Every time I pick up a modern book-style foldable, I have the same thought: this is brilliant, but not perfect.
For years, the foldable market has settled on tall, skinny designs that technically tick the ‘big inner screen’ box but never quite nail the experience of having a genuine tablet in your pocket – recent additions like the Galaxy Z TriFold aside, anyway.
That’s why the sudden rush back to passport-style foldables – led, somewhat ironically, by Apple – feels like a course correction. And as someone who still pines for the Oppo Find N and has a soft spot for the original Pixel Fold, I couldn’t be more on board.
Apple’s set to bring back my favourite style of foldable
The long-rumoured iPhone Fold is shaping up to be exactly the kind of device I’ve wanted foldables to evolve into.
According to reports, Apple’s first foldable iPhone will pair a 5.3-inch outer display with a 7.7-inch inner screen, using a wide aspect ratio that’s closer to an iPad than a stretched-out phone – essentially, an iPhone that unfolds into a small-screen iPad.
That’s exactly the form factor I fell in love with when Oppo launched the first Find N.
By today’s standards, it’s undeniably thick and heavy, but the proportions were spectacular. The outer screen was a sensible width, not a painfully narrow strip, and the inner display’s roughly 4:3 ratio made everything from split-screen multitasking to big-screen gaming feel natural.
It looked and behaved more like a mini tablet than a stretched phone, and that made the world of difference in everyday use.
Google clearly saw the appeal too. The OG Pixel Fold copied the compact and scaled it up with a wider, shorter outer display that opened into a broad canvas perfect for tablet-style layouts. It was flawed in other ways, and Android apps weren’t ready for that wide in-between aspect ratio, but the core idea was solid.
With the Pixel 9 Pro Fold stepping away from that iconic design, it looked like the design was dead and buried. But Apple looks set to dig it back up and breathe new life into it.
If the reports are right and the iPhone Fold really is going for a wide, almost iPad-like inner screen, that could be a huge win for usability. I can easily imagine iPad-style apps running on the inside, with proper sidebars, multi-column layouts, and real tablet UIs, while the outside gives you a traditional iPhone experience that’s neither absurdly tall nor awkwardly wide in the hand.
Crucially, Apple is one of the few companies that can actually drag the app ecosystem along with it. Where Android makers had to bend around whatever third-party apps were willing to support, Apple can largely do the opposite; ship a new form factor, provide the tools to developers and watch them fall in line.
If anyone can make the ‘iPhone that unfolds into an iPad’ dream actually work in terms of software, it’s Apple. And that’s a huge part of why this passport-style revival suddenly feels like it has a shot.
Android manufacturers are gearing up to compete
Of course, the moment Apple even looks at a new form factor, the rest of the industry snaps to attention.
Samsung is already preparing its answer in the form of the unofficially dubbed ‘Galaxy Wide Fold’.
Various reports suggest that Samsung is working on a passport-style foldable with a 5.4-inch outer OLED and a 7.6-inch inner display, using a 3:4 aspect ratio when unfolded. It’ll sit alongside the more traditional, taller Galaxy Z Fold 8, with Samsung allegedly planning to mass-produce around half a million units and launch it in the second half of 2026.
Oppo, meanwhile, looks like it’s coming full circle. According to the latest leaks, Oppo is said to be planning not one but two foldable launches in 2026: the Find N6 in February and the Find N7 in September. The N6 is said to stick fairly close to the book-style formula, with a 6.62-inch cover screen and an 8.12-inch inner panel, but things get more interesting with the Find N7.
It’s tipped to keep much of the Find N6’s hardware, but pivot back to a wider, passport-like aspect ratio – explicitly positioned to compete not only with Apple’s iPhone Fold but Samsung’s Wide Fold, while also nodding back to Oppo’s original Find N design.
In other words, the company that arguably did the ‘pocket tablet’ concept best the first time around is taking another stab at it, just as Apple and Samsung are jumping in.
Foldables of all shapes and sizes on the horizon
The thing that excites me most isn’t any one phone – it’s that foldable design finally seems to be loosening up again.
For the past few years, the category has felt oddly conservative considering it’s on the bleeding edge of technology. You either get a compact flip phone that unfolds into something resembling a regular phone, or you get a book-style foldable that opens up into a vaguely square-ish tablet.
Of course, year-on-year updates leaned on better hinge designs, thinner chassis, nicer cameras and a reduction of the foldable screen crease, but it’s hardly the sort of thing that makes you sit up and think “wow, this is the future of phones”.
2026 looks like it’ll finally be different, and as a foldable fan, that’s exactly what I’ve been waiting for. I don’t want every device to chase the same silhouette forever – I want choice, I want weird experiments, I want some phones to unapologetically prioritise media, others to double down on multitasking, and a few to basically be tiny tablets that just so happen to fit in my pocket.
And it just so happens that passport-style foldables happen to sit right at the intersection of all that; it’s big enough inside to feel like a tablet, compact enough outside to work like a normal phone, and now finally backed by an app ecosystem that’s far better equipped to handle unconventional displays than it was during the early days of foldables.
So yes, I’m absolutely delighted they’re coming back – and this time, with Apple, Samsung and Oppo all throwing their weight behind the idea, it feels like they might stick around.
The post Passport-shaped foldables are making a comeback, and I couldn’t be happier appeared first on Trusted Reviews.