[00:02] Okay,
[00:03] so I've been saying for years that
foldables are for early adopters only,
[00:06] and they don't make
sense for regular people
[00:08] until
[00:09] the only difference between a
foldable and a regular phone
[00:12] is the fact that one of them
happens to fold in half,
[00:15] and there's no other compromises.
[00:16] So when this all got started seven
years ago with the Galaxy Fold 1,
[00:20] it was really exciting
that it folded in half,
[00:22] but there were obviously a ton
of compromises back then to make
[00:26] that happen for the first time.
[00:27] From the huge bezels on that cover screen,
to...
[00:30] to the smaller,
[00:31] subpar cameras and
battery and other specs,
[00:33] the extremely compromised durability,
and of course the crease,
[00:36] the massive crease through the middle.
So every year,
[00:39] foldables have gotten better and
better and better and better from
[00:42] a bunch of different companies...
[00:44] as they slowly tackled each
one of those compromises...
[00:47] So foldables have gotten thinner,
and they've gotten bigger batteries,
[00:50] and they've gotten better
hinges and smaller creases,
[00:53] and that's all led to this.
The Oppo Find
[00:55] N6 does seem kind of random
that this is now peak foldable,
[00:58] but I actually think by the end of
this video you'll agree with me.
[01:02] So the obvious problem number one with
old foldables was that they sucked to
[01:06] use one-handed since they're thicker,
[01:08] they have worse bezels,
[01:09] and just they're generally compromised
versus a normal slab phone.
[01:12] But we've seen this string
of thinner foldable phones,
[01:14] especially in the past few years,
and now you look at the Oppo Find N6
[01:18] from the front,
[01:19] you'd hardly know it's
just a normal slab phone.
[01:21] Now you do have the telltale,
but asymmetrical, metal,
[01:23] so rounded corners on one side,
square corners on the hinge side;
[01:26] that's how you'd be able to know.
[01:27] But other than that,
[01:28] it just looks like a
normal 6.6-inch phone.
[01:31] Oppo has been absolutely cooking
with the materials and the build,
[01:34] so when you pick it up and use it,
[01:36] it genuinely feels like a regular slab
phone because it's the same size as one.
[01:40] Now this phone is just
under 9 millimeters thin and
[01:43] weighs around 230 grams.
For context,
[01:45] the iPhone 17 Pro Max is also
just under 9 millimeters thin
[01:48] and around 230 grams. So...
[01:49] so this is effectively a no-compromises...
[01:51] normal phone, at least dimensions-wise
[01:54] before you even open the thing.
[01:55] So many of the previous foldables,
[01:57] I remember using them and it was
like you can use the outside screen,
[02:01] but you...
didn't really want to;
[02:02] you'd rather just open it up
and get to the better screen.
[02:05] But this, you could just use like normal.
[02:07] It's perfectly fine to take pictures with,
[02:10] to watch videos on, to text on,
because the keyboard isn't too small,
[02:14] it's a normal aspect ratio.
[02:15] It's great.
[02:16] And it also has all the flagship specs
by the way: 3600 nits peak brightness,
[02:20] and...
1800 nits fullscreen.
[02:21] So it's very viewable everywhere outdoors.
[02:24] Super responsive, 1-120Hz LTPO,
high-frequency PWM dimming,
[02:28] the whole thing.
Now,
[02:29] folding in half also always has
presented a bunch of challenges
[02:32] with just the physics of
[02:33] fitting stuff in a smaller, thinner
[02:35] form factor that has to split.
[02:37] So for years these folding phones
[02:39] never really had flagship cameras
because there wasn't enough room.
[02:42] And also the batteries would always
be smaller because they had to
[02:45] split it in half around a hinge,
[02:47] which is tough 'cause you're
trying to power a bigger display.
[02:50] But it's 2026.
[02:51] So now of course the tech has
evolved to the point where we
[02:54] have silicon-carbon batteries.
[02:56] And this ultra-thin phone split in half
[02:58] still has a total of a 6,000 mAh battery!
[03:01] which is more than a lot
of slab phones already,
[03:04] plus 80-watt charging and
50-watt wireless charging.
[03:06] And then as far as cameras: so
the physical sensor size can never
[03:10] quite be the same as a slab phone,
[03:12] because again, it's split in half.
[03:14] So there's just not as much
room in the Z-axis dimension.
[03:17] But there has been
development of some big sen...
[03:21] with shallow Z-axis thickness
specifically to fit in thinner phones.
[03:25] So this phone has the same ISOCELL
HP5 sensor that's in the S25 Edge
[03:30] 200 megapixels, 1/1.56 inches,
optically stabilized.
