There are large groundplane variations for the folder-type mobile phone in the talk and idle conditions, which makes its embedded antennas not easy to maintain good radiation characteristics in the two states. The radiation efficiencies in the idle condition are often less than 15%. To solve this problem, two novel antennas for the folder-type mobile phone are proposed. The first antenna is the coplanar coupled-fed planar inverted-F antenna. The antenna can cover GSM850/900/DCS/PCS operation in the talk condition, and the radiation efficiencies over the desired operating bands in the idle condition is larger than 32%, which is acceptable for practical applications for the folder-type mobile phone. The second antenna is the ultra-wideband coupled-fed loop antenna. The antenna can cover GSM850/900/DCS/PCS/UMTS penta-band operation in the talk condition. In the idle condition, good performances over the five operating bands can still be obtained, and the radiation efficiencies are better than 53%. The effects of the housing and the user's hand and head on the antenna are also studied. From the obtained results, it is seen that the effects of the housing on the radiation efficiencies are small. However, since the user's hand and head are high-loss materials, large decrease in the radiation efficiencies is usually observed.