Samsung finally unveils their foldable phone: The Galaxy Fold

It’s no longer a concept anymore. It’s now a reality! This foldable device from Samsung is finally a reality.

Flashing back to November, Samsung first teased about its foldable phone and at the company’s Galaxy Unpacked event today, it was revealed officially. Samsung’s foldable phone has a name; the Samsung Galaxy Fold, and the company is revealing details about what this unique smartphone can do. The company is planning to launch the Galaxy Fold on April 26th, starting at a massive $1,980. There will be both LTE and 5G version of the Galaxy Fold, and Samsung is even planning on launching the device in Europe on May 3rd, starting at 2,000 euros.

Samsung is using a new 7.3-inch Infinity Flex Display that enables the phone itself to have a tablet-sized screen that can be folded to fit into a pocket. The main display is QXGA+ resolution (4.2:3), and when it’s folded, a smaller 4.6-inch HD+ (840 x 1960) (12:9) display is used for the phone mode. Samsung is using 512GB of Universal Flash Storage 3.0 (eUFS) for fast speeds, accompanied with a Qualcomm 7nm octa-core processor and 12GB of RAM. They also went further by building two batteries for its Galaxy Fold, that are separated by the fold but combined in the Android operating system to represent a total of 4,380 mAh.

Samsung is allowing the Galaxy Fold to run three apps at once on this Android device, and it’s using an app continuity system to adjust these apps when you move between tablet and phone modes. Apps like WhatsApp, Microsoft Office, and YouTube have all been optimized for the new display and modes, and there are reports that the company is working with Google to ensure Android OS  fully supports this display.

Samsung isn’t the only smartphone maker that has been in the news concerning a foldable device, but it’s certainly one of the first to make it widely available. Xiaomi teased its own folding phone recently, that looked like the best concept we’ve seen so far. Huawei is also reportedly planning to release a foldable handset this year, and Lenovo on the other side has started to tease its own prototype. LG has also been developing flexible OLED displays and TVs that roll up into a box. If all these manufacturers progress toward shipping a device like Samsung, then we expect to see a lot of foldable phones in 2019 and beyond.