Making it tougher and cheaper would be a good start

The Samsung Galaxy Fold has been a long, long time coming, yet after years of rumors followed by months of delays, the finished product is, well, distinctly first-gen.

It’s for those who want the cutting-edge of smartphone technology no matter what it costs and how unpolished it is. But while we can’t recommend the Galaxy Fold to most, it is an exciting look at one possible future of phones, and the Samsung Galaxy Fold 2 is sure to come closer to realizing its potential.

We don’t know much about Samsung’s second foldable yet, but you’ll find what we have heard below. And below that, you’ll find a list of all the main things we want from it, because as you may have gathered, there’s plenty of room for improvement.

Don't need it to fold? The Samsung Galaxy S11 may be for you

Cut to the chase

1. What is it? Samsung's second foldable phone
2. When is it out? Probably sometime in 2020
3. What will it cost? Far more than even most flagships
4. Samsung Galaxy Fold 2 release date and price

The latest Galaxy Fold 2 release date rumors point to a launch in the first half of 2020. That’s a little vague, and given that the original Fold didn’t ultimately go on sale until September 2019 is probably also a little early, especially as we haven’t heard much about it yet.

That said, the original Samsung Galaxy Fold was announced way back in February, it only hit stores so late due to delays, so it is possible that we’ll see the Galaxy Fold 2 that soon.

An earlier rumor also seems to agree, stating that Samsung could launch a new foldable in late 2019 or early 2020 – though notably, this rumor is from all the way back in March, so plans may well have changed given the Fold’s delay in hitting stores.

There’s no word yet on exactly what the Galaxy Fold 2 might cost, but the Galaxy Fold is $1,980 / £1,800 (around AU$3,350), so expect the Galaxy Fold 2 to be very expensive, even if the price is lowered, as one source claims it might be.


Samsung Galaxy Fold 2(Image credit: Future)

Samsung Galaxy Fold 2 news and rumors

One Samsung Galaxy Fold 2 rumor suggests that the phone will have a 6.7-inch screen that folds across the horizontal axis (where the original Fold has the hinge on the vertical axis). When folded shut, the screen is hidden on the inside as with the original, and there’s once again said to be a secondary display, but this time one of just 1-inch.

For reference, the original Galaxy Fold has a 7.3-inch main screen and a 4.6-inch secondary one, so if this is accurate then both screens would be smaller on the Fold 2. As such it sounds like a bit of a downgrade – so we’d take this with a pinch of salt, though in making a smaller foldable Samsung might be able to reduce the cost.

Plus, “people familiar with the product’s development” speaking to Bloomberg have echoed much of the above, pointing to a 6.7-inch horizontally folding screen, along with a punch-hole selfie camera and a slimmer build than the current model.

These rumors followed an earlier report that Samsung was working on two new foldable phones, one of which is said to be a “clamshell-like device”, which could make it the device above.

The other is said to have a vertical fold like the original handset, but one that folds outwards, so the main screen is on the outside and always visible – it’s just either big or small depending on whether the phone is folded or unfolded. This sounds similar to the Huawei Mate X.

Samsung has also patented numerous foldable phone designs. Many of these may never get used, but some might provide clues of what to expect.



We’ve seen for example the three possible designs above, one of which is a clamshell design, while the other two are closer to the current model.

Another patent meanwhile talks about a folding phone that works with a stylus, which could bring a future Fold closer to Samsung’s Galaxy Note range.

Shipping with a stylus would make sense in order to make the most of the big screen, and this patent specifically describes a stylus that can even work on the curved part of the screen while the phone is partially folded.

What we want to see

There are always ways phones can improve, but that’s truer of the Galaxy Fold than most high-end handsets. Impressive as it is in some ways, it’s rather lacking in others. With that in mind, here’s what we’re hoping for from the Samsung Galaxy Fold 2.

1. A lower price

The Samsung Galaxy Fold costs $1,980 / £1,800 (around AU$3,350), making it twice the price of a typical flagship. When you consider that this is one of the very first foldables and offers around twice the screen of a typical flagship, the price starts to make sense, but it still puts it out of most peoples’ reach.

