I have spent the better part of the last few weeks grappling with multiple emotions.

I feel silly referencing this but as a “feel” type, my days are guided by vibe and mood. It’s been a challenge trying to reconcile and make sense of everything.

Thankfully, the Xiaomi 17T Pro presented an unexpected outlet.

So no, this isn’t exactly a review of the Xiaomi 17T Pro. This is yours truly, once again, processing feelings through a telephoto essay.

The “T” is for Telephoto

When being briefed about Xiaomi’s latest device, my favorite part was when a guest photographer jokingly attached the T in the Xiaomi 17T series to “telephoto.”

It’s not official or anything. But in this case, it made perfect sense.

My relationship with Xiaomi’s T series has always been a little complicated. For a while it felt like it was searching for an identity. One year it was positioned as a performance-focused device. Then it became an all-rounder. 

Now, one of its biggest highlights is a dedicated 115mm equivalent telephoto camera. The reality is that it might actually be all of those things at once.

For this piece, however, I ignored almost everything else. I shot almost exclusively at 115mm.

No elaborate test plan, no checklist of scenarios, and no mission to prove a point. I simply carried the phone everywhere and photographed whatever caught my attention.

At first, I thought I was testing a camera. Eventually, I realized the camera was teaching me something instead.

Chasing

When the year started, I was certain about something. Or perhaps someone.

The conversations were easy. The banter felt natural. The possibility of something more lingered quietly in the background.

After a few genuine attempts, reality eventually became clear. This wasn’t going where I secretly hoped it would. I felt defeated.

But apparently, I wasn’t done learning yet.

One thing I quickly discovered about shooting at 115mm is that distance changes how you approach a subject.

You cannot simply stand where you are and expect every shot to work. Sometimes you move. Sometimes you wait. And sometimes you accept that a moment isn’t yours to capture.

The Xiaomi 17T Pro’s telephoto camera made those adjustments feel surprisingly natural. The focal length compressed scenes beautifully while still allowing me to isolate subjects from busy surroundings.

More importantly, it encouraged patience. Not every frame needed to be forced.

Blind projection

Waiting in the wings was another lesson entirely.

As a photographer, there are moments when something catches your attention immediately. A shape. A silhouette. A person. A scene.

From a distance, it looks compelling.

The problem is that distance leaves room for imagination. Sometimes too much room. You think you know what you’re looking at. But you don’t.

The more I used the 115mm lens, the more I appreciated how it could pull distant subjects closer while still leaving context around them. It gave me a cleaner view of things that initially felt obscured.

Yet photography has limits. A lens can reveal details. It cannot reveal meaning. That part still requires understanding what’s actually in front of you.

Generative longing

After some quiet reflection, I realized that much of what occupied my attention wasn’t reality at all. It was possibility. Potential.

Stories constructed from incomplete information. As it turns out, people aren’t the only subjects we do this to. Photographers do it all the time.

We imagine a frame before it exists. Then we convince ourselves the next corner might hold something extraordinary. And we chase moments that never arrive.

Sometimes they do. Most of the time they don’t.

The Xiaomi 17T Pro encouraged a different approach.

Instead of hunting for specific shots, I found myself roaming freely. Walking more. Observing more. Adjusting my position constantly to find a better composition.

After a few days, I stopped thinking about the lens itself and started understanding the space around me.

I knew how far to stand, what would fit into frame, and when a moment was worth waiting for.

The telephoto camera became less about zooming in and more about understanding my position relative to a scene.

And that’s when things started getting interesting.

Close without crossing

Something unexpected happened while reviewing this gallery. There are more people here than in any collection of sample photos I’ve ever taken. 

Normally, I avoid photographing people. I’ve always worried it feels intrusive. The telephoto lens changed that.

The extra reach allowed me to observe moments without disrupting them. Most of the people here aren’t looking at the camera. Many are turned away entirely. They’re simply existing within their own space.

And perhaps that’s what fascinated me most.

After spending so much time chasing, projecting, and attaching meaning to things that only existed in my head, I found myself approaching photography differently.

There was no grand pursuit. No dramatic realization. No need to manufacture scenarios. I simply paid attention.

Telephoto photography is often associated with distance. Over the last few weeks, however, it taught me something else.

Distance and closeness are not always opposites.

Sometimes maintaining a little distance is what allows a moment to remain exactly what it is. Sometimes stepping back helps you see more clearly. 

And sometimes the people, places, and experiences that matter most are not the ones furthest away. They’re already within view.

Shooting at 115mm taught me that keeping a little distance can be its own way of staying close.

Maybe that’s what this gallery ultimately became. Not a collection of subjects I couldn’t reach. Not proof of anything.

Just a record of moments I was fortunate enough to witness.

