My favorite folding phone is the one that doesn’t exist yet

A book-style folding phone is a gadget that poses one radical idea: What if you always had a computer in your pocket?

When you’d like to be writing a blog while your plane is taking off, and large electronics (Computer) must be stowed? When you’re sitting on the couch putting together a grocery order, and Computer is in the other room? When your job is to write blog posts, but you weren’t allowed to bring Computer into the keynote venue? These are real scenarios in which I’ve used the Google Pixel 10 Pro Fold and Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 over the past month.

Each offers a large inner screen that is, at a minimum, lots of space for watching videos, reading posts, whatever it is you normally do on your phone. But I’ve been pushing them into Computer territory lately, with largely excellent results. The experience has only made me more greedy; I’m now seeing the different strengths and weaknesses of the Z Fold 7 and the Pixel 10 Pro — and I’m convinced that the ideal foldable is smack in the middle.

The thing about gluing two phones together is that the resulting device usually weighs about as much as two phones glued together. That’s true of the Google Pixel 10 Pro Fold, which is heavy enough to constantly remind you that it’s in your pocket. But the 10 Pro Fold has a secret weapon: Qi2 with built-in magnets, which allows you to use it with magnetic Pop Socket-type holders. I carried it with Google’s Pixelsnap-branded ring grip, which helps mitigate the weight issue when you’re holding the phone for a while. It kinda works as a stand too, and shouldn’t a phone that’s also a tablet come with a way to prop it up? I’m starting to believe so the more I use these things.

The 10 Pro Fold has one more feature that influenced my decision to bring it on my family travels over the holidays and to CES in Las Vegas (a literal desert!): dust resistance. Any phone that’s going to be my daily driver needs to withstand the harsh environment at the bottom of my tote bag, where goldfish crackers go to crumble and die. It’s the only folding phone with a full IP68 rating for dust resistance, which gave me real peace of mind every time I threw it in a bag.

But after a few weeks of lugging it around, I was ready to trade the 10 Pro Fold in for something lighter. So I switched to the Galaxy Z Fold 7, Samsung’s superthin and light foldable. It weighs a little more than a standard slab phone, making it much more comfortable to carry and hold. It doesn’t seem like much on paper, but I promise you — it’s a difference you feel in a hundred tiny ways.

Since you can’t have everything, the Z Fold 7 lacks full dust resistance (it’s only sealed against large particles), so I felt a little more nervous with it day-to-day. Also missing: integrated Qi2 magnets. Samsung offers a couple of low-profile cases that add a magnetic ring, but I’m not a case guy. And something about adding even a thin case to the Z Fold 7 feels antithetical to its whole deal.

Maybe that’s just my hangup, though I can’t help feeling that a simple ring stand that I could slap on the back of this phone is just what it needs. Prying a case off when I want to reap the full benefits of the Z Fold 7’s ridiculously slim profile feels needlessly fussy when a simpler option is right there. A stand would also address the wobble the camera bump causes when you use the phone on a flat surface; I’m always propping the phone up on a drink coaster to stabilize it. I realize a case would help here too, but please see my previous points about being allergic to cases and wanting to easily ditch the propping mechanism at will.

While I’m out here running my own fantasy phone draft, I have some thoughts about software, too. I like the simplicity of the Pixel’s Android implementation, but I prefer Samsung’s easy permissiveness when it comes to running multiple apps on the inner screen. I installed Gboard on the Z Fold 7 and uninstalled most of Samsung’s excessive preloaded apps, which has been a much more pleasant experience than the one you get out of the box.

I realize I sound like a real complainer here. “Woman is Dissatisfied with $2000 Phone” is not a revelation anybody needs right now. And yes, I know that tablets exist, and I do not want one in addition to the phone I already carry. So if you’ll indulge me for a minute, I’m being greedy here because I’ve seen so much potential in these devices over the past few months. Folding phones have been cool from the start, but I’ve never been so convinced about their real-world utility as I am now.

I wrote an entire blog post from the Pixel 10 Pro Fold on my way back from CES when my laptop refused to connect to airplane Wi-Fi, but the phone obliged. I ordered our weekly groceries with Amazon open in a tab on one side of the screen and my shopping list in Paprika on the other. I published a quick post to this website from inside the Sphere! Being able to get away with that on a device that’s also water- and dust-resistant, that’s slim enough to fit into my yoga pants pocket, that’s light enough to pass for a normal phone, with a handy magnetic grip that makes it comfortable to use all day? That’s the folding phone promise, folks. I just wish there were one device that could fulfill all of those wishes.

Photography by Allison Johnson / The Verge