Samsung made a huge deal about the Galaxy Fold when they announced it during the Galaxy S10's launch event in San Francisco on February 20th, although they frustrated tech press to no end during MWC 2019 by placing the foldable smartphone behind a ton of reflective glass. Despite this, a hands-on video has leaked showing the Galaxy Fold being folded and unfolded, displaying its central crease to all and sundry.
Sporting an AT&T boot up logo and carrying model number F900U, the Galaxy Fold in the video is seen in more details than ever before. As you can see in the video above, when folded the Galaxy Fold isn't the slimmest device you've ever seen, but at least the hinge does close with a reassuring click. Something you will have noticed is the central crease that is quite visible when the device is unfolded flat, it will be interesting to see just how durable the internal display actually is over time.
Is the folding smartphone the latest gimmick or is it just a case of waiting until the technology matures in the years ahead? I lean towards the latter, but there's a valid case for thinking that folding smartphones such as the Galaxy Fold and Huawei's Mate X are a fad and likely to fall by the wayside and joining 3D in the scrapheap.
The Galaxy Fold will cost $1980 to pre-order next month which is a pretty big chunk of cash to splash out on a newfangled smartphone with unproven technology. With this in mind, how much would you be willing to pay to take a chance on the galaxy Fold?
Source: PhoneOfTime (YouTube)
Via: SamMobile
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Folding display is not there yet and in my opinion, it will fail to be a mainstream item as long as its in a clam shell design simply because of the crease. The Mate X has a reverse crease and I don’t think the design is practical. However due to the price, these are really for the enthusiast anyway. The average Joe would not buy one of these simply because there is no value in it.
It’s like this isn’t emerging, first generation technology & writers of articles like this one already believe they deserve something better. Complaints involving the *currently necessary* crease OF A FOLDING OLED DISPLAY are insulting.
Sure. But just because something is new doesn’t mean it’s worthy of praise by default.
And Samsung’s a big company, they can handle a little criticism. ;)
I fully understand that this is a first generation product. It’s likely that we’ll have to wait until the 3rd or 4th generation of the technology before it matures into a mainstream product. I’m really excited about folding smartphones and their potential, but at the same time I can’t pretend that they are anything but a tentative step in to the water until the display crease and the heavy price tag issues are solved.