In the Philippines, we’ve been trained to treat a stable internet connection like a miracle.

We pay our bills on time, hoping the “fiber-fast” gods smile upon us so we can work and study, or even stay connected from the comfort of our homes.

But as I found out in the past two weeks after I came from vacation, Converge ICT Solutions doesn’t see you as a loyal customer with a guaranteed service.

To them, you might just be a “slot” in a box; one that can be unplugged the moment it’s convenient for the system.

On May 1, at 11:30 AM, my internet just… died. There were no outage. Just that dreaded blinking red LOS (Loss of Signal) light.

We’ve all been there, right? You restart the modem, you wait, you use your mobile data, and you hope it’s just a temporary glitch. I didn’t know then that I hadn’t just lost my connection. I had been replaced.

Port-snatchers in the telephone room

The next morning, a repair crew showed up at my condominium. After checking the lines inside my unit, we went out to the hallway to check the telephone room where the NAP box is located.

This is the central hub for our floor, and I’ve been plugged into it for over a year now. I was there first. But when the technicians opened that box, they told me something so ridiculous I thought it was a prank.

My fiber line had been pulled out of its assigned slot. In its place, a newer subscriber — someone who had likely just signed up — was plugged in. I dreaded the fact that my connection wasn’t broken. It was manually removed.

It’s like paying for a reserved parking space in your own building for a year, only to come home and find the building manager gave it to a new tenant because they didn’t want to find a new spot.

In the world of Converge, your seniority and your contract mean nothing if there’s a new installation to be finished.

The “QA” trap where logic dies

This is where it gets truly frustrating. A second repair team came by a few days later and confirmed the situation. They saw the problem, and they knew exactly how to fix it by simply swapping the wires back.

They actually tried to help. But then came the “QA” (Quality Assurance) roadblock. The team told me they couldn’t leave me connected because they needed to “investigate” first.

Even though everyone knew my line was removed to make room for someone else, the “process” became more important than the customer.

It was a total circus. The technicians knew what was wrong but weren’t allowed to fix it. Meanwhile, the office claimed they were investigating while I sat in the dark. To top it off, the automated system kept closing my tickets because I wasn’t “responding” to their automated messages, even though the only response I wanted was a working connection.

I wasn’t a resident in their eyes. I was just an inconvenience in their workflow.

Scary reality of the empty slot

After I started talking about this, I realized I wasn’t alone. I heard stories from other people who had their lines “reassigned” or “swapped” just to get a new installation done quickly.

It’s a scary thought: if a NAP box is full, it seems easier for a technician to just unplug an old client to hook up a new one. It makes the company’s “new activations” look great on paper, while those of us who have been paying for years are suddenly erased from the system.

The most frightening part? As I write this, I am still offline. Despite the technicians seeing with their own eyes that my port was taken, the red light is still blinking.

To add insult to injury, the system already closed my ticket through an automated notice, even though the problem is very much unresolved. I am still waiting for “QA” to finish an investigation into a problem that has an obvious physical fix.

Even with continuous attempts to escalate the issue properly, they were still unable to address the issue.

It makes you realize how powerless you are once you’re stuck inside their machine. We’re not really paying for data. We’re paying for a commitment that seems as thin as a fiber wire.

Next time your LOS light starts blinking red, ask yourself: Is my line actually broken, or did they just give my slot to someone else?

The ongoing WIDE foldable rumors have completely hijacked my brain lately. Not in the “this will change smartphones forever” kind of way. We’ve heard that speech enough times already. I think I’m more fascinated by the fact that the industry seems willing to experiment again.

If we’re being honest, slab phones have kind of reached the point where most improvements now feel like somebody adjusting a character creator slider by two percent and calling it a generational leap.

Foldables were supposed to shake things up. And to be fair, they did. I love big foldables. I love working on them. But after using a bunch of them over the years, it also started feeling like we collectively settled into one idea of what a foldable should be. Tall outer screen. Big square-ish inner screen. Make it thinner every year. Repeat.

Which is why these newer WIDE foldable concepts immediately stood out to me.

WIDE foldables

I’ve seen some people react to the recent WIDE foldable rumors (Apple’s iPhone Fold and Samsung Galaxy Z Fold8 Wide) with the usual “nobody asked for this” comments. I get it. We’ve all become a little cynical after years of iterative updates and increasingly microscopic improvements.

But as someone who has covered tech for years now, I think that mindset is a little disingenuous. This is what we’re here for. The weird ideas. The risky ones. The “wait… hold on a minute” devices. Not just endlessly refining the safest possible version of a slab phone.

