COLUMBUS, OH — Opening the device with the care of a man unfolding the only thing he owns outright, which he does not, area renter Tanner Brisk, 31, told reporters Wednesday that his $2,500 foldable phone was “100% worth it.” He said this about 40 minutes after a property manager taped a notice to his door informing him that he is $2,770 behind on rent.
“Look at that screen,” Brisk said, unfolding the phone to its full width in a kitchen where the overhead light was off to save on electricity. “That’s 7.6 inches of real estate. Show me another 7.6 inches in this city I can get for $69 a month.”
The phone came to $2,500 after the 1-terabyte upgrade, sales tax, a two-year protection plan and a $59 leather case “for the hinge.” Brisk is paying it off over 36 months, which makes it the longest commitment he has ever been approved for. His last three rental applications were denied after a credit check. The phone financing was approved in 11 seconds, at the counter, by a screen.
“The landlord wanted two years of pay stubs, a co-signer and a personal reference,” Brisk said. “The phone wanted my birthday. Which one of those actually believes in me?”
Brisk is not the only one paying top dollar. Samsung began selling its Galaxy Z TriFold in the United States in January for $2,899, and in September Apple introduced its first foldable, the iPhone Duo, starting at $1,999 and reaching $3,199 for 2 terabytes of storage. A CNET/YouGov survey found that respondents would pay about $781 for a foldable phone. Brisk dismissed them as “people who haven’t held one.” Brisk has not held a rent receipt since September.
Housing has gone the other way. According to Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies, a record 22.7 million renter households were cost-burdened in 2024, about half of all renters in the country, and rents in early 2026 stood 29% above their 2020 levels. Brisk said he was aware of the numbers and considered himself cost-burdened “on paper.” “On the phone,” he said, “I’m thriving.”
Like most owners of the device, Brisk now talks almost entirely in product reviews. “Is it a little heavy? Yes. Is there a crease? Yes. Is the eviction hearing on the 19th? Yes,” he said, ticking the items off on his fingers. “But once you unfold it, you’re in a whole other world. Honestly, a world with a much better refresh rate.”
He has done the math. Brisk estimates that he unfolds the phone 214 times a day, which over 36 months comes to about a penny an unfold. “It’s basically free,” he said. His rent, which cannot be unfolded at all, comes to $45.53 a day, a figure Brisk called “insane for something that doesn’t even have a camera.” Readers can check his math below.
Is It Worth It? 🧮
Enter the price of the phone, your monthly rent and how far behind you are. Our model weighs the screen against the roof and gives you an honest answer.
Cost per unfold assumes 214 unfolds a day for 36 months. Rent cannot be unfolded and is therefore excluded from the model. The model has never returned any answer except one, and our engineers say that is a sign of confidence.
The industry agrees with him. “We would never tell anyone to choose a phone over housing,” said Brent Kaszuba, senior vice president of messaging at the Consumer Device Affordability Council, a trade group funded entirely by device makers. “We would tell them they don’t have to choose, with 0% APR.” Kaszuba noted that the foldable doubles as a tablet. “So he’s really buying two devices,” he said, “which is a savings of one device.”
Kaszuba added that a monthly phone payment builds a relationship, while rent “just disappears into a building.” Told that the phone payment also disappears, into a phone, he said that was “the beauty of it.”
Carla Mendes, who manages Brisk’s building, said Brisk had offered to cover his back rent in 36 interest-free monthly installments. Mendes called the proposal “not how rent works.” Brisk called it “how literally everything else works.” He then showed her the offer in split-screen, so that she could see it next to a video review of the phone.
Unfold It 🪭
Every foldable review follows the same structure: the problem, then the word “but,” then the screen. Fold the phone. Unfold the phone. Watch the problems become features.
The crease becomes less noticeable over time, as do most things. Value extracted is calculated at 1.1 cents per unfold and may not be applied toward rent.
Brisk’s mother, Donna, 58, said her son called last week to ask for help with rent. “On FaceTime,” she said. “He had me on one half of the screen and a review of his own phone on the other half. Every time I said a number, he turned it so I could see how good the colors were.”
A Reuters analysis suggested that the price of the new foldables could confine them to a niche of wealthy early adopters. Brisk said that description fit him exactly. “I’m an early adopter,” he said. “I adopted it before rent.”
Brisk has begun using the inner screen to watch apartment tours, which he said is “almost like living there, but bigger.” He has also found practical uses should the hearing on the 19th not go his way. “The camera is unbelievable in low light,” he said. “If I end up in the car, I’ll get great shots of the car.” The phone can also be propped half-open on a flat surface for hands-free use, which Brisk said would come in handy on a dashboard.
At press time, Brisk was standing at his front door, assuring the property manager that the notice she had just taped there was “a little bulky, honestly,” but that once you unfold it, you’re greeted with three vivid days to vacate the premises.
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