[03:33] So there is that,
[03:34] plus a 50-megapixel ultrawide
and a 50-megapixel 3x telephoto.
[03:39] And then, I don't know if you remember,
[03:41] but folding phones used to have
significantly lesser chips too.
[03:44] Less room inside, less...
[03:46] less room for cooling.
[03:47] This phone has a Snapdragon
8 Elite Gen 5 inside,
[03:49] but a binned version with one less core.
[03:51] So for all intents and purposes,
[03:53] I think we can say it's a flagship
chip and maximizing what you
[03:56] can do in that thin of a space.
Plus,
[03:58] there's a new dedicated S1 chip
for better network performance...
[04:02] So now, despite being ultra-thin and
[04:04] chopped in half, this thing has
[04:06] flagship displays, flagship chips,
flagship specs, high-end cameras.
[04:09] It's also IP59 water- and
dust-resistance rated,
[04:12] which used to be nuts for foldables,
but now you can just...
[04:15] spill water on this
thing and it'll be fine.
[04:17] But the pièce de résistance
[04:19] for this
[04:20] N6 is, without question,
[04:22] this center display.
[04:24] For years...
[04:25] for folding phones,
we've gotten used to them, you know,
[04:28] having an amazing folding screen,
but also having a small crease...
[04:32] in the middle.
And the crease, you know,
[04:34] it's just one of those
things where on most phones,
[04:36] most of the time, it doesn't bother you.
[04:38] Trust me,
as someone who's used these phones,
[04:40] I've said before: it's like bezels.
Most of the time,
[04:42] you're just looking at
the content or reading
[04:44] or typing, so you're not really seeing it.
[04:46] But every once in a while,
it catches the light the right way,
[04:49] or you run your finger over it...
and it just hits.
[04:51] You're reminded of it,
and so you can still notice it sometimes.
[04:54] but!...
not with this phone.
[04:56] So the N6 has this new thing they
developed called the No-Feel Crease.
[05:00] And
[05:01] I'd seen the marketing, I'd heard,
I'd watched some videos about it,
[05:03] but they're mostly sponsored,
so I was a bit skeptical...
[05:06] Okay.
But I got it in my hands,
[05:07] and this thing is
actually super impressive!
[05:10] You open it up,
it's the classic big square, 8.1 inches,
[05:13] corner-to-corner,
[05:14] same fullscreen brightness,
same 1-120Hz LTPO, same PWM dimming.
[05:17] But you might notice there's
basically no perceptible crease here.
[05:21] I mean, there's...
[05:22] there's a little bit of crease
if you're really looking for it.
[05:25] But compared to other foldables
we've seen and that I've used,
[05:29] this is basically no crease.
[05:31] And the extra bit of engineering
that goes into solving...
[05:34] this last problem
[05:36] is actually...
very intricate.
[05:38] And they're already doing a bunch
of the stuff that everyone
[05:41] else has already thought of,
[05:43] like softening the crease radius by
doing a teardrop shape when it's folded.
[05:47] But the main innovation here
[05:49] is with this hinge: they literally
laser-scan each individual titanium
[05:53] hinge to map the slightest
variations across the surface.
[05:56] Then...
[05:57] 3D-print a liquid polymer
to fill in the exact...
[06:00] micro-gaps to perfectly smooth out...
[06:02] the hinge,
and then harden it with ultraviolet light
[06:05] it is incredibly complicated.
[06:06] But the end result...
[06:07] is they minimize the surface-level
variations across the hinge...
[06:11] from 0.2 millimeters down to 0.05...
millimeters,
[06:14] which is apparently less than
half a human hair thickness.
[06:17] So that,
[06:18] combined with the slightly thicker
layer of top glass that they're using,
[06:22] really makes a big
[06:23] visual difference and feel difference.
[06:25] A lot of these foldables also,
they look great out the box,
[06:29] but the more you use it, as you know,
the more you fold and unfold it,
[06:33] the deeper that crease becomes,
the more you notice it.
[06:36] This process, they're saying
[06:38] is good for
[06:39] 600,000 folds and still
not showing any significant
[06:42] crease.
which, you know,
[06:44] obviously I've been folding
and unfolding this a lot...
[06:47] but not that many times,
[06:48] so I'm just going to have
to take their word for it.
[06:51] But yeah, now...
that
[06:52] really that's the last few percent...
of like,
[06:54] quality of life when
you're using a foldable,
[06:57] never really...
noticing or perceiving the crease...
[07:00] at all.
[07:01] And the cherry on top is,
unlike Samsung's Fold,
[07:03] it actually has pen support...
