch a phone layout across the larger canvas rather than offering a genuinely reflowed, multi-pane interface. Google and Samsung have both pushed developer guidelines and app-continuity APIs to improve this, and the situation is meaningfully better than it was two years ago, but inconsistency across the app ecosystem remains the single biggest everyday frustration foldable owners report, ahead of hardware concerns.
Price: The Foldable Tax Hasn't Gone Away
Foldables still carry a substantial foldable price premium over even top-tier conventional flagships — commonly $400-800 more than a comparable slab phone like the Galaxy S24, which itself starts at $799. That premium buys genuinely useful multitasking capability for some buyers, particularly those who use a phone heavily for document review, split-screen productivity, or simply want the largest possible screen that still fits in a pocket. For most buyers, though, the premium is difficult to justify purely on hardware capability versus a well-specced conventional flagship, and the resale value curve on foldables has historically been steeper than on standard phones, given how quickly hinge and display technology improves generation to generation.
What's Actually Coming in the Next Product Cycle
Industry roadmaps and supply-chain reporting consistently point toward thinner, lighter foldable designs as the next major hardware milestone — narrowing the weight and thickness gap that currently makes foldables noticeably bulkier in a pocket than a standard phone folded shut. Under-display camera technology, which eliminates the visible camera cutout on a foldable's inner screen, is also expected to mature further, along with continued improvements to hinge mechanisms aimed at reducing the crease further and improving dust resistance closer to the IP68 rating standard phones already carry. None of this is a reason to wait indefinitely — meaningful hardware improvements ship roughly annually in this category, the same cadence as conventional flagships — but it does mean anyone buying a foldable today is buying into a category that is still visibly maturing rather than one that has fully settled into its final form.
Who Should Actually Consider a Foldable Today
If you genuinely use your phone as a mini-tablet for reading, note-taking, or multitasking between apps, and you can comfortably absorb the price premium and slightly higher long-term repair risk, a current-generation foldable is a legitimately good product in a way it simply wasn't three years ago. If you're on the fence purely out of curiosity or FOMO rather than a specific multitasking need, a conventional flagship remains the safer, better-value choice — the software ecosystem, accessory support, and resale value are all more mature, and you won't be waiting on app developers to catch up to your hardware. Our advice for most readers comparing the two categories: read our full flagship phone comparison first, and treat a foldable as a deliberate upgrade decision rather than a default next purchase.
Foldables and the Tablet Question
One angle worth considering before spending foldable-tier money: if the appeal is really the larger unfolded canvas for reading, note-taking, and split-screen multitasking, a conventional tablet paired with your existing phone often delivers more of that experience for meaningfully less money and with far more mature app support. A phone like the Pixel 8 paired with a budget tablet such as the Galaxy Tab A9 costs less combined than most current foldables, and neither device has to compromise its core form factor to serve double duty. It's not a perfect substitute — you're carrying two devices instead of one, and nothing beats a single folding screen for pure portability — but it's a genuinely underrated alternative for anyone drawn to foldables mainly for the bigger-screen multitasking use case rather than the novelty of the fold itself. It also sidesteps the hinge-durability question entirely, since a tablet has no folding mechanism to wear out over years of daily use, and it lets you upgrade the phone and the tablet on separate cycles rather than replacing an expensive combined device all at once when either half starts to feel dated.