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Foldable Phones Have Solved Nearly Every Trade-Off, Well Before Apple Debuts One

Commentary: Foldable phones have been full of compromises for the longest time, but things are changing slowly and steadily.

While the iPhone Fold is expected to launch later this year, foldable phones appear to be finding their place well before Apple releases its first. It’s been a long road to get here since the 2019 release of Samsung’s Galaxy Fold, but the maturity of the foldable phone couldn’t be coming at a better time. While the early phones in this category were thicker, expensive and had a very noticeable crease, many of these issues are on their way out.

Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 7, for instance, is thin enough to feel like a standard slab phone while folded. The new Honor Magic V6 has a larger battery capacity than the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra. Huawei’s Mate X7 has a 50-megapixel main camera with a 10-stop variable aperture — a feature previously limited to top-of-the-line camera phones. And Oppo finally fixed the crease issue with its Find N6 foldable phone, making an almost flat inner screen in the process. These are all quality-of-life upgrades that led me to shift from my iPhone 17 Pro Max full-time. I love the foldable phones for their productivity-focused use, and they no longer hold back on design, battery life or (to an extent) cameras.

These improvements appear to be reflected in sales numbers. The global foldable phone shipments were expected to grow 10% in 2025 compared with 2024, according to a December report from market research firm IDC. This number is expected to continue growing in 2026, with an expected 30% year-on-year jump.

This uptake shows that the foldable category is ready for wider audiences, and these features that we’re seeing right now are the reasons why they are ready to shine.

Creaseless folding screens are now a reality

For the longest time, foldable phones have had a deep bump (crease) running through the middle of their inner screens. While Chinese phone manufacturers minimized it with a water-drop hinge design, the crease has been very much present. That’s why seeing the creaseless concept screen from Samsung Display at CES 2026 was one of my highlights of the tradeshow.

However, the mobile vertical, Samsung Mobile, has yet to use it on a consumer product. While the Korean company surprised me with its thin and light Galaxy Z Fold 7, its crease wasn’t impressively less. In fact, it has only deepened with use over time. I put it next to the new Oppo Find N6, and the difference was night and day.

The Find N6 has set a new standard for book-style foldables. Oppo used 3D-printed liquid photopolymer droplets in the gap between the hinge and the inner screen. These droplets filled the imperfections inherent to each hinge mechanism in a bid to reduce the height variance from the industry standard of 0.2mm to just 0.05mm, as per the company.

This resulted in an almost crease-free folding screen. You can’t feel it unless you rub your nail (slightly) firmly in the middle of the display. The crease is still there, but Oppo has gotten pretty darn close to getting a fully flat canvas.

The Oppo Find N6 is claimed to be 338% more deformation-resistant than before, which should, theoretically, prevent the crease from deepening over time. It is one of those features that will push other phone manufacturers to do better and hopefully, give us more foldable phones with minimal creases.

Antireflective screens for the win

As someone who is outdoors most of the time, I’ve been a big fan of Samsung’s antireflective screens, starting with the Galaxy S24 Ultra. It had a slightly dimmer display, but that issue was solved with the Galaxy S25 Ultra last year. I like antireflective coatings because they make the screens more legible in harsh lighting conditions — whether outdoors or in direct light inside public spaces. And this feature is now slowly coming to foldable phones. It’s a crucial upgrade because, unlike slab phones, you can’t add third-party matte screen protectors on folding screens.

Honor introduced an antireflective matte cover screen on the Magic V5 and improved it with the Magic V6 this year. On the other hand, Oppo added this coating to its inner screen with the Find N5 and upgraded its latest iteration. As a result, these phones are easier to use outdoors, especially when you’re navigating maps or reading on your commute.

It makes more sense to have an anti-reflective coating on the inner screen because most of those folding displays attract smudges very easily (due to their glossy plastic properties). I have to wipe my Fold 7 every time I unfold it on the commute. I like having an expansive canvas to read, but smudges combined with high reflectivity result in a poor viewing experience. I have to wipe the Oppo Find N6 too, but it offers better legibility even on a smudged panel.

Ideally, I’d love to have an antireflective coating on both the cover screen and the inner display, but we’ve yet to see a foldable phone of that kind. However, we’re getting closer with each generation.

