The first rule of Purse Computer is to check your bag before you leave the house.

A few days ago, I took a 15 minute walk to a nearby coffee shop thinking I had my new folding keyboard in my bag — the key ingredient that would turn the Galaxy Z Fold 7 into a mobile workstation. I spent the whole trip congratulating myself on how light it felt compared to carrying my MacBook. “It’s almost like it’s not there,” I thought.

This was because it wasn’t there, which I discovered only once I was at my destination. I tapped out a few emails with my thumbs, drank a latte, and walked back home in shame.

After using every major phone of 2025 in succession, early 2026 has allowed me some time to revisit some of my favorites. While I eagerly await the arrival of the Galaxy Z Trifold, I started carrying the Z Fold 7, which is so slim and light it effectively comes with all the benefits of a folding phone, with none of the usual weight and size penalties. Once I realized I was basically carrying a keyboard-less Chromebook, I figured I might as well get a keyboard and see how far I could get using a folding phone as my laptop. It’s not perfect, but I’m going to have a very hard time going back.

You don’t need to be a purse-carrier to use Purse Computer; it’s just what I’m calling the combination of a lightweight travel keyboard and foldable phone. And look, I know this isn’t a new concept, either. Folding phone enthusiasts have been kitting out their devices as mobile workstations for years now, iPads with keyboard cases exist, and hell, remember netbooks? Collectively, we’ve been trying to downsize our laptops in all sorts of creative ways almost as long as laptops have existed.

That’s exactly what Purse Computer is for me: an alternative to my laptop, aka Backpack Computer. As laptops go, my company-issued MacBook Air is hella light, honestly. And technically, it fits in the (huge) tote bag that goes everywhere with me. But it’s just too heavy to carry that way for much more than the walk from my car into a coffee shop, so trips to a coworking space or some other remote work spot require putting the “backpack” in Backpack Computer. The trouble is, once I’m done working and I need to run an errand, I still have my laptop on my person. I am encumbered. What do I do when I need to run into Target? Put my MacBook in the trunk? Haul it up and down the aisles of the store while I buy toothpaste? It feels all wrong. That’s where Purse Computer steps in.

Most of my journey has revolved around finding the right keyboard. My requirements: light and small enough that I hardly notice it in my bag, but big enough to feel like a real keyboard when in use. I tried a Protoarc folding keyboard (too big), a cheapo Samsers off of Amazon (too squirrelly), and have finally settled on a Logitech Keys 2 Go. It’s the one I’ve enjoyed the most — it’s so thin and light I barely notice it in my bag, and it has full-size keys. Unlike the other two it doesn’t come with a phone stand (though the first-gen Keys 2 Go seems to come with one) or charge over USB-C. But it’s easy enough to get a separate stand for the phone — I’ve been borrowing the one that came with the Samsers — and Logitech says the Keys 2 Go’s coin cell batteries will last a full three years before you need to replace them.

You might know Purse Computer by another name: the four-pocket laptop. That’s what Michael Fisher, known for his Mr. Mobile YouTube channel and fondness for folding phones, has dubbed it. He’s been experimenting with the folding-phone-as-a-computer concept since the Fold 3 came out in 2021. So when I decided to adopt the Purse Computer life, there was really only one person to call for some guidance.

His first piece of advice is to get the one thing I don’t currently have: a kickstand case for the phone. The separate stand is a pain, 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 multiple coffee shops by now, I tend to agree. Samsung offers a Z Fold 7 case with a kickstand attached that would do the trick.

Fisher’s current setup with the Galaxy Z TriFold includes a kickstand case the company doesn’t sell here; he bought one when he was in Taipei. He’s currently using a Nuphy keyboard, which he admits is still a bit bigger than he’d like, but 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 other part of this challenge: convincing yourself that the phone is a computer. The keyboard is a crucial addition here; while I can and have typed out a full blog using the on-screen keyboard, it wasn’t my favorite experience. Physical keys go a long way to putting me in the right headspace for writing. But the other thing is to convince the phone that it is a computer. Samsung’s UI is pretty permissive — you can open up to four apps in progressively tinier windows and resize them to your heart’s content. But I still run into weird issues when I try to use certain Android apps on the inner screen.

Chrome insists on jumping back to my default personal profile whenever I open a new tab, and my attempts to avoid using the unpleasant Google Docs mobile app have been unsuccessful. The phone refuses to let me open the desktop website for Google Docs in the browser while using my work profile, no matter how many ways I try to sneak up on it. Apps like Slack make no use of the extra screen space, instead presenting a stretched version of the phone app with a lot of white space. But The Verge’s Senior News Editor (and fellow foldable fan) Richard Lawler tipped me off to a better way: opening Slack in a Chrome tab rather than the Slack app with the inner screen. It’ll prompt you to open the app instead, because you’re using a phone after all, but you just have to take the extra step to outsmart it. Maybe the unification of ChromeOS and Android will have some trickle-down benefits for the tablet part of an Android foldable, but even if it does that may not happen for a while.

Anyway, that’s all part of the invisible ingredient in this arrangement: patience. It takes a certain kind of person to want to find a way to open Slack in a Chrome tab on the inner screen of a folding phone. Judging by some of the glances I’ve gotten at the coffee shop when I’m using my mobile setup, that’s not something everyone is up for. And there are still limitations to work with — battery life is nowhere near as good as my MacBook, and when the phone is dead, so is my lifeline to the rest of the world. I’ve found it’s a good fit for shorter stints, maybe an hour or two, but I wouldn’t try to make a full day out of Purse Computer without building in time to recharge.

And you know what? I’m just fine with that. I don’t need a foldable to be my all-day laptop, because that’s not what Purse Computer is about. I just want something easy to carry in a regular bag so I can be a human out in the world for a few hours. The friction of packing up my backpack is just enough to keep me from leaving the house most workdays. But when it’s just a matter of carrying the phone I was going to bring anyway, plus a little keyboard that fits into the small bag already on the back of my bike, suddenly it’s a much easier trip to make.

Mr. Mobile agrees. “You have to use it to understand its utility,” he says. And once you’re hooked, “going back to another phone starts to feel almost primitive.” I’ll have to move on from the Fold 7 soon enough, because a phone reviewer can’t get too comfortable. But I have a feeling the Trifold I’ll be testing soon will offer plenty more ways to experiment with leaving my laptop at home.

Photography by Allison Johnson / The Verge