It’s a smartphone, it’s a tablet – No, it’s both. The Galaxy Fold has officially been announced this morning at the Samsung Unpacked event in San Francisco, USA.
Given the number of leaks we’ve seen of the latest crop of Samsung devices, it’s important to look at the specs to confirm what can be and dispel the rumours. The Galaxy Fold is a 7.3″ QXGA+ infinity Flex display which folds to offer cover to cover display of 4.6″ HD+ Super AMOLED.
Out of the box you’ll be playing with Android 9.0 Pie, 512GB of storage and 12GB of RAM: This is exciting to see how it performs across a long day or when hooking up to a monitor with Dex. This is all running on a 7nm 64-bit Octa-core processor and powered by a 4,380mAh battery (dual batteries to allow wireless power share). With the 7.3″ screen it’s quite likely that users will want to top-up charge through the day so having both wired QC2.0 and Wireless WPC means a short top up can equal a lot of screen on time for users.
The camera set is as seen in may of the leaks, a triple rear camera and dual front camera. The rear camera setup is a 16MP Ultra Wide angle camera with a f2.2 aperture. The second camera is a 12MP Wide Angle, f1.5/f2.4 variable with OIS for photos on the move. Finally the telephoto lens, also offering OIS, has an f2.4 aperture with 2 x Optical Zoom capability.
The front camera setup is a touch more simple with a 10MP selfie camera and f2.2 accompanied by an 8MP RGB Depth Camera (stay tuned, there will almost certainly be more to come with developers utilising this “depth perception” capability) with f1.9.
Samsung are extremely confident the technology of a folding display will offer user a set of functionality and features that hasn’t before been seen. Their President and CEO of IT & Mobile Communications
Division, Samsung Electronics DJ Koh stated
Today, Samsung is writing the next chapter in mobile innovation history by changing what’s possible in a smartphone. Galaxy Fold introduces a completely new category that unlocks new capabilities never seen
before with our Infinity Flex Display. We created Galaxy Fold for those that want to experience what a premium
foldable device can do, beyond the limitations of a traditional smartphone.
The folding display
Samsung have delivered a display that doesn’t bend, it actually folds. From an engineering perspective, they state that this is a more intuitive user experience but far more troublesome to deliver to customers. This required them to invent new display materials that are significantly thinner than previously used but remains extremely touch and durable.
This engineering focus also ensured that the folding was a natural motion, giving users a smooth action to close and a satisfying click when the device closed over into the folded position. The fingerprint sensor is placed on the side of the device where a users thumb will sit when holding the phone, with engineering going into the balance of the device when closed or open in the larger format.
The software
Samsung worked closely with Google to create a seamless experience between the folded 4.6 inch display and the unfolded 7.3 inch display. Samsung have created a new software called App Continuity which will allow the unfolded display to open up to exactly where you were on the front, folded display without missing a beat.
Once unfolded the display can show three apps at once in a grid with the main app on the left and two displayed in smaller sections on the right of the display. Apps can be dragged and dropped into different sections of the grid, or removed entirely.
The displaying of apps on both displays looks to be very innovative and we can’t wait to put it through its paces.
Samsung are targeting users who have their phone as not just a communication, but an entertainment device with the screen being ideal for video playback and AGK stereo sound.
Such an innovative device, in both software and hardware, of course comes with an innovative price. Although we do not have a local price just yet it will be US$1980 in the States when it arrives on April 26 so be prepared to pay a new, never-before seen price here in Australia – but then it is a brand new never-before seen device.
I’m excited! I can’t wait to try this out, so long as it’s not too bulky 🙂
Looks amazing. Yes 3k is a lot for a phone, but this does look pretty special. Tempted.
i think this is just a gimmick for a phone and plus i doubt samsung will make a lot of those phones probably gonna be extremely limited and with price tag of $3000 AU which im assuming thats how much its gonna cost here it is absurd and crazy
$2500 of that $3000+ is just for the novelty of a folding screen.
$3000 for a phone.. Tell them their dreamin
That looks like it may be awesome!