Samsung has kicked off the year in a big way as the Unpacked event is upon us, announcing a wealth of new devices. Happening on 20 February in San Francisco, Samsung introduces to the world to the latest additions to the Galaxy family, revealing an exciting future for the smartphone as the company celebrates ten years of leadership in mobile innovation.
Samsung CEO, DJ Koh, also announced today that the company had sold more than 2 billion Galaxy phones since 2010, marking one of the first times the company has ever put a number on sales for the line.
Headlined by the Samsung Galaxy S10 range, the event also included other phones and wearables such as three different versions of the Galaxy S10 – S10 Plus, a smaller Galaxy S10E model, and one with 5G, the long-awaited Samsung foldable phone, and the wireless Galaxy Buds to compete with the Apple AirPods. However, it seemed like the Galaxy Fold totally dominates Samsung Unpacked, leaving the Galaxy S10 family in its shadow.
The company first teased about its foldable phone back in November, and since then created a lot of curiosity and hype. At this launch, the Samsung Galaxy Fold was introduced, detailing its features and plans.
The Galaxy Fold
The Samsung Galaxy Fold is a compact smartphone when closed and a tablet when fully opened. The phone features a new 7.3-inch Infinity Flex Display that enables the phone to have a large tablet-sized screen that can be folded into half to fit in a pocket. The main display is QXGA+ resolution (4.2:3), and when folded, a smaller 4.6-inch HD+ (12:9) display is used.
The phone is also packed with six cameras, with three on the back, one on the front and two inside. The three rear has a triple-camera system that will be used for both the tablet and phone modes. There’s a 16MP ultra-wide camera, 12MP wide-angle and telephoto cameras at the rear, and a 10MP cover camera for selfies. The two cameras hidden within are a 10MP selfie camera and an 8MP depth camera.
Samsung is powered by 512GB of Universal Flash Storage 3.0 (eUFS) for fast speeds, with a Qualcomm 7nm octa-core processor and 12GB of RAM. This setup allows the phone to run three apps at once and using a continuity system to adjust these apps when you switch between tablet and phone modes.
There are also two batteries in the Galaxy Fold, one on each side but combined in the system to represent a total of 4,380 mAh.
The company plans to launch the Galaxy Fold on 26 April, starting at US$1,980, making it the most expensive smartphone in the market. There will also be two versions of the Galaxy Fold – LTE and 5G. It also comes in four colors: cosmos black, space silver, Martian green and astro blue.