Who wants a laptop computer when you have got a folding cellphone?

The first rule of Purse Computer is to test your bag earlier than you permit the home.

A number of days in the past, I took a 15-minute stroll to a close-by espresso store pondering I had my new folding keyboard in my bag — the important thing ingredient that will flip the Galaxy Z Fold 7 right into a cell workstation. I spent the entire journey congratulating myself on how mild it felt in comparison with carrying my MacBook. “It’s almost like it’s not there,” I believed.

This was as a result of it wasn’t there, which I found solely as soon as I used to be at my vacation spot. I tapped out a couple of emails with my thumbs, drank a latte, and walked again dwelling in disgrace.

After utilizing each main cellphone of 2025 in succession, early 2026 has allowed me a while to revisit a few of my favorites. While I eagerly await the arrival of the Galaxy Z TriFold, I began carrying the Z Fold 7, which is so slim and light-weight it successfully comes with all the advantages of a folding cellphone, with not one of the common weight and dimension penalties. Once I noticed I used to be mainly carrying a keyboard-less Chromebook, I figured I would as properly get a keyboard and see how far I may get utilizing a folding cellphone as my laptop computer. It’s not good, however I’m going to have a really laborious time going again.

You don’t should be a purse-carrier to make use of Purse Computer; it’s simply what I’m calling the mixture of a light-weight journey keyboard and foldable cellphone. And look, I do know this isn’t a brand new idea, both. Folding cellphone lovers have been kitting out their devices as mobile workstations for years now, iPads with keyboard instances exist, and hell, keep in mind netbooks? Collectively, we’ve been attempting to downsize our laptops in all kinds of artistic methods virtually so long as laptops have existed.

That’s precisely what Purse Computer is for me: a substitute for my laptop computer, aka Backpack Computer. As laptops go, my company-issued MacBook Air is hella mild, truthfully. And technically, it matches within the (enormous) tote bag that goes all over the place with me. But it’s simply too heavy to hold that method for rather more than the stroll from my automotive right into a espresso store, so journeys to a coworking house or another distant work spot require placing the “backpack” in Backpack Computer. The hassle is, as soon as I’m carried out working and I have to run an errand, I nonetheless have my laptop computer on my particular person. I’m encumbered. What do I do after I have to run into Target? Put my MacBook within the trunk? Haul it up and down the aisles of the shop whereas I purchase toothpaste? It feels all unsuitable. That’s the place Purse Computer steps in.

Most of my journey has revolved round discovering the proper keyboard. My necessities: mild and sufficiently small that I hardly discover it in my bag, however sufficiently big to really feel like an actual keyboard when in use. I attempted a ProtoArc folding keyboard (too huge), a cheapo Samsers off of Amazon (too squirrelly), and have lastly settled on a Logitech Keys 2 Go. It’s the one I’ve loved essentially the most — it’s so skinny and light-weight I barely discover it in my bag, and it has full-size keys. Unlike the opposite two, it doesn’t include a cellphone stand (although the first-gen Keys 2 Go appears to come back with one) or cost over USB-C. But it’s simple sufficient to get a separate stand for the cellphone — I’ve been borrowing the one which got here with the Samsers — and Logitech says the Keys 2 Go’s coin cell batteries will final a full three years earlier than you’ll want to substitute them.

You would possibly know Purse Computer by one other title: the four-pocket laptop computer. That’s what Michael Fisher, identified for his Mr. Mobile YouTube channel and fondness for folding telephones, has dubbed it. He’s been experimenting with the folding-phone-as-a-computer idea because the Fold 3 got here out in 2021. So after I determined to undertake the Purse Computer life, there was actually just one particular person to name for some steering.

His first piece of recommendation is to get the one factor I don’t at the moment have: a kickstand case for the cellphone. The separate stand is a ache, he says. “It adds another pocket to it, it’s another thing to forget. It’s another thing to fiddle with when you’re setting it up.” Having fiddled with one at a number of espresso outlets by now, I are inclined to agree. Samsung gives a Z Fold 7 case with a kickstand attached that will do the trick.

Fisher’s present setup with the Galaxy Z TriFold features a kickstand case the corporate doesn’t promote right here; he purchased one when he was in Taipei. He’s at the moment utilizing a NuPhy keyboard, which he admits remains to be a bit greater than he’d like, however adores anyway. “It’s so much better when I’m typing on it, and it makes me feel like I’m using a computer so much more viscerally.”

That’s the opposite a part of this problem: convincing your self that the cellphone is a pc. The keyboard is an important addition right here; whereas I can and have typed out a full weblog utilizing the onscreen keyboard, it wasn’t my favourite expertise. Physical keys go an extended technique to placing me in the proper headspace for writing. But the opposite factor is to persuade the cellphone that it’s a pc. Samsung’s UI is fairly permissive — you possibly can divulge heart’s contents to 4 apps in progressively tinier home windows and resize them to your coronary heart’s content material. But I nonetheless run into bizarre points when I attempt to use sure Android apps on the interior display screen.

Chrome insists on leaping again to my default private profile every time I open a brand new tab, and my makes an attempt to keep away from utilizing the disagreeable Google Docs cell app have been unsuccessful. The cellphone refuses to let me open the desktop web site for Google Docs within the browser whereas utilizing my work profile, regardless of what number of methods I attempt to sneak up on it. Apps like Slack make no use of the additional display screen house, as an alternative presenting a stretched model of the cellphone app with quite a lot of white house. But The Verge’s senior information editor (and fellow foldable fan) Richard Lawler tipped me off to a greater method: opening Slack in a Chrome tab somewhat than the Slack app with the interior display screen. It’ll immediate you to open the app as an alternative, since you’re utilizing a cellphone in any case, however you simply must take the additional step to outsmart it. Maybe the unification of ChromeOS and Android could have some trickle-down advantages for the pill a part of an Android foldable, however even when it does, that will not occur for some time.

Anyway, that’s all a part of the invisible ingredient on this association: persistence. It takes a sure sort of particular person to need to discover a technique to open Slack in a Chrome tab on the interior display screen of a folding cellphone. Judging by among the glances I’ve gotten on the espresso store after I’m utilizing my cell setup, that’s not one thing everyone seems to be up for. And there are nonetheless limitations to work with — battery life is nowhere close to nearly as good as my MacBook, and when the cellphone is lifeless, so is my lifeline to the remainder of the world. I’ve discovered it’s a superb match for shorter stints, perhaps an hour or two, however I wouldn’t attempt to make a full day trip of Purse Computer with out constructing in time to recharge.

And you already know what? I’m simply wonderful with that. I don’t want a foldable to be my all-day laptop computer, as a result of that’s not what Purse Computer is about. I simply need one thing simple to hold in a daily bag so I generally is a human out on this planet for a couple of hours. The friction of packing up my backpack is simply sufficient to maintain me from leaving the home most workdays. But when it’s only a matter of carrying the cellphone I used to be going to deliver anyway, plus a bit keyboard that matches into the small bag already on the again of my bike, immediately it’s a a lot simpler journey to make.

Mr. Mobile agrees. “You have to use it to understand its utility,” he says. And when you’re hooked, “going back to another phone starts to feel almost primitive.” I’ll have to maneuver on from the Fold 7 quickly sufficient, as a result of a cellphone reviewer can’t get too snug. But I’ve a sense the TriFold I’ll be testing quickly will provide lots extra methods to experiment with leaving my laptop computer at dwelling.

Photography by Allison Johnson / The Verge