Remember back in 2014 when the Apple iPhone 6 was in the spotlight for its unique feature of being able to bend? Humorously dubbed “Bendgate”, the phenomenon even led to people walking into Apple stores to bend iPhones for the heck of it. But what if bendable phones were an actual reality? Well, that’s what Samsung did with the Samsung Galaxy Fold.
A new model joins the fold
Unveiled yesterday at Samsung Unpacked, the Samsung Galaxy Fold was first seen at CES. Back then it was just a proof of concept with no definite device specification. That has all changed and now we have the first foldable smartphone from Samsung.
A foldable phone. So what?
A question that is probably on your mind is “why would anyone want a foldable phone?”. Well, do you have both a tablet and a phone? If you use them both regularly, you’d have probably wished that you had one device combining them all. That’s what the Samsung Galaxy Fold aims to do. The 7.3” Infinity Flex display allows the device to be folded to fit into a pocket.
When folded, the Samsung Galaxy Fold packs a 4.6” HD+ display with a 21:9 aspect ratio. It looks like a normal phone, except that it’s slightly thicker than ye average smartphone. It has all the features of a smartphone such as calls, messages and a camera. But that’s not even its final form.
More screen to multitask
When unfolder, the Samsung Galaxy Fold transforms into a 7.3” display with a 16:10 aspect ratio. Samsung has developed a method to run three apps at once on the Samsung Galaxy Fold. So you can literally watch a video on YouTube about a place, message a friend about said place and then book a plane ticket to the place, all in one seamless go.
Apps such as Whatsapp, Microsoft Office and YouTube have all been optimized for these modes. Samsung is also hard at work to ensure that the Samsung Galaxy Fold works well with Android 9.0 Pie and upcoming versions.
Giving the Samsung Galaxy Fold the power to perform
Powering the Samsung Galaxy Fold is a Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 backed up by 12GB of RAM. Making sure you have enough juice to power all that display goodness, Samsung has also included 4,380mAh battery that are separated in the physical fold of the device but combined via the Android OS.
Speaking of fold, the fold mechanism on the Samsung Galaxy Fold comprises of a strong backbone, and a hinge system that has a number of interlocking gears. All these are hidden within the body of the device, making it discreet and polished.
Dual screen, triple cameras
Added to that, the Samsung Galaxy Fold also packs a triple camera setup. These are a 16MP ultrawide lens, a 12MP wide angle, and a telephoto camera. The cameras are placed in such a way that they can be used in both phone and tablet mode. A 10MP camera sits on the front of the display to be used for selfies. For video, you can go all the way upto 4K at 60fps.
Making sure you have space for all that footage, the Samsung Galaxy Fold comes with 512GB of onboard storage. Unfortunately, there’s no additional expansion. But if you’re like me, you can use Google Photos to compress all that footage with a minimal loss of quality while having unlimited storage. The UFS 3.0 chip means that you spend less time looking at loading screens and more time multitasking.
Is it worth the price though?
That’s the catch. The Samsung Galaxy Fold starts off at $1,980. Do the conversion to local currency and you’re looking at forking over LKR 350,000 for this device. While some would argue why you would spend so much on a device, there are those who would actually find a use for it. But we know one thing for sure. Samsung’s new phone is afoldable, just not affordable.