Larger batteries in slimmer designs

Battery life is arguably the most important feature in any mobile device. I wouldn’t want to have all the bells and whistles only for my phone to die in the middle of the day. This is corroborated by the readers who voted in a CNET/YouGov survey. They ranked «longer battery life» second only to price among reasons to upgrade to a new phone.

Having a larger cell in a phone matters to most people, and it is made possible by silicon-carbon batteries. It is a relatively new type of power source that’s denser than lithium-ion batteries. As a result, phone manufacturers can fit more battery capacity in the same body. This is how the OnePlus 15 has a 7,300-mAh cell, and the Realme P4 Power packs a 10,001-mAh battery without weighing more than the iPhone 17 Pro Max.

While Apple, Samsung and Google have refrained from adopting silicon-carbon anode batteries, the tech is already maturing elsewhere. Honor was one of the first phone manufacturers to adopt it with the Magic 5 Pro in 2023 and is already on the fifth generation with its new Magic V6.

A silicon-carbon battery becomes more important on foldable phones because they have space constraints and require more display power for their larger screens. The new-gen batteries are slimmer than traditional ones and allow for more cell capacity inside a foldable’s slim body.

Samsung has yet to use it in a device, which is why the Galaxy Z Fold 7 is stuck with a 4,400-mAh battery. Meanwhile, the Honor Magic V6, Oppo Find N6 and Huawei Mate X7 have much bigger 6,600-mAh, 6,000-mAh and 5,600-mAh cells, respectively.

I hope both the upcoming Apple iPhone Fold and Galaxy Z Fold 8 adopt this type of battery so we get all-day power on foldable phones in the US.

Close to flagship cameras

Cameras have been one of the most problematic compromises on foldable phones. They are right up there with noticeable creases and smaller batteries. After all, nobody would like to get an inferior set of cameras on a phone that costs considerably more than traditional flagship phones. But that’s changed in the last few months.

In December, Huawei launched the Mate X7 with a 50-megapixel main camera with a 10-stop variable aperture ranging from f/1.5 to f/4.0. This allows it to take in 86% more light than before and perform better in low light, according to the company. On the other hand, both Oppo and Samsung have high-resolution 200-megapixel main cameras on their latest folding phones.

Honor, Oppo, Vivo and Huawei foldables also have capable telephoto cameras for improved zoom. These are combined with exceptional processing (in some cases) for pleasing-looking portraits. While there’s room for improvement, these cameras are on par with the Galaxy S26 Ultra and Pixel 10 Pro. And they’re no longer the weak point they used to be on foldable phones.

True multitasking that takes advantage of the big screen

When OnePlus Open debuted in 2023, it was hailed for its Open Canvas multitasking feature. The foldable allows you to use up to three apps simultaneously without needing a pop-up window. I used it to research in two browsers side by side and add notes in a Google Docs file at the bottom. I loved the experience, especially when compared to Samsung’s multitasking.

Vivo upped the game last year with its Stage Manager-like Atomic Workbench on the X Fold 5. It added pinned windows to the side of the screen, so I could have one app for focused use with another just a tap away for quick reference. It was a refreshing experience to get that level of multitasking on a mobile device without needing an external accessory for support.

Multitasking on Android should only get better with Android 17, as Google has made it mandatory for apps to properly support resizing and windowed multitasking on the new version. Existing foldable phones like the Galaxy Z Fold 7 and Pixel 10 Pro Fold should benefit significantly from this improvement.

In the Apple land, the upcoming iPhone Fold will support iPad-like multitasking, according to a report from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman. You should expect a side-by-side app layout for true multitasking, which has been notably absent from iOS despite being supported by Android phones for years. The Cupertino-based company is reportedly also updating its core apps with a sidebar on the left side of the screen to take advantage of the larger screen.

More durable foldable phone designs

While many of the aforementioned features are shared by multiple foldable phones, only one device — the Google Pixel 10 Pro Fold — is rated for true dust resistance.

An IP rating might be an afterthought when purchasing a new mobile phone, but it becomes more important on a folding phone than on a slab phone. That’s because small dust particles like pocket lint can penetrate foldables through their moving parts, especially around the hinge corners.

