Foldable phones are finally moving from novelty to mainstream, and the next wave of innovation is arriving fast. As manufacturers chase bigger canvases for work and play, it is tempting to assume that simply adding more folds is the natural path forward. The reality is more complicated, and the devices that will define this category are already pointing in a different direction.
The future of flexible screens is not about ever more elaborate hinges, but about making screens feel invisible until you need them. That is why tri-folds look like an impressive detour rather than the destination, while rollable designs and refined book-style foldables quietly line up to solve the problems that actually matter to people.
Tri-folds prove a point, not the product
Tri-fold phones exist to show what is technically possible, not what most people should carry every day. Samsung’s Galaxy Z TriFold is the clearest example, a device that can fold into three segments to reveal a tablet-sized display when fully opened, yet still tries to function as a phone when closed. At the world’s biggest tech show in Las Vegas Samsung used the Galaxy Z TriFold to steal the spotlight, proving that flexible OLED, complex hinge systems and multi-state software can work together in a single device.
Once the show-floor excitement fades, the compromises become harder to ignore. Reviewers who lived with the Galaxy Z TriFold for longer stretches describe a phone that is thicker and heavier than any slab, with more moving parts and more visible crease lines across its three panels. One detailed hands-on notes that Triple foldables are not the direction phones are heading, even if they are impressive engineering exercises that push component suppliers and software teams to think bigger.
Living with a tri-fold is a niche choice
For anyone considering a purchase, the Galaxy Z TriFold already illustrates how narrow the audience is. One long-term user review frames the decision bluntly: Samsung Galaxy Z TriFold, Should you buy it, and then concedes that the answer is deeply subjective. The writer stresses that the choice to carry this device is not going to be objective, and that the appeal of the Samsung Galaxy Z TriFold is entirely down to how much a person values the spectacle of unfolding a pocketable tablet.
That same perspective highlights the friction that comes with the form factor. Look at how often the device needs to be adjusted between its three positions just to handle everyday tasks like messaging, maps or video calls, and the novelty starts to feel like work. Another reviewer who spent time with the phone concludes that deciding to go with the Galaxy Z TriFold is a matter of accepting trade-offs in thickness, durability and price that most people will not tolerate, even if they enjoy the Look of a futuristic gadget on day one.
Why people want bigger screens, not more folds
The demand that fuels this entire category is simple: people want a phone that can turn into a bigger screen when they need it. Reporting on current foldables notes that People are waiting with bated breath for the time when unfolding a device gives them a big, wide screen that is good for spreadsheets, video editing or reading, without the bulk of a separate tablet. That expectation is already visible in the way users treat devices like the Galaxy Z Fold series as pocket computers for Netflix, Lightroom or Google Sheets, and it is reinforced by coverage that describes how People now expect laptop-like multitasking from their phones.
Tri-folds try to answer that desire by adding more panels, but they also multiply the pain points. Each extra hinge introduces another potential failure point, another crease, and another place where dust or grit can compromise the mechanism. Analysts who have handled the Galaxy Z TriFold point out that even with careful engineering, the device still feels like a prototype that escaped the lab, while more mature book-style foldables already deliver the wide-screen experience in a simpler package. A separate analysis of the foldable market argues that the future of foldables is not tri-folds at all, but rather more refined dual-panel designs and emerging concepts that stretch or roll, a view echoed in another piece that states The future of flexible phones lies in making the transition between phone and tablet feel effortless.
Rollables solve the right problems
Rollable phones attack the same need for a larger canvas from a different angle. Instead of folding a display into multiple segments, they hide extra screen real estate inside the chassis and extend it when needed, like a scroll. One detailed explainer describes how Rollable phones represent the next major evolution in smartphones, turning a compact handset into a small tablet in one motion, without the thick sandwich of glass and metal that defines current foldables. In that view, Rollable designs promise a true all-in-one mobile device that can be pocketable and expansive at once.
Another analysis of why tri-folds are not the answer spells out the advantages of rollables in more detail. It argues that tri-folds add complexity without solving the core complaints about weight and thickness, while rollables keep the device closer to a normal phone most of the time. That piece explains why tri-folds are not the future of foldables and then asks what rollable phones are, describing mechanisms that slide the display out of the frame to create a larger workspace for apps like Chrome, Outlook or Adobe Premiere Rush. In that context, Why Rollables are framed as the true future is simple: they give users more screen only when they actually need it.
The real future: refined foldables plus rollables
Tri-fold advocates counter that the category is only just getting started. One opinion piece argues that tri-folds are not experiments or fads, but the future that foldable devices need, suggesting that current book-style designs are stuck in a middle-of-the-road mentality that is beginning to cost folding phones sales. That argument points to scenarios where users might want two or maybe three multitasking windows open at once, something a larger tri-fold canvas could handle more comfortably, and it frames Perhaps the most demanding power users as the natural audience for these devices.
I see a different trajectory taking shape. The most convincing reporting points to a future where mainstream buyers gravitate toward thinner, lighter book-style foldables and rollables, while tri-folds remain halo products that push suppliers to improve hinges, ultra-thin glass and flexible OLED yields. Coverage of the Galaxy Z TriFold already frames it as a device that wows but is not the future, and another analysis of the broader category states plainly that the future of foldables is not tri-folds, but smarter ways of hiding or extending screens. In that sense, tri-folds are valuable precisely because they are extreme, forcing the industry to solve hard problems that will quietly benefit more practical devices, from the next wave of rollables to the kind of polished foldable phones that already feel close to replacing both a handset and a tablet.
