The ‘Wide’ Foldable Era is upon us, and it’s the most excited about phones I’ve been in years

I’ll be the first to admit it: I’m bored with smartphones lately. I’ve been eligible for a phone upgrade for months, but every time I look at the current crop of flagships, I find myself questioning what I would even buy if I were to actually go through with it. Even the Galaxy Z Fold 7, as refined as it is, hasn’t been able to nudge me into a new phone.

The problem? It’s too square when opened up.

Using a square internal display for video consumption (and sometimes for gaming, too) many times feels like a compromise. You end up with massive black bars or a cropped-in image that negates the benefit of having a larger screen in the first place. But thanks to a new look at the soon-arriving Huawei Pura X Max, we are getting our first real look at the “wide” form factor that is about to take over this part of the industry; and it’s exactly what I’ve been holding out for.

Both displays make more sense

The biggest complaint with many foldables in the early days (like my Galaxy Z Fold 5) was the outer cover screen. They were often tall, skinny, and cramped, making even a quick text message feel like a chore. I’ve become used to it over the last year or so, but I still don’t love it.

As the category matured, the outer screen issue has been fixed completely. Devices like the Pixel 9 Pro Fold (and 10, by extension) and Galaxy Z Fold 7 have perfectly normal display ratios on the outer screen, making them great to use when closed up.

But this only exacerbated the squareness of the inner screen, bringing these newer devices exceedingly close to a 1:1 aspect ratio on the larger display. The overall viewing area is larger, sure, but so little content is actually any good at all on a square screen.

The new, upcoming “wide” design we’re going to see more of this year fixes this. You get a front display that actually should be pretty usable, but not quite as tall as a standard smartphone. It’ll be comfortable to type on, large enough for your daily tasks, and yet, because it’s shorter, it should still slide into a pocket without any issue.

The difference a wide-screen makes

But the real magic happens when you open it. By shifting to a wider aspect ratio (roughly 16:11 on the Huawei), the internal screen becomes a genuine small tablet rather than an awkward square. For someone like me, this changes everything:

• Gaming: You actually get a field of view that makes sense for modern titles. Vertical viewing space is slightly helpful, but left-to-right visibility is far more helpful.
• Video: You finally get to utilize the screen real estate for movies and YouTube without the “black bar” tax.
• Multitasking: Side-by-side apps will have way more horizontal freedom to display their contents, and this could be helpful across a myriad of use cases.
• Android Desktop: With all the changes coming to Android Desktop, a proper wide-screen foldable should pair great with a mouse, keyboard, and external display to create quite the workstation.

The industry shift

While we won’t see the Pura X Max on store shelves in the US, its arrival is the start of a substantial shift with foldables this year. With rumors swirling that Apple’s first foldable and a new “Wide” variant of the Galaxy Z Fold are both landing this year, it feels like the “square” era was just the awkward teenage phase of the foldable market.

I’m finally excited about new phones again. If you’ve been bored by the incremental updates of the now-utilitarian devices we all carry these days, you might want to keep your upgrade credit in your pocket just a little bit longer. The wide-screen foldable revolution is on the horizon, and it looks like it might really be worth the wait.