Samsung Galaxy Z Fold2 diary: Flex Mode is what we will buy smartphones with foldable screens for

Smartphones with foldable screens are truly ushering in a new era of phone usage. This

at the same time both new and “well forgotten”, andtherefore, the form factor is understandable and familiar to us. But the most important thing about these devices is the foldable display, which is not created as a demonstration of capabilities and technology for the sake of technology. It will create new opportunities for application developers, which will inevitably result in new useful user experiences for all of us. This new feature is Flex Mode, which first appeared in the Galaxy Z Flip clamshell, and now in the new Galaxy Z Fold2, which added new functions and expanded the number of applications that work in it.

What is Flex Mode and why is it needed

I don’t know about you, but I’m in the February presentationUnpacked, which presented the Galaxy S20 series, was most impressed not by this flagship, but by the Z Flip flip phone. And I especially liked that the developers immediately thought about what new use cases a folding smartphone screen could provide, proposing to use an external display while shooting. In this case, the second part of the foldable smartphone plays the role of a phone stand - it can be placed on a table or any other flat surface. This is what they called Flex Mode: literally “flexible mode”, in which the main screen is divided into two independent parts, formally maintaining one application window (this is not a multi-window mode, this is different - everything happens in one application). At the same time, the usefulness of the mode was so obvious that the company announced the very next day after the world premiere that it would appear on all other Samsung smartphones with a flexible display, which is certainly correct.


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Document on the Samsung developer sitesays that Flex Mode is a mode in which the display is slightly open and it has two states (we already know that this is an opening of 75 and 115 degrees, as well as a technology called CAM, which allows you to fix this). At 75 degrees, the external screen is used (for example, for watching videos or making video calls), while the second part of the smartphone acts as a convenient stand (yes, this still seems like a small advantage for a smartphone costing a couple of thousand dollars, but think about how quickly the world will change and in a few years such devices will conquer the market). You no longer need to hold your smartphone in your hands or look for some kind of replacement stand, leaning it somewhere where the phone risks slipping and lying flat.


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The second mode uses the main screen, whichsplits into two independent zones, transforming into a kind of subnotebook that fits in your pocket. That is, the upper part plays the role of a display, and the lower part serves as a touch screen to control what is happening. For example, you can watch YouTube videos and read comments by scrolling across the bottom of the screen. The screenshot below is of course 2D and may not show you the bending of the screen, but it was shot in Flex Mode.


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How to use this in practice?For example, these pictures were taken in Flex Mode. The smartphone just lay on the floor, I chose a comfortable angle by adjusting the angle of the cover. If it weren't for a smartphone with a foldable screen, I would probably have to lie on the floor to get these shots, capturing the scene I needed.


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This is what it looks like in life. The upper part of the screen works as the camera viewfinder, the lower part allows you to control the camera settings and see a preview of the pictures taken.


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Which applications have Flex Mode

There are only a few of them so far:this is the smartphone camera (and I must say, it alone is enough to make working in Flex Mode cause a wow effect), YouTube and video calling applications (for example, Google Duo). Here you can add video playback on an external screen, when the second half of the smartphone plays the role of a natural stand, because formally this is also Flex Mode. This minimal set is already worth it to give the Galaxy Z Fold2 user the daily feeling that he made the right choice and bought what he needed - something new, advanced and technologically advanced.


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Obviously, Flex Mode, like the entire segmentsmartphones with foldable displays are at the very beginning of their journey. But already today they give what they were created for - new sensations and new possibilities that are inaccessible to traditional smartphones. And in the future, we will get even more applications with Flex Mode support - Google has not in vain fit into this topic, clearly intending to add the corresponding functionality, using the capabilities of smartphones with flexible screens for Android application developers.

Three things to know about Flex Mode

  • This is a new mode that works in smartphones with flexible displays, opening up new dimensions of the user experience.
  • When working in it, the main screen of the application is divided into two independent zones.
  • The application must be adapted to work in Flex Mode.