Foldables are cool, but our poll proves phone buyers want something else entirely

Apple and Samsung are competing hard in the new wide-fold form factor with the iPhone Duo and Galaxy Z Fold 8, but meanwhile, a different trend is emerging: slab phones with two displays. And people seem to love it!

Our readers want slab phones with two displays

Last week I reported on the new Honor 700 launch in China. The 700 series comes in three different flavors—Honor 700, 700 Pro, and 700S—but the common denominator here is the presence of a secondary OLED screen inside the camera bump of all three models.

In our usual poll, we asked you guys, "Would you like to have a rear display on your phone?" The results were overwhelmingly positive.

More than half of all voters (nearly 1,000) said that they love this new design and would love to have a second display on the back of their phones. Another 33% voted for the secondary screen, but only if it came with useful features.

Only about 15% said they don't want any more displays on their phones.

What can you do with a tiny display on the back of your phone?

You might be wondering what the purpose and advantages of such a design are. Phones with displays on their backs aren't entirely new, and we've also had flip foldables for almost a decade now.

A secondary display on the back of a slab phone works much like a cover screen on a flip phone. You get notifications at a glance, an Always-On feature that drains much less power, music controls, and the ability to handle calls and messages, plus you can use this screen as a camera viewfinder to take selfies with the phone's main camera. Additionally, when you take pictures of your friends, they can see themselves on the screen and adjust their posture, expression, and position in the frame.

These might be relatively niche features, but the ability to glance at this tiny screen rather than powering up the main screen of the phone brings much more value to day-to-day use.

Everything new is well-forgotten old

Some of you might remember the dual-screen YotaPhone. This peculiar device launched more than ten years ago, back in 2013, and featured a secondary E-ink screen on the back.

It was a great idea, but ahead of its time, as this second display was quite laggy, monochrome, and not a touchscreen.

Now, the technology has caught up, and I can see a future with more phones featuring AMOLED screens on their backs—but why not a big E-ink screen for reading books, too? That would be awesome: a phone with a built-in Kindle!

When will we get Galaxy phones and iPhones with screens on the back?

Given that the Xiaomi 17 Pro Max was the first mainstream phone to offer this feature, along with its striking similarity in design to the iPhone 17, I would say sooner rather than later.

Just imagine the upcoming Galaxy S27 Ultra and its rather polarizing camera island, but with an edge-to-edge secondary screen filling the camera bump and wrapping around the cameras.

I think it would look gorgeous! The same goes for iPhone devices. Apple kind of started this whole "camera plateau" design shift, and it presents a perfect opportunity to put something useful inside this huge camera bump—why not a second display, just like Xiaomi did?

I would get a normal slab phone with a display on its back over any foldable, and it seems that most of our readers feel the same. 

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