So This is Peak Foldable

Okay, so I've been saying for years that foldables are for early adopters only and they don't make sense for regular people until the only difference between a foldable and a regular phone is the fact that one of them happens to fold in half and there's no other compromises. So when this all got started 7 years ago with the Galaxy Fold 1, it was really exciting that it folded in half, but there were obviously a ton of compromises back then to make that happen for the first time. from the huge bezels on that cover screen to the smaller subpar cameras and battery and other specs, the extremely compromised durability, and of course, the crease, the massive crease through the middle. So, every year, foldables have gotten better and better and better and better from a bunch of different companies as they've slowly tackled each one of those compromises. So, foldables have gotten thinner and they've gotten bigger batteries and they've gotten better hinges and smaller creases. And that's all led to this, the Oppo Find N6. Does seem kind of random that this is now peak foldable, but I actually think by the end of this video, you'll agree with me. So, the obvious problem number one with old foldables was that they suck to use one-handed since they're thicker, they have worse bezels, and just they're generally compromised versus a normal slab phone. But we've seen this string of thinner foldable phones, especially in the past few years. And now you look at the Oppo Find N6. From the front, you'd hardly know it's just a normal slab phone. Now, you do have the telltale asymmetrical metal. So, rounded corners on one side, square corners on the hinge side. That's how you'd be able to know. But other than that, it just looks like a normal 6.6 inch phone. OPPO has been absolutely cooking with the materials and the build. So, when you pick it up and use it, it genuinely feels like a regular slab phone because it's the same size as one. Now, this phone is just under 9 mm thin and weighs around 230 g. For context, the iPhone 17 Pro Max is also just under 9 millimeters thin and around 230 gram. So, this is effectively a no compromises normal phone, at least dimensions wise, before you even open the thing. So many of the previous foldables, I remember using them and there's like you can use the outside screen, but you didn't really want to. You'd rather just open it up and get to the better screen. But this you could just use like normal. It's perfectly fine to take pictures with, to watch videos on, to text on because the keyboard isn't too small. It's a normal aspect ratio. It's great. And it also has all the flagship specs, by the way. 3600 nits peak brightness, 1,800 nits full screen, so it's very viewable everywhere outdoors. Super responsive 120 Hz LTPO, high frequency PWM dimming, the whole thing. Now, folding in half also always has presented a bunch of challenges with just the physics of fitting stuff in a smaller, thinner form factor that has to split. So, for years, these folding phones never really had flagship cameras because there wasn't enough room. Uh, and also the batteries would always be smaller because they have to split it in half around a hinge, which is tough cuz they're trying to power a bigger display. But it's 2026, so now of course the tech has evolved to the point where we have silicon carbon batteries. And this ultra thin phone split in half still has a total of a 6,000 mAh battery, which is more than a lot of slab phones already, plus 80 watt charging and 50 watt wireless charging. And then as far as cameras, so the physical sensor size can never quite be the same as a slab phone because again, it's split in half. So there's just not as much room in the Z-axis dimension. But there has been development of some big sensors with shallow Z-axis thickness specifically to fit in thinner phones. So, this phone has the same ISO HP5 sensor that's in the S25 Edge, 200 megapixels, one over 1.56 in optically stabilized. So, there is that plus a 50 megap ultrawide and a 50 megapixel 3x telephoto. And then, I don't know if you remember, but folding phones used to have significantly lesser chips, too. Less room inside, less room for cooling. This phone has a Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 inside, but a bend version with one less core. So, for all intents and purposes, I think we can say it's a flagship chip and maximizing what you can do in that thin of a space. Plus, there's a new dedicated S1 chip for better network performance. So, now despite being ultra thin and chopped in half, this thing has flagship displays, flagship chips, flagship specs, high-end cameras. It's also IP59 water and dust resistance rated, which used to be nuts for foldables, but now you can just spill water on this thing and it'll be fine. But the piece to resistance for this N6 is without question this center display. For years for folding phones, we've gotten used to them, you know, having a amazing folding screen, but also having a small crease in the middle. And the crease, you know, it's just one of those things where on most phones, most of the time, it doesn't bother you. Trust me, as someone who's used these phones, I've said it before, it's like bezels. Most of the time, you're just looking at the content or reading or typing, so you're not really seeing it. But every once in a while it catches the light the right way or you run your finger over it and it just hits you're reminded of it and so you can still notice it sometimes. But not with this phone. So the N6 has this new thing they developed called the no feel crease. And I' I'd seen the marketing. I'd heard I'd watched some videos about it but they're mostly sponsored. So I was a bit skeptical. Okay. But I got it in my hands. And this thing is actually super impressive. You open it up. It's the classic big square. 