Most of these phones (Oppo, Honor and Vivo, among others) are now IP58 or IP59 rated for resistance against harmful dust particles, water submersion and high-pressure water jets, whereas the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 is still stuck at IP48. The «4» means it is protected against solid objects larger than 1mm, but pocket lint and dust are smaller than 1mm. So, these tiny particles can enter the phone and potentially harm the internals.

On the other hand, the «5» in IP58 or IP59 stands for a dust-resistant design and not a dust-tight build. This means it is protected against tiny solid particles (less than 1mm), but they can still enter the phone. That’s why Google’s IP68 rating on the Pixel 10 Pro Fold was a game changer last year. It made a foldable phone with moving parts that’s truly dust-tight, at least according to IEC’s rating guide. This is a major win for durability, and I hope we see more companies work on their phones to make dust-tight designs.

In 2026, we could get multiple different-looking foldable phones. Some might be taller, while others could be wider.

I’m stoked because, for the first time in modern folding phones’ existence, it feels like they have a chance to compete with the best phones in the market. The hardware, software and technology required for it to function flawlessly are finally coming together. These improvements should give us foldable phones that don’t compromise on anything (albeit the price, I don’t expect them to get cheaper anytime soon).

The Pixel 10 Pro Fold Looks Gorgeous in Jade

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Anthropic Reins In Subscribers’ Unlimited AI Use for OpenClaw

It may be the year of the AI agent but Claude’s «all-you-can-eat buffet» is over.

Anthropic over the weekend told subscribers they’d have to pay up for heavy use of its Claude AI models to power third-party agents like OpenClaw. 

Users with monthly subscriptions can still use Claude models, including Opus, Sonnet and Haiku, through these third-party agents. But you’ll have to pay via Anthropic’s API or use a «pay-as-you-go option» that will be billed separately from your Claude subscription payment.

«The $20/month all-you-can-eat buffet just closed,» wrote AI product manager Aakash Gupta on X. 

At the same time, Anthropic recently announced new features that bring some of the things that made OpenClaw so popular into Claude itself. Claude can use your computer, even if you’re not at it, for example. 

Why this policy matters 

There has been growing tension between OpenAI and Anthropic, recently inflamed by the controversies involving contracts with the US Defense Department. But there is also tension between users who want to run autonomous AI agents constantly and the AI labs that are trying to control costs by managing the tasks their models are used for. 

Claude is a chatbot that was created to be prompted by humans, not for millions of AI agents to use it for workflows. These agent tools, like Manis and OpenClaw, require much more power to run and burn through tokens faster than regular human chatting. Anthropic has already taken steps to address the demand that heavy agent users bring, like a five-hour session cap during peak periods for the models.

«We’ve been working to manage demand across the board, but these tools put an outsized strain on our systems,» Anthropic wrote in its email to customers.

OpenAI has been all-in on agentic tools. Early this year, the AI company hired Peter Steinberger, the creator of OpenClaw, with the aim of bringing AI agents to a broad audience. Steinberger was vocal about his critiques of Anthropic’s new policy, taking to X over the weekend. 

«Funny how timings match up, first they copy some popular features into their closed harness, then they lock out open source,» he wrote. 

(Disclosure: Ziff Davis, CNET’s parent company, in 2025 filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.)

The future of agent compute power 

Friction between heavy agent users and AI companies is likely to get worse. These AI agent tools are extremely powerful: they can run for hours, take actions across apps like Gmail, Slack and iMessage, and work autonomously much longer and faster than a human could. Because of this power, they are far more costly and require far more power to run compared to a human prompting a bot. It’s likely that AI companies will increasingly push these compute costs onto heavy users through price increases or steps like those taken by Anthropic.

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My Running Tests Left Me Feeling Like the Moto Watch Is Low-Key Catfishing

The Polar partnership and $150 price tag had me sold. Then I actually lived with it.

The Moto Watch feels like a kid trying their hardest to stand out in a sport, only to walk away with a participation trophy. Having spent years reviewing pricey fitness trackers and smartwatches, I know how rare it is for a relatively affordable $150 device to arrive with real fitness credibility, so I was genuinely rooting for this one. When Motorola announced a partnership with Polar, along with dual-band GPS and week-long battery life at this price, it sounded like a breakthrough moment. I thought this could be Motorola’s big return to relevance in wearables.

Then I actually used it for a few weeks and reality set in.

