The High and Low End Phones - 2019

High End of Phones - Folding screen Phones

2019 will remain special for smartphone enthusiasts as foldable phones made their way to shelves. The first one to be commercially available (Royole FlexPai) was the one which was most critisized by reviewers due to it's no confidence inspiring hinge for screen fold and inappropriate software experience. 

Samsung fold gained most attention as it's screen started to rip days after it was handed to reviewers. Reviewers had removed a film on screen that wasn't supposed to be. Samsung got away from Note 7 like fiasco as this came to lime-light before public launch. Despite initial negative feedback on screen fragility, Samsung fold recieved worldwide acceptance on it's relaunch, as being the best attempt for a folding phone by any smartphone maker in 2019.

Huawei Mate X was seen as strong competitor to Samsung Fold at it's showcase event, but it never got available to buy for common people, most probably due to U.S. ban on Huawei. 

Motorola Razr's re-introduction in late 2019 as folding screen phone revived nostalgia.

 LG took a more conserative approach with it's G8X ThinQ, launching it with two fully seperate screens held in case. Looking at leaked images of Samsung next foldable, folding screen phones future seems to be good. Folding screen phones in early stages are very expensive and defintely not for rough usage. It is very hard to comment on time frame till which we can expect a good folding screen phone in budget segment but this feature will likely remain a hot topic in 2020.

Low End of Phones - Feature Phones

Unlike smartphone, feature phone market has continued to grow in last three years. More than 400 million feature phones were sold globally in 2019 and this number is expected to rise to 1 billion by 2021. India and Middle East Africa capture more than half of global feature phone market share. iTel, Nokia, Jio and Samsung are major feature phone makers worldwide. Nokia showcased two interesting feature phones in 2019 - Nokia 2720 Flip and Nokia 800 Tough.

As the name suggests, Nokia 800 tough is IP68 and MIL-STD-810G certified making it dust, water and shock resistant. Powered by the Qualcomm 205 mobile platform, it runs on KaiOS. It is made for those who prefer weeks long battery life but still want to keep in touch of digital world with apps like google assistant, facebook and whatsapp.

On the other hand, Nokia 2720 flip has a claimsheel like design with small outer display for notifications, revealing a much larger inner display on flipping it open.