What Makes a Samsung Flip Phone Such a Good Buy?

Years ago, before the iPhone and other touchscreen phones successfully captured the fancy of trendy consumers, the Samsung flip phone was among those high on the list of people’s must-haves. It was then a happy, innocent time: when people wanted something touch-screen-y, they usually referred to Palm Pilots—the stylus had replaced the pencil tucked on the typical nerd’s ear. And whenever “advanced mobile phone features” was a topic at any social gathering, it was still cool to interject the phrase “the smaller the better.”

These days, it is difficult to imagine that there was a time when the design direction for mobile gadgets was toward compactness. This was due to the fact that the size of major phones in the 1980s and 1990s was significant enough to make them qualify as some handheld weapon (if the situation demanded). The typical Samsung Flip Phone—or any flip phone for that matter—embodied this desire: compact, small, fits snugly in the palm of one’s hand, packed with then-astonishing digital features such as (hold your breath) a VGA camera and a color LCD display. The most advanced or priciest Samsung flip phones in the early years of the current century were so small that they could pass off as either a locket or a slightly oversized necklace pendant. Mobile phone users delighted over the fact that their little gadget is somewhat “deceiving”: at first glance, the typical Samsung flip phone’s array of astonishing features is not really obvious.

Fast-forward to 2012: currently, Samsung flip phones are no longer as popular as they used to be, due partly to the changing preferences of mobile phone users. We cannot deny the influence of Apple’s iPhone and other such products to sway users’ preference toward gadgets they could control directly with the mere touch of their fingers. And while Samsung is still one of the leading (if not the leading) players in this fast-growing market for touch-screen-driven devices, the company has not completely abandoned the market for Samsung flip phones.

In 2012, the company—as it always has—came out with quite a number of new or upgraded Samsung flip phone models, all catering to a diversity of budgets, features, or tastes.

The Good
When one speaks of the “pros” of a Samsung flip phone, the most obvious is its versatile length. You flip it close, and the phone’s length is reduced in half, like an armadillo. When a Samsung flip phone is closed, it is very easy to conceal or hide in one’s pocket. One could even buy special straps to turn the phone into some sort of pendant—walk any city street in Tokyo, Japan, for instance, and one would often bump into some teenaged girl “wearing” a flip phone around her neck.

You flip it open (some avid users do so with a certain flourish), and the phone instantly becomes comfortably longer—holding it and using it is no longer such a struggle. No matter how small the phone is when closed, it becomes a mobile phone of normal length when opened. Such is the versatility that users of the flip phone have loved over the years.

The Samsung flip phone’s unique design also gives it some amount of protection. The phone fits snugly and safely, and unless you actually forcefully hit it with a blunt object, it is relatively resistant to damage. Moreover, when closed, the cover protects the keys from accidental bumps or presses. Not only that, this form factor means you do not need any extra screen protector—the cover offers more than enough protection when it is flipped close. This is particularly note-worthy for people who often keep their phones in their pockets—it is a common observation that the decals on non-flip phones tend to disappear from the phone’s constant friction against the pocket’s fabric or fibers.

A typical Samsung flip phone also has two screens: the main internal one, and a secondary one located on the outside cover. The secondary LCD screen, when the flip phone is closed, provides the user certain vital information, such as the time, temperature, any new SMS message, access to certain media functions (playing music, turning the volume up or down) or the name and number of whoever is calling. This functionality is such that the user no longer has to flip it open if he or she just wants to check out the time. The internal LCD, the main screen, on the other hand, is usually of high-resolution—it is where the main action happens, as they say. This is the screen on which the user performs all the usual activities—composing a text message, playing a game, personalizing the phone’s features.

The Not-so-good
Strangely, having to “flip open” the phone in order to use it is cited by many users as a major “disadvantage.” Many users find it “annoying” to have to flip open the phone to answer a call, especially during emergencies.

Moreover, the constant need to flip open and close the phone makes the Samsung flip phone vulnerable to wear and tear—the moving parts tend to sustain damage over time, and often, the hinges break down long before the electronics or other parts of the phone show any significant damage.

Flip phones, due to their nature, are of course “chunky.” The form factor also limits the size of the phone’s main screen, making them not very suitable for applications that are hungry for screen real estate, such as Web browsing or some tweaking with images or camera usage.

Currently, the Samsung flip phone seems to have given way to Samsung’s multiple attempts at churning out iPhone clones or wannabes—its most recent lineup consists almost exclusively of touch-screen phones or semi-tablets. When Samsung abandons all pretensions of original thinking, it peddles a bald-faced “me too” iPad-inspired tablet device called the Galaxy series of touch-screen tablets. Regardless of these recent trends, however, Samsung flip phones are still in the market, although no longer in the dominant position they used to occupy. Evidence is the recent crop of a variety of Samsung flip phones launched this year, such as the Samsung Zeal, the Samsung T259, and the highly durable Samsung Convoy. Perhaps it is still safe to say that the Samsung flip phone will continue to find avid users. At least, for now.