Motorola isn’t a stranger to this space. The Moto 360 helped define early Android wearables back in 2014, and made a strong impression doing so. But the years since have been relatively slow on its wearables front. This new Moto Watch is its most serious attempt at breaking through the space in a while, and the Polar partnership gives it a level of fitness-tracking street cred that’s rare at this price.

But theory and execution don’t quite align here. At $150, the Moto Watch isn’t trying to compete directly with higher-end wearables from Samsung or Google; rather, it’s trying to carve out a league of its own with this big-screen 47mm watch. And it’s no home run — yet.

The Polar partnership, tested

The Polar integration is the headline feature that had me excited to put it through the paces. The brand is synonymous with accuracy among serious endurance athletes, and its H10 chest strap is the gold standard we reach for at CNET for heart rate benchmarking on other devices.

So I took both to a college track — three miles (12 laps) — with the watch unpaired from my phone and the chest strap recording simultaneously for comparison. The watch consistently kept up, but I noticed it struggled to keep pace during my sprints.

The workout summaries showed similar numbers, which is why I prefer exporting the raw, second-by-second heart rate data to get more granular. The Polar app makes it easy to export a spreadsheet of your HR data, but the Moto Watch is running it’s own app, and there was no export option. I had to settle for comparing the snapshot of metrics that I got from the workout summary. 

The graphs looked similar at first glance, with matching peaks and valleys during the laps when I picked up my pace. The average heart rate was only one beat off from the chest strap. But the watch seemed to smooth out the spikes, and the max heart rate was off by seven beats (173 bpm on the watch versus 180 bpm on the chest strap). That kind of gap is pretty standard for wrist-based tracking, which measures blood flow rather than the heart’s electrical signals. Still, you may not be getting full credit for your effort if you plan to use this as a serious training tool.

Distance tracking was another reality check. Dual-band GPS is usually reserved for higher-end sports watches, so I had high hopes that the Moto Watch would be right on track. It took a while to lock onto a satellite and dropped connection more than once during my 30-minute run. By the end, it had given me 0.15 miles of extra credit. That’s about a 5% error rate, which sounds small until you’re training for a half-marathon and your long runs keep coming back inflated. It’s fine for casual activity tracking, but this is no Garmin replacement.

Health features

Away from the track, the Polar integration holds up better. The watch monitors heart rate, blood oxygen and stress levels throughout the day, though it lacks more advanced features such as ECG or temperature tracking. Wear it to bed (if you can) and you’ll get sleep stages plus a Nightly Recharge Status, Polar’s version of a recovery or readiness score that can help guide training intensity.

But it’s just too bulky to wear comfortably while sleeping. I only wore it to bed once during my month-long testing journey because I felt like the larger size got in the way of my sleep quality. Admittedly, I’m averse to sleeping with accessories on; I don’t even wear my wedding ring to bed. Testing wearables always means making a few concessions, but the Moto Watch just didn’t make the cut for what I’m willing to put up with. It’s definitely more Garmin Fēnix 8 Pro level bulk than Pixel Watch, which I’m ok wearing to bed. 

Design: It screams ‘bro’

Motorola positioned this watch as the Clark Kent of smartwatches: a fitness watch cloaked in a polished suit that can go from sweat session to the boardroom. That was the pitch. What landed on my desk, was a different picture with much less polish than I had envisioned. Strapping it on only made matters worse, because it’s 47mm watch looked (and felt) as if it had swallowed my 6.5-inch wrist.

The 1.43-inch OLED touchscreen wasn’t the problem — that was the bright spot. It’s more responsive and more vivid than you’d expect at this price, with slim bezels thanks to a cleverly positioned dial.

You also get a rotating crown for scrolling or clicks, plus a programmable side button. The aluminum case looks polished, too, but it’s easy to miss. The oversized black silicone straps run straight into the frame with no visual break, making the whole thing look like one continuous slab.

Turns out all it needed was a stylist. The desperation of having to wear this thing for weeks put me in problem-solving mode, and I realized the straps were standard width (22mm) and easily swappable with third-party bands you can buy anywhere. Once I switched them, it finally looked like the watch Motorola had sold me. It still screamed «bro,» but it was board room bro.

A battery that just won’t quit  

After a three-mile outdoor run with GPS active and no phone, plus a full day of notifications popping up on its always-on display, most flagships would be down to their last breath, but not the Moto Watch. This smartwatch barely broke a sweat and finished the day at 85% battery. 

