I suspect the more pragmatic reason is that smartphones are heavily used for consumption, majority of videos are filmed in 16:9, and so smartphone aspect ratios tend to mirror that.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Samsung Announces Galaxy Z Flip 5G Smartphone Starting at $1,449.99
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
… with similar price tag as other phone forms.
Price tag, price tag, price tag, price tag, that's THE sole important factor about whether it’s a flop or not.
$0.6B in sales does not sound too shabby so far
The flop seems to be a lot of silly comments here
Honestly I think it's much more likely what SteveJUAE said. If you're familiar with weird feature phones of the past, like the Nokia NGAGE, they made a lot of contortions to ensure the ultimate handset shape still put the phone wihtin the space of your ear and your mouth.
I'd actually challenge what you said here, too, because if the form followed the function in the way you imply. one could say the same about tablets ("tablets are heavily used for consumption, majority of videos are filmed in 16:9, so tablet ratios tend to be..." ack!). You seem to be discounting the enormous role that ergomonics plays in why things designed for humans are built the way they are.
A lot of android tablets are in the 16:9 ratio as well.
Only the iPad was 4:3, which mirrored the classroom VGA projector perfectly, and because it seems that only Apple is pushing it as a productivity device while everyone else appears to have essentially given up in this area, and so the only way they can sell android tablets is by marketing them as cheap video consumption devices.
The surface is 3:2, and is obviously a productivity-focused device. You're missing the forest for the trees. There are obviously phones that are intentionally built at the 16:9 ratio, but there are plenty that aren't. You can find a lot of phones and tablets that don't mirror the ratio of content but you won't find any phones or tablets that don't conform to the physical requirements of human beings (that aren't in the landfill). There's a reason that the Galaxy Z Flip's entire design is oriented around making sure there's an earpiece at the top and a microphone at the bottom. The (absolutely ridiculous) Galaxy Fold doesn't have a screen ratio designed for anything practical but it absolutely ergonomically is still built around human factors...
My Tab S4 wasn't cheap.
Admittedly, I pretty much use it for media consumption, at that it excells.
There's no way I'd consider a 4:3 screen for anything these days, personally.
That said, there are a ton of cheap Android tablets out there if cheap is your thing, so I get your point there but there are expensive Android tablets too.
There are many reasons for the shapes/aspect ratios for the things we use today some probably dating back 1000's of years to original landscape mode of the dead sea scrolls or even animal skins for parchment that rectangles opposed to square may of been more efficient etc
Likewise more recent inventions like phones and CRT have a heavy influence of common acceptance and that familiar feeling mixed in with human ergonomics and even cinematography trying to replicate the field of vision of the human etc for that immersive feeling we call it today
Attaching these developments and giving them a different name as if some brand invented them is giving credit to something that is not due or earned IMO
Likewise more recent inventions like phones and CRT have a heavy influence of common acceptance and that familiar feeling mixed in with human ergonomics and even cinematography trying to replicate the field of vision of the human etc for that immersive feeling we call it today
Attaching these developments and giving them a different name as if some brand invented them is giving credit to something that is not due or earned IMO
Can we all stop pretending that slab phones were a thing of choice. We had no choice. We got the slab because we needed bigger screens. We needed bigger screens because of touch screens.; you couldn't have touch screen on early 2000s flip phones, way too small. Not to mention, all the stuff we like do on our phones today, i.e. gaming, videos, etc (the screens got even bigger to improve experience). How the heck would you accomplish all of this on a screen the size of a Nokia flip phone? So the slab was made. Hence, why we have so many broken and scratched screens today. Samsung made a foldable phone with a big screen and less risk of being damaged, possible. So you can stop being pretentious, as if you're beyond a flip phone.
[automerge]1595741167[/automerge]
[automerge]1595741167[/automerge]
Can we all stop pretending that slab phones were a thing of choice. We had no choice. We got the slab because we needed bigger screens. We needed bigger screens because of touch screens.; you couldn't have touch screen on early 2000s flip phones, way too small. Not to mention, all the stuff we do on our phones today, i.e. gaming, videos, etc (the screens got even bigger to improve experience). How the heck would you accomplish all of this on a screen the size of a Nokia flip phone? So the slab was made. Hence, why we have so many broken and scratched screens today. Samsung made a foldable phone with a big screen and less risk of being damaged, possible.
Key word: "5 years." The tech for this phone will greatly improve within the next 5 years. Let Samsung build them now and make mistakes as Apple learns.