5 ways my foldable phone has saved me thousands of dollars

Published Oct 3, 2026, 9:00 AM EDT Bertel is a lifelong tech enthusiast with over a decade of experience writing thousands of articles about Android devices, Linux, and more. Before joining the How-To Geek team, Bertel wrote for the likes of MakeUseOf, MakeTechEasier, and Android Police—at the latter he wrote over 3,500 articles. He delights in helping others decide which tech to bring into their lives... and which tech to do without. Bertel graduated from the College of William and Mary in 2012 with degrees in History and Government. He has spent his entire career as a tech journalist covering Android, Linux, wearables, smart home devices, and more. Book-style foldable phones give people sticker shock, and understandably so — $2,000 is a lot of money. The thing is, I have never paid that much for any of the foldable phones I’ve owned, and truth be told, they’ve saved me far more than they've cost. My phone replaces an expensive PC Professional laptops are hardly cheap Last year, my spouse upgraded to a new MacBook Pro. Even though I've purchased a handful of foldables over the last few years as I tried to find the right one, this one purchase cost more than I spent on all of those phones combined. A MacBook Pro with a comfortable amount of storage and RAM can easily cost close to $3,000. Apple is pricey, but it’s not that much of an outlier. I've had my heart set on a Framework laptop for years. Yet every time I finished pricing the components, the price tag came to around $1,500. With the increased rates for RAM and storage costs, building a desktop PC is even worse. When my Fairphone 6 died earlier this year, replacing it with a Razr Fold and returning to using a folding phone as my PC was a cheaper alternative than buying a slab phone and a compelling laptop that isn't a MacBook Neo. Yes, there are ways to save money on a PC. I can settle for something older, bulkier, noisier, and with less battery life. I'll almost certainly have to deal with a Windows or Copilot key. The end result is likely to be something I enjoy less than just using my phone. The internal screen on my Motorola Razr Fold is large enough for me to interact with desktop websites, write documents, and edit images. Thanks to Motorola's desktop mode, I can connect to a laptop or smart glasses when I need a larger display. And my device will continue to run silently, weigh almost nothing, and have all-day battery life while I do. I have no need for a separate tablet My phone is a tablet that fits in my pocket I rather watch video on a tablet than a laptop, and I prefer them for video calls as well. But for many of us, a tablet is an optional third purchase after a phone and a computer. It's also the first thing to go when you transition to a foldable phone. I have been sent many review samples of Android tablets. I rarely use them for long, and I would not buy myself one if they were suddenly gone. They're not as portable or always on hand like my phone is, and more often than not, my phone's internal screen is big enough. I have not bought a new tablet since my foldable phone transition. I don't need a separate eReader for ebooks My phone is also an ideal size for digital comics I have a large collection of ebooks and comics that I've purchased over the years, primarily from Humble Bundle. The ease of being able to carry this collection in my pocket is worth the price of a book-style foldable phone alone. When I tried switching back to a slab phone, I had to figure out a Plan B for reading my existing library, and I was not fully happy with any of my options. I never quite liked reading ebooks on a slab phone, which nudges me towards finding a separate eReader. Frustratingly, I have yet to encounter an eReader that I thought was well suited both to black-and-white books and colorful comics. This puts me in a position of needing to buy two devices to enjoy books and comics as much as I do on the one device I already have. While eReaders tend to last many years before they're in need of an upgrade, that's still an upfront cost I haven't had to make. I've been able to continue using the same lapdock for years My phone accessories go from one phone to the next Credit: Bertel King / How-To Geek When I first replaced my PC with a phone a couple of years ago, I didn’t have a folding phone. Instead, I relied on desktop mode on my Moto Edge+ 2023. Before I purchased a computer monitor, I started by connecting that phone to a UPerfect lapdock. I have swapped out my phone several times since then, trying out a Samsung Galaxy phone for the first time before eventually making my way back to Motorola. While the phone may change, my lapdock and Bluetooth mouse remain the same. In this way, my “laptop” has gotten better every time I upgrade my phone. A phone is easy to power during emergencies I can weather power outages using significantly smaller batteries I live in a rural area that requires electricity to maintain running water when the power goes out, so my wife and I have invested many thousands of dollars in portable power stations for those situations. But most power outages aren’t multi-day emergencies following a major storm. They tend to be small blips for a couple of hours right in the middle of my workday. With my phone, I sometimes don‘t even notice that the power has gone out. After all, my phone is still on, and I continue to have a data connection. My experience working from a desktop PC was very different. Not only does a computer require a UPS to avoid losing my work the second power flickers, but I need a decently large portable power station if I want to keep my computer and monitor running for several hours. A desktop can drain a power station in hours that would last days with a laptop. Days is good, but that same power station can last weeks recharging a phone. The more devices you replace, the more a foldable makes sense If you're considering buying a book-style foldable as merely an upgrade to your phone that you will continue to use alongside all of your other devices, then that is an expensive luxury purchase. But if this phone eventually replaces your desire for a tablet, an eReader, or even a PC, then it is the far more economical choice. A Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra can’t be all of these things. A Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra can.