Next year, Samsung will reveal the much-anticipated Galaxy X; a handset to celebrate the South Korean company’s tenth year making Galaxy phones. Today, at a developer conference in San Francisco, Samsung revealed a first look at some of the tech we can look forward to. It looks like they’ll finally be going all out and introducing a foldable screen for the Samsung Galaxy X.
The Recent Frustration of Samsung
I’m going to be painfully honest. Samsung hasn’t impressed me since they announced the Note 7. This is where many would launch into jokes about the unfortunate end of that phone but I won’t because I was devasted to never own it. I did, however, get to own a Note 8 and that was a great phone, taking the brilliance of the Note 7 and adding a few other bits and bobs.
Since then, Samsung has been an incredibly frustrating company to follow. The S9 and S9 Plus were lacklustre smartphones in the series. That statement comes even before you compare them to the likes of Google’s Pixel 3XL and the simply incredible Huawei P20 Pro which saw the Chinese manufacturer release the best smartphone camera on the market just as Samsung’s marketing campaign heavily leaned on their own camera.
When Apple launched their tenth-anniversary smartphone, the iPhone X, last year, they did introduce notches which became quite popular, but the phone didn’t shake up the market like they’d hoped. In fact, I think the iPhone X may have been one of Apple’s quickest phones to reach “end of life” status.
While Apple’s attempt to celebrate ten years was “meh” and frankly Samsung’s phones so far this year bring me to make the same unimpressed sound, 2019 could see a genuinely exciting Galaxy smartphone enter the market.
Samsung Reveals a Foldable Screen in a Smartphone
There are a few things that have been doing the rounds in the smartphone world for the last years. In-screen fingerprint sensors were one such thing, with Huawei, One Plus and Oppo introducing smartphones this year with that tech built in. Another futuristic trend we’ve all been waiting patiently for is a folding smartphone, a trend Samsung looks destined to deliver in the Galaxy X.
I can’t be too surprised we’ve finally reached this point in smartphone tech though. At IFA in Berlin this year I saw a folding screen technology up close thanks to Royole:
Samsung is taking this a step further and rather than just being a display, the Galaxy X flagship could be a foldable phone. Here’s what an early prototype looks like:
Here’s a GIF of Samsung’s foldable phone. #SDC18 pic.twitter.com/ZmXj3PYsHr
— Ken Yeung (@thekenyeung) November 7, 2018
Rumoured Foldable Galaxy X Specifications
So what will the specs look like if this foldable smartphone is, in fact, the Galaxy X?
We have specs for @Samsung's front and main folding displays. You're not going to want to live in the front screen much. pic.twitter.com/QyTurX0mr5
— Avi Greengart (@greengart) November 7, 2018
Some screen stats were released at the event which shows the form of the Galaxy X along with some screen spec. Fully opened, the phone will have a 7.3-inch screen with reasonably wide bezels by modern standards. To be fair, that’s expected given this is both an early prototype and the first foldable screened smartphone on the market.
When closed, the phone has a secondary screen but this isn’t just a display. Closed, the 4.58-inch screen reminds me of one of the old Nokia phones; you know, this one – the Nokia 7380:
The foldable Samsung smartphone really reminds me of the Nokia 7380 for some reason pic.twitter.com/oVxjD9LwM3
— Marty Meany (@martinmeany) November 7, 2018
Joking aside though, Samsung is trying something genuinely brave if this phone hits the shelves in 2019. Do I really thing this will be the Samsung Galaxy X? No. This is going to be the super expensive jewel in the crown of Samsung that celebrates ten years of smartphones, but I don’t think this is the flagship they expect everyone to buy. An underwhelming screen when closed and a huge, but very cool, screen when open, maketh a fantastic flagship not. But it does make a very cool smartphone – one I personally can’t wait to play with.
