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Samsung Shows Off New Foldable Smartphone Concept

At the Samsung Developer Conference this week, Samsung showed off a new conceptual design for a foldable smartphone, which could be technology that the company works on after the Galaxy Fold.

Rather than folding from tablet sized to smartphone sized like the Galaxy Fold, the design Samsung showed off today features a smartphone-sized device that folds in half much like a flip phone, collapsing down into a smaller size.


The device is also pictured folded in half in a way that would allow one half of it to serve as a stand for the other half, with a cooking video used as an example of a use case.

Samsung says that it plans to continue to explore a "range of new form factors" in the foldable category following the launch of the Galaxy Fold.

The Galaxy Fold finally debuted in September, months after its early 2019 unveiling. Samsung initially planned to launch the device earlier, but had to shelve it due to major issues that impacted the durability and performance of the device.

Samsung has since fixed those early problems, though the Galaxy Fold still seems to be a niche, high-cost device that's prone to damage and rather delicate, as we discovered in our hands-on.


There are rumors that Apple is exploring foldable display technology for the iPhone, but so far, we've seen no concrete evidence that Apple is seriously pursuing a foldable design at this point in time.

Tag: Samsung

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Top Rated Comments

86 months ago
Classic case of Samsung throwing spaghetti against the wall to see what sticks instead of thinking about how technology can improve the user experience.
Score: 9 Votes (Like | Disagree)
TopherMan12 Avatar
86 months ago
Can you fold the bloatware into something you can throw away? That would be more valuable than the latest gimmick.
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
weez999 Avatar
86 months ago
yawn, another future failed project by Samsung. In my opinion, foldable phones will never be accepted. It's like the sony DAT tape which seemed like it had promise but crashed and burned badly. This will follow the same path to death.
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
86 months ago
Meh, the awe of folding phones is lost on me.
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
realtuner Avatar
86 months ago
This is what they should be doing. Showing off concepts of things you’re working on or even letting tech reviewers look at demo units.

Selling half-baked devices at ridiculous prices to consumers is not the way to conduct your R&D.
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Krizoitz Avatar
86 months ago

While I admire Samsung for bringing the Fold to the market (albeit ridiculously premium priced and half-baked), I’m still wondering what their next move is.
You admire them for releasing a seriously compromised device at a high price point? I don't.
I admire companies like Apple who are better at saying "we COULD sell this but it would be a pretty crappy experience, so lets not".


The world evolves. You may not see it today, but everything needs to start somewhere. I applaud Samsung for pushing the boundaries, even if the tech is ahead of its time.
Just because something is new and different doesn't mean its the future. Lots of "new" ideas get tried only to utterly fail, not because they were ahead of their time, but because they were mediocre to bad ideas.

Meanwhile releasing half-baked versions of products that might someday down the line be good isn't "pushing boundaries". Releasing a product before its ready is a bad thing, not a good one.
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)