Dual screen and foldable phone feature request!

If two Librem 5 phones were put together, it would be cool to have them work together creating a dual screen foldable phone. Similar to Microsoft’s Andromeda mythical phone. And better yet, the phone could take advantage of the horsepower available from the other phone.

Or another idea. If the Librem 5 phone does well, make an accessory where the user could add a screen to the phone. It’s sole purpose is to turn the phone into a dual screen foldable phone. But it’s not a phone…just another screen to add to the phone. Which also acts as a screen protector when you fold the phone in a closed position. Just a thought, it would add more interest and value into the Librem 5. Would definitely make me want it more.

Btw - if either of these are done, a stylus would be a must.

I fully agree with all of this, and I also think it’ll be a decade before it could even become possible for this scrappy startup to reach that kind of production sophistication. Huge firms have been trying to crack the foldable phone nut for many years and only just now did Samsung crack it … with a $2,000 price tag. And no stylus.

ring1000,
Purism is already facing monumental challenges and can’t get distracted. In my opinion, Purism should focus on the basics, and not try to make anything too exotic. Purism already has a thousands distractions to deal with, and these kinds of requests should be ignored.

The most important thing is for Purism to get the basic software stack of mobile Linux working (Linux-Wayland-GTK±libhandy-phosh) and focus on creating (or adapting from GNOME) the essential apps and get a working app store.

Leave everything else to the community (like this request) and let the creative juices of the tinkerers flow.

8 Likes

@ring1000 don’t hold your breath. samsung and other proprietary companies hold patents on this topic alone. patents last for 20 years so … do the math.

plus this screen bending technology is a nightmare in terms of reliability and longevity. much like the current oled … and very expensive

I disagree. Let’s compete on the basics and get that good first… Before adding fluff that doesn’t even work when the $Billion companies try to implement it. To summarize the basics of what companies are getting wrong that could easily just listen to customers:
– a big larger, a bit more battery life
– replaceable battery
– headphone jack (I personally don’t care)
– no walled gardens (iOS/Android)
– no notch (who cares if a little screen real estate is lost)
– perhaps a Microsd or dual sim
– better latency ( https://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/4emced/touch_latency_is_being_highly_disregarded/ )
– privacy (you spend 1000USD on a phone, and then it just sells all your data back to company, you try to stop it and it becomes less usable)

Let’s just get the basics down… So we have one single usable phone that isn’t android or iOS! I really hope the puri.sm team is being careful of corporate sabotage; most people are pretty naive about this.

2 Likes

actually for the fold it’s close to 2x

https://www.gsmarena.com/res.php3?sSearch=fold

have your ublock origin ready in firefox or in other browsers that run proprietary javascript - that site is loaded - or better just use purebrowser or IceCat

Ya, just trying to make a point. I was only buying Google devices because I was planning to dual boot with CopperheadOS, but that went south like so many others… Crazy how few options are these days. High hopes for Librem5 :slight_smile:

They hold patents on foldable screens not phones. The OP is requesting the ability to have duel monitors on the phone.

good point - what is the difference from a legal standpoint ?

you CAN connect two monitors at the same time to the phone through a dedicated docking-station or an advanced hub.
so far we can’t say for SURE what that maximum resolution and refresh rate is going to be for the igpu in the librem5. we expect more information from purism in due time.

Agree with your comment except for this.

Screen real estate is great and makes it possible to have a larger screen on a smaller device. What sucks though is notches which are as wide as 50% of the screen at which there barely fits anything on the top anyway so the notification area become almost useless. Currently the best notch designs which utilize the screen real-estate best are the teardrop notches.

That is probably the one I care about least on my list… However, the notch always seemed silly to me.