With the always-on display (and no sleep tracking), I made it a full week on a full charge. Switch the screen activation from always-on to raise to wake and Motorola promises it will last 13 days, which I didn’t test, but it seems totally feasible. This is impressive even by sports watch standards.

For the right person, battery life alone could be the reason to buy this. 

App, setup and smartwatch functionality

Out of the box, the watch has notifications turned off and set to raise to wake (probably to help get you to the promised 13 days of battery life). And while that might work for some people, I spent most of my first day wondering why nothing was happening on my wrist. If you like to get a heads-up on what’s going on in your phone, I suggest you dig into settings before you start wearing it.

I was skeptical because the watch runs on Motorola’s proprietary software rather than Android’s Wear OS, though it seems like a very bare-bones knockoff. Text previews come through, call notifications work and basic alert handling is fine. But there are a lot of trade-offs that left me wondering why they went rogue in the first place, especially because it still only works with Android phones. It doesn’t support message replies from the wrist, Google Assistant, NFC payments or much of a third-party app ecosystem. For replacing quick glances at your phone notifications, it works. For anyone hoping to actually interact with their phone from their wrist or use their smartwatch to pay for riding a train, it falls short.

The phone app combines health and technical features into one interface, which takes some getting used to, but it ultimately works. It’s a hybrid of Fitbit’s health widget layout and Apple’s activity ring system — almost a blatant borrow, but an effective one for visualizing daily steps, active minutes and calories.

A pricing identity crisis

The Moto Watch is priced to feel like a deal: stellar battery life, dual-band GPS, Polar-backed tracking, blood oxygen, sleep stages and a screen that outperforms its price. On a spec sheet, it punches above its weight.

But $150 is a tricky number. It’s not cheap enough to be an obvious budget pick, and it’s not capable enough to compete at Polar-level performance. The sensor limitations and lack of data export put a ceiling on what that partnership can actually deliver.

Instead, it sits at an awkward intersection, more of a first attempt at carving out something in between. The bones are good. The execution needs work.

Who is this for?

If you’re an Android phone owner who wants sportswatch-level battery life in a sleeker package, this one might be worth a second glance. It’s best suited for casual fitness trackers who want a watch that covers the basics. Serious athletes will want something more precise.

But deal-seekers could be better off with the $160 Fitbit Charge 6 for its additional features or one of the truly budget watches made by Amazfit such as the Bip 6 and Active 2. Style options are limited, and there’s no cycle tracking, so it’s also less appealing for women looking for those features.

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Today’s NYT Connections: Sports Edition Hints and Answers for April 6, #560

Here are hints and the answers for the NYT Connections: Sports Edition puzzle for April 6 No. 560.

Looking for the most recent regular Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle and Strands puzzles.

Today’s Connections: Sports Edition is a tough one. If you’re struggling with today’s puzzle but still want to solve it, read on for hints and the answers.

Connections: Sports Edition is published by The Athletic, the subscription-based sports journalism site owned by The Times. It doesn’t appear in the NYT Games app, but it does in The Athletic’s own app. Or you can play it for free online.

Read more: NYT Connections: Sports Edition Puzzle Comes Out of Beta

Hints for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections: Sports Edition puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.

Yellow group hint: City of Angels.

Green group hint: Winter football.

Blue group hint: Like Hemsworth, but in hoops.

Purple group hint: Cinderellas.

Answers for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

Yellow group: A Los Angeles athlete.

Green group: College football bowl games.

Blue group: Basketball Chrises.

Purple group: Men’s NCAA tournament 16-seeds.

Read more: Wordle Cheat Sheet: Here Are the Most Popular Letters Used in English Words

What are today’s Connections: Sports Edition answers?

The yellow words in today’s Connections

The theme is a Los Angeles athlete. The four answers are Clipper, King, Ram and Spark.

The green words in today’s Connections

The theme is college football bowl games. The four answers are Fiesta, Orange, Rose and Sugar.

The blue words in today’s Connections

The theme is basketball Chrises. The four answers are Bosh, Mullin, Paul and Webber.

The purple words in today’s Connections

The theme is men’s NCAA tournament 16-seeds. The four answers are Howard, Long Island, Prairie View A&M and Siena.

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