2020: Year of innovation in smartphone designs amid COVID-19 crisis 2

020 has been a year of full of ups and down affecting a lot of sectors, including the tech industry. COVID-19 continued to impact smartphone sales with the second quarter seeing a 15.7 per cent unit shipment decline year-over-year, with shipments dropping from 331.8 million units in 2019 to 279.7 million units in the first half of 2020.

But, market research firm IDC says that the global smartphone market is expected to return to growth during the fourth quarter. According to the IDC ‘Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker’, smartphone shipments are forecast to grow 2.4 per cent (on-year) in the fourth quarter of 2020, followed by 4.4 per cent growth in 2021. However, even after the high and low that the smartphone industry saw this year, 2020 also saw the rise of foldable smartphones with different designs. From Samsung, Motorola to LG, they all presented their foldable design smartphones. And now there is a buzz that Xiaomi has also patented a foldable design smartphone. Even Apple has reportedly started sending foldable iphones to its assembly partner Foxconn for testing purposes with a possible release in September 2022.

The first foldable iphone is expected to offer at least 8GB RAM and 256GB of storage, and the baseline model may cost $1,499 (Rs 1,10,900 approx). It will reportedly be unveiled in November 2022. There are few foldable smartphones listed below that has a sophisticated design. Such smartphones also come laden with very impressive features. Most of these smartphones have been mentioned below. Since this is a new design at a technological standpoint, the foldable smartphones may have a few shortcomings and pros and cons of these smartphones have been looked at to give you knowledge when selecting the desired foldable smartphone.