Graphics by Vincenz Lee | GadgetMatch

Maybe this sounds dramatic, but I had a similar realization during a leadership meeting recently. We talked about how content sometimes falls into the trap of sticking to what already works. Safe formats, ideas, and execution. Then I realized I do the exact same thing in my own life.

Sometimes I change my phone case or wallpaper just to make a device feel fresh again. Humans naturally seek renewal. We like rediscovering things. That’s partly why these WIDE foldables immediately caught my attention.

Not because current foldables are bad. Far from it. I love big foldables. I love working on them. But after using a variety of them over the past half decade, it started feeling like the category had settled into one lane. And maybe, just maybe… that lane isn’t the only answer.

We became obsessed with hinges and forgot the experience

A lot of foldable conversations today revolve around hinges, creases, and thinness.

And yes, those are incredible engineering achievements. I’ll never pretend otherwise. Some of these devices are borderline absurd from an engineering standpoint.

But at some point, coverage and marketing around foldables started feeling a little too focused on whether the crease disappeared by 0.3 millimeters or whether the hinge can survive the apocalypse.

That stuff is cool. But none of it matters if the device doesn’t actually feel great to use.

Crease comparo: OPPO Find N6 vs Galaxy Z Fold7

For me, current book-style foldables occasionally feel like the industry asking: “Where else can we take slab phones?”

Instead of asking: “What shape actually makes the most sense for a handheld computer?”

That’s why the potential of WIDE foldables feels so interesting.

And to clarify what I mean here: I’m talking about the form factor that resembles a passport handbook when folded, then opens into a proper rectangular mini-tablet or phablet. Honestly, I think the phablet era might quietly be making a comeback.

The aspect ratio immediately feels more natural to me. Not necessarily revolutionary. Just… coherent.

Maybe we’ve normalized awkward aspect ratios

One thing I’ve always found slightly strange with current foldables is how disconnected the outer and inner screen experiences can feel.

The outer display is usually this tall, narrow portal. Then you unfold it and suddenly you’re looking at a squarer canvas. That works for some things. But not always seamlessly.

Meanwhile, devices like the HUAWEI Pura X Max immediately caught my attention because both displays seem to share a more similar philosophy. Wide rectangles. One smaller. One larger.

Almost like an A5 paper unfolding into A4.

And yes, I know. Saying “paper ratios” in 2026 probably makes me sound like someone who still gets excited about Muji notebooks and mechanical keyboards. Totally not me, but a few people come to mind. I digress.

But think about how we consume media now.

TWICE Momo fancam on the OPPO Find N5 and the iPad Mini

I’m especially excited for this current K-pop comeback season. LE SSERAFIM’s Pureflow Pt. 1. ITZY’s Motto. aespa’s LEMONADE. My algorithm is about to become an absolute disaster.

On a WIDE foldable, going from an MV to member fancams feels significantly more seamless. You simply rotate the device instead of aggressively negotiating with black bars every five seconds.

And if split screen works well enough? Simultaneous bias and bias wrecker fancams. Efficient. Productive, even.

Concept WIDE foldable image generated on ChatGPT

A device like this is also great not only for single person consumption. It also becomes big enough that you can snuggle up and share it with someone you get tactical smooches from.

These feel closer to palm computers than phones

The more I think about WIDE foldables, the more I stop seeing them as phones. Or at least not phones in the traditional sense. They feel closer to modern palm computers.

Maybe this is the part where my inner tech romanticism fully takes over, but when I was younger, I always imagined myself somewhere in a business district handling… well, business… on some sleek handheld device that fit perfectly in my palm.

That fantasy probably came from old depictions of Palm computers, communicators, sci-fi gadgets, and every impossibly cool fictional device that made adulthood look sophisticated.

Working on the HONOR Magic V6

Now, here we are revisiting those ideas while carrying devices that are exponentially more powerful than the computers that sent people to the moon. And yet we still mostly interact with them through vertical slabs.

That’s why WIDE foldables feel important to me. Not because they’re objectively better, but because they challenge assumptions we’ve normalized for years.

Perhaps that’s really what resonates with me. Not necessarily the promise that this is the “next big thing,” but the fact that it feels like the industry is experimenting again instead of endlessly refining the same shape over and over.

Because if we’re being honest, most foldable conversations lately have devolved into hinges, crease visibility, and how thin manufacturers can make them before someone accidentally folds one with the power of friendship.

Meanwhile I’m over here wondering if we’ve simply gotten too comfortable with vertical slabs.

Maybe WIDE foldables become massive. Perhaps they stay niche. Maybe they become the physical manifestation of “this could’ve been an email.”

I genuinely don’t know.

What I do know is this form factor made my brain light up in a way phones haven’t done in a while.  

And after years of covering increasingly iterative devices, that’s refreshing enough for me.