[07:05] So there's this little half case you can
snap on the back of this phone that holds
[07:09] the pen near the coil so it wireless
charges from the phone's battery.
[07:13] And then yeah,
it works on both the front cover screen...
[07:17] and...
[07:17] the interior display with more
than 4,000 levels of pressure
[07:20] sensitivity and minimal lag.
So
[07:22] if you're the artist type or
the handwritten note type,
[07:25] this display has digitizer
layer to keep that dream alive.
[07:28] And yes,
it charges because it does have Bluetooth,
[07:32] so it can still be used
[07:33] as a remote camera shutter.
[07:36] So now in 2026, this Oppo Find N6...
[07:38] is complete...
[07:39] as far as I'm concerned.
[07:41] We've gone through
[07:42] one by one each of the potential
[07:45] compromises of a folding phone...
[07:47] and engineered them away.
[07:49] So aside from the price tag, of course,
this is effectively
[07:53] a regular phone that just
[07:55] happens to fold in half.
[07:57] And so yeah, peak foldable...
[07:58] we've arrived, I guess,
[08:00] which of course got me thinking about
the obvious elephant in the room.
[08:04] We are saying all of this before
[08:06] Apple jumps in the ring with what
we expect to be a folding iPhone.
[08:09] The rumors are saying it's
probably going to be this year,
[08:12] end of this year.
[08:13] And actually that makes perfect
sense because that's what Apple
[08:15] does with emerging technologies.
[08:17] That's kind of their thing.
[08:18] They'll sit on the sidelines for
the first few cycles while the
[08:21] the most aggressive, daring companies
[08:23] innovate and work out all the bugs
and the kinks and the compromises.
[08:27] And then once that
technology is mature enough,
[08:30] that's when they jump in with all
the learnings from everyone
[08:33] else and like an Apple-ified...
version of it.
[08:35] So that's Vision Pro jumping
into the world that already
[08:38] existed of VR headsets...
[08:39] that's HomePod jumping into the world
that already existed of smart speakers.
[08:43] Heck, that's what the original iPhone did,
jumping into the already existing world...
[08:48] of mobile phones.
[08:49] So now that we're at peak foldable
and we've sort of engineered away the
[08:53] compromises and we've got to this
point where the tech is mature,
[08:57] it's ready for Apple to jump
in if they wanted to and...
[09:00] do their own...
Apple-ified version.
[09:02] The question is what is the,
[09:04] what is the Apple-ified
thing for a foldable?
[09:06] Because you know,
[09:07] typically when they
jump in a new category,
[09:09] their cheat code is just by making
theirs the version that works
[09:13] well with the iPhone...
[09:14] and that automatically gets you a
bunch of users from iPhone land.
[09:17] But this is an iPhone
[09:19] Fold...
So what's the trick?
[09:20] Will it, like,
run a special iPadOS when it's open?
[09:23] Or maybe, you know,
[09:24] every foldable has multi-window support
and extra multitasking features,
[09:28] so maybe that will make its
way to the iPhone Fold too.
[09:31] Maybe...
Don't really know, software-wise.
[09:33] But the one
[09:34] big,
[09:35] weird thing that the rumors
are actually pointing to is
[09:38] playing with aspect ratio again.
[09:40] Cause so many of these modern foldables,
full-size folds have trended towards the,
[09:44] like,
[09:45] regular slab phone aspect
ratio when it's closed.
[09:47] And we talked about this,
[09:48] that leaves you with the
square when you open it up,
[09:51] which is bigger.
But it is a little bit compromised.
[09:54] It's not as good for
[09:55] widescreen media, things like that.
[09:57] But this iPhone Fold is
supposed to be more of a small,
[10:00] passport-style, so a short,
squat,
[10:02] like five-and-a-half-inch
display while it's closed,
[10:05] and then that opens up to
an almost 8-inch widescreen,
[10:08] kind of like a portable iPad mini.
[10:10] There's a little bit of a throwback.
[10:12] We used to see more interesting
shapes in folds a couple years ago
[10:15] even from earlier Oppo Find Ns.
[10:16] So this won't be the first to try it,
and it certainly won't be the last.
[10:19] We'll see how much of the other
stuff like the no-feel crease...
[10:22] and the super-thin build...
[10:23] silicon-carbon battery, flagship cameras,
[10:25] we'll see how much of that other
stuff makes it to the iPhone
[10:28] Fold as well later this year.
[10:30] But we'll see.
I'm looking forward to it.
[10:32] Also subscribe to be among the first
to see that when it does come out,
[10:35] because we'll cover it
here on the channel.
[10:38] Thanks for watching.
[10:40] Catch you guys in the next one.
[10:42] Peace!