2019年或是折叠手机年 你喜欢哪种折叠方式？ 2019 is going to be the year of the bendy phone

下一个手机打算买什么样的？摄像功能更好的，电池寿命更长的，还是——可折叠的手机？这种高科技新产品折起来就是普通手机大小，铺开来则相当于平板电脑，以后再也不用担心屏幕太小不够用了！三星、华为、摩托罗拉不久都将推出各自的可折叠手机，不论你买还是不买，2019年都将是可折叠手机大放异彩的一年。

If you’ve bought a phone in the last decade or so, it’s likely you’ve bought an increasingly nice rectangle.

如果你的手机是过去十年间买的，那么应该是个不断完善的长方形。

Other than sharper screens, better cameras, or improved battery life, there really haven’t been any massive changes to the structure of the smartphone in over 10 years now. But it seems like 2019 is set to buck the trend.

过去十多年来，除了屏幕越来越清晰、摄像功能越来越出色、电池寿命越来越长，智能手机的外部结构并没有什么大变化。不过，2019年似乎要逆转这一趋势。

Recently, we’ve had squeezy phones, curved phones, notched phones, and now, we are getting bendable phones. Unlike the gimmicks of years past, these might have some value.

近些年来，我们有了可挤压手机、曲面屏手机、凹面屏手机，如今，我们又将迎来可折叠手机。和过去几年的那些个噱头不同，可折叠手机或许有一些价值。

gimmick['ɡɪmɪk]: n. 骗人的玩意；花招

There have been some early indications about where phone makers have been heading. Companies like Samsung and LG have shown off flexible displays at trade shows for years, leading some to believe that there would be a future where we’d roll up our phones like a newspaper. That future has been slow-moving, but this year at the CES electronics trade show in Las Vegas, electronics manufacturer Royole showed off the FlexPai, which it calls the first “fully flexible display” electronic device. In plain English: that’s a smartphone that folds out into a tablet.

早前已经有迹象显示手机制造商即将往这一方向发展。三星和LG等公司多年来一直在贸易展上展出可弯曲显示屏，促使一些人认为未来我们将能像卷报纸一样把手机卷起来。虽然这个未来到来得有点慢，但是今年在拉斯维加斯的国际消费电子展上，电子产品制造商柔宇展出了柔性屏手机FlexPai，据称是首款“完全可折叠显示屏”的电子产品。简而言之，就是可以平铺开来变成平板电脑的智能手机。

Even though it’s being folded over itself, the FlexPai’s display doesn’t snap or bruise—which, definitely don’t try with your current phone’s display. It’s meant to replace the need for two devices, by being two devices in one. A developer model of the phone is available now, for a paltry $1,318.

FlexPai的显示屏即使被对折也不会折断或损坏，这一点是你眼下的手机显示屏所无法企及的。这意味着你不再需要同时持有手机和电脑两种设备了，因为二者可以合二为一。目前你可以买到这款手机的开发版，仅需1318美元（8880元人民币）。

paltry['pɔltri]: 微小的; 微不足道的

But Royole isn’t the only one experimenting with this form factor. Samsung, the world’s largest phone manufacturer, plans to release a folding phone this year, which it teased in late 2018. It showed off a prototype of the device, seemingly encased in a housing to hide its real shape, which seems to work similarly to Royole’s, except that the screens will be on the inside, like a book.

但是柔宇不是唯一一家尝试可折叠显示屏的制造商。世界最大手机制造商三星在2018年末放出消息说，计划在今年推出可折叠手机。三星展示了这款手机的一个原型，该产品被装在一个壳子中，无法看清其真实形状，但似乎操作方法和柔宇的手机类似，只不过三星的显示屏在内侧，就像一本书一样。

It’s hosting an event in San Francisco on Feb. 20, so it’s possible that we’ll learn more about the device then, and rumors suggest that the massive device will cost upwards of $1,500.

三星将于2月20日在旧金山举行发布会，届时我们将了解到更多关于这款手机的信息，据传这款大屏设备定价将超1500美元。

And on Jan. 23, we saw the first peek at the Chinese electronics giant Xiaomi’s attempt at a folding phone, in the hands of its cofounder Bin Lin. Unlike other foldables, it has two wings that bend behind the middle of the display.

1月23日，中国电子产品巨头小米研发的可折叠手机首次亮相，并由总裁林斌亲自展示。和其他可折叠手机不同，小米的可折叠手机两侧向背面的中部折叠。

Bin Lin posted on Weibo, saying that the company solved a series of difficult technical challenges to get to the prototype, and if consumers are interested, the company will consider turning it into a commercial product.

林斌在微博上称，小米攻克了一系列技术难关才做出了这个原型机。如果消费者有兴趣的话，小米会考虑将其转化为商品。

继小米之后，华为也对旗下折叠屏手机产品进行了官宣。在1月24号举办的5G大会上，华为手机负责人余承东表示，华为折叠屏手机将会在一个月后举办的2019巴塞罗那世界移动通信展会上正式发布。同时，余承东也强调，华为折叠屏手机将会支持5G上网功能。

Motorola (which is owned by Chinese tech firm Lenovo), is reportedly also working on a foldable device, resurrecting the RAZR brand that brought the company so much popularity in the pre-iPhone days. A report from the Wall Street Journal on Jan. 16 suggested the phone could drop as soon as February, and cost around $1,500. Registration submitted to the World Intellectual Property Organisation suggest that it could look quite similar to the original phone, which was released in 2004.

据报道，中国科技企业联想旗下的摩托罗拉也在研发可折叠手机，意图复兴RAZR（刀锋）型号。在苹果手机还未诞生的年代，这一经典型号的手机曾经让摩托罗拉大受欢迎。《华尔街时报》1月16日的报道称，这款摩托罗拉新手机最早可能在二月投放市场，定价约为1500美元。提交到世界知识产权组织的注册材料显示，这款新手机的外观可能与2004年上市的RAZR型号很相似。

And we’re only in January. The mobile world’s two largest trade shows, Mobile World Congress in Barcelona and IFA (Internationale Funkausstellung) in Berlin, are in February and September respectively, so it’s likely we’ll hear a lot more about bendy phones—sorry, foldables—before long.

现在才刚一月份而已。移动世界最大的两个贸易展——巴塞罗那的世界移动通信展会和柏林的国际电子消费品展览会分别将在二月和九月举行，到时候我们将听到关于可折叠手机的更多消息。

Whether anyone will actually want to replace their smartphone with a thicker, more expensive device just to have a larger screen is unclear. But that future is quickly arriving.

是否有人想把自己的智能手机换成这种更厚更贵更大屏的手机还是未知数。不过我们很快就能知道了。

英文来源：石英财经网

翻译&编辑：丹妮