8.1 in corner to corner. same full screen brightness, same 1 to 120 Hz LTPO, same PWM dimming, but you might notice there's basically no perceptible crease here. I mean, there's there's a little bit of crease if you're really looking for it. But compared to other foldables we've seen and that I've used, this is basically no crease. And the extra bit of engineering that goes into solving this last problem is actually very intricate. And they're already doing a bunch of the stuff that everyone else has already thought of, like softening the crease radius by doing a teardrop shape when it's folded. But the main innovation here is with this hinge. They literally laser scan each individual titanium hinge to map the slightest variations across the surface, then 3D print a liquid polymer to fill in the exact micro gaps to perfectly smooth out the hinge, and then harden it with ultraviolet light. is incredibly complicated, but the end result is they minimize the surface level variations across the hinge from 0.2 millimeters down to 0.05 mm, which is apparently less than half a human hair thickness. So, that combined with a slightly thicker layer of top glass that they're using really makes a big visual difference and feel difference. A lot of these foldables also, they look great out the box, but the more you use it, as you know, the more you fold and unfold it, the deeper that crease becomes, the more you notice it. This process they're saying is good for 600,000 folds and still not showing any significant crease, which, you know, obviously I've been folding and unfolding this a lot, uh, but not that many times, so I'm just gonna have to take their word for it. But yeah, now that really that's the last few percent of like quality of life when you're using a foldable, never really noticing or perceiving the crease at all. And the cherry on top is unlike Samsung's Fold, it actually has pen support. So there's this little half case you can snap on the back of this phone that holds the pen near the coil so it wireless charges from the phone's battery. And then, yeah, it works on both the front cover screen and the interior display with more than 4,000 levels of pressure sensitivity and minimal lag. So, if you're the artist type or the handwritten note type, this display has digitizer layer to keep that dream alive. And yes, it charges because it does have Bluetooth. So, it can still be used as a remote camera shutter. So, now in 2026, this OPPO Find N6 is complete as far as I'm concerned. We've gone through one by one each of the potential compromises of a folding phone and engineered them away. So, aside from the price tag, of course, this is effectively a regular phone that just happens to fold in half. And so, yeah, peak foldable. We've arrived, I guess, which of course got me thinking about the obvious elephant in the room. We are saying all of this before Apple jumps in the ring with what we expect to be a folding iPhone. And the rumors are saying it's probably going to be this year, end of this year. And actually, that makes perfect sense because that's what Apple does with emerging technologies. That's kind of their thing. They'll sit on the sidelines for the first few cycles while the most aggressive, daring companies innovate and work out all the bugs and the kinks and the compromises. And then once that technology is mature enough, that's when they jump in with all the learnings from everyone else and like an Appleide version of it. So, that's Vision Pro jumping into the world that already existed of VR headsets. That's HomePod existed of smart speakers. Heck, that's what the original iPhone did, jumping into the already existing world of mobile phones. So, now that we're at Peak Foldable and we've sort of engineered away the compromises and we've got to this point where the tech is mature, it's ready for Apple to jump in if they wanted to and do their own Appleide version. The question is what is the what is the Appleide thing for a foldable? Cuz you know typically when they jump in a new category their cheat code is just by making theirs the version that works well with the iPhone and that automatically gets you a bunch of users from iPhone land. But this is an iPhone fold. So what's the trick? Will it like run a special iPad OS when it's open? Or maybe you know every foldable has multi-wind support and extra multitasking features. So maybe that will make its way to the iPhone fold too. maybe don't really know software-wise. But the one big weird thing that the rumors are actually pointing to is um playing with aspect ratio again because so many of these modern full-size folds has trended towards the like regular slab phone aspect ratio when it's closed. And we talked about this that leaves you with the square when you open it up, which is bigger, but it is a little bit compromised. It's not as good for widescreen media, things like that. But this iPhone fold is supposed to be more of a small passport style. So a short squat like 5 and 1/2 in display while it's closed. And then that opens up to an almost 8 in wide screen kind of like a portable iPad mini. It's a little bit of a throwback. We used to see more interesting shapes in folds a couple years ago, even from earlier Oppo Finds. So this won't be the first to try it and it certainly won't be the last. We'll see how much of the other stuff like the no feel crease and the super thin build, silicon carbon battery, flagship cameras. We'll see how much of that other stuff makes it to the iPhone Fold as well later this year. Uh but we'll see. I'm looking forward to it. Also, subscribe to be among the first to see that when it does come out because we'll cover it here on the channel. Thanks for watching. Catch you guys in the next one. Peace.