So for the Galaxy Fold 2, we want to see a substantial reduction in price. It’s still likely to cost more than, say, the Samsung Galaxy S11, but being a second-generation product it’s possible that Samsung will be able to push the price down below its current level. It will need to if it wants foldables to become remotely mainstream.

2. A more durable design




While the Galaxy Fold is more durable than it originally was before Samsung had to delay it and make some alterations, it’s still even more fragile than a standard phone.

With a folding screen, a hinge, and a secondary smaller display, that’s perhaps inevitable, but we’d like to see Samsung do everything it can to make the Fold 2 tougher, especially if it’s going to be this expensive.

Basically, we want a phone that doesn’t need an entire care video created for it.

3. A better secondary screen



While the Galaxy Fold’s 7.3-inch main foldable display is impressive, its 4.6-inch secondary screen is less so. This is the screen you interact with when the main display is folded shut. This one doesn’t fold, is small, and has very large bezels above and below it.

For the Galaxy Fold 2 we want it at a minimum to have less bezel and be a bit bigger, but by designing the phone to have the main screen on the outside (so that the main screen folds down to half the size but is always visible), Samsung wouldn’t have to worry about building an extra display in at all. Though this might make the Fold 2 more fragile.

4. No more crease

One issue with the Galaxy Fold is that the crease down the middle is always noticeable. You’ll get used to it, but on a phone this expensive we don’t want to have to get used to things or make compromises, so for the Galaxy Fold 2, we’re hoping Samsung can do a better job of minimizing the crease when the screen is open.

5. An even refresh rate


The Fold’s display also suffers from an uneven refresh rate in our tests, meaning for example that if you scroll through a text-heavy webpage, the words will shift unevenly across the screen.

This isn’t the sort of thing we expect from a premium product, especially from a company with as much screen experience as Samsung, so we’d like to see this fixed for the next model.

6. A microSD card slot

A small point this one, but the Samsung Galaxy Fold, big as it is, hasn’t found space for a microSD card slot. Given that it comes with 512GB of storage this isn’t a big deal, but it’s still something we’d like to see offered in version two.

7. A bigger, faster-charging battery

The Fold’s 4,380mAh battery (or 4,235mAh in the 5G version) is fairly large by smartphone standards, but this isn’t a standard smartphone, and while battery life is very solid, there’s always room for improvement.

So for the Galaxy Fold 2, we’d like to see Samsung squeeze an even bigger battery into it, making the most of that large size for a very long life.




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Folding in different dimensions

The Samsung Galaxy Fold isn't even on sale yet, but already we've heard rumors of a 'clamshell' folding phone follow-up, and now we're starting to learn more possible details about it.

Korean news publication ET News has published a report with information about said Samsung folding phone, which we're dubbing the Samsung Galaxy Fold 2. It's not clear where the publication got the information, so take it with a pinch of salt, but ET News has a fairly solid track record for leaks like this.

According to the report, the Galaxy Fold 2 will come with a 6.7-inch screen. That's the same size as the Samsung Galaxy S10 5G, but unlike the S10 5G, you'll be able to fold this in half across the horizontal axis to store it.

When folded, the main screen will apparently be hidden away, but the handset is said to have a 1-inch screen visible on the outer case, which would likely show basic information such as notifications or what music is playing.

The original Galaxy Fold also folds inwards, hiding the main screen away when not in use, but it folds along the vertical rather than horizontal axis, and has a larger secondary screen than this phone is rumored to have.

In many ways, the Galaxy Fold 2 sounds a lot like a flip-phone of old, which folded horizontally but could sometimes show you notifications on a secondary display. Of course, the major difference between this and a typical flip-phone is that, when unfolded, you'll be holding a proper smartphone.

This is also roughly the design we're expecting to see for the unannounced Motorola Razr V4, which is seemingly a modern take on Motorola's old flip phones.

When could we see the Samsung Galaxy Fold 2?

Unfortunately, we don't even know when the original Samsung Galaxy Fold will go on sale, so its successor is likely just a twinkle in Samsung's eye at the moment.

The Galaxy Fold's durability problems caused its release to be postponed for many months. We've now heard the Galaxy Fold could launch in August, and if that's the case, the Galaxy Fold line could be resumed quickly, but we're not sure of anything yet.

In its report, ET News states the Galaxy Fold 2 could be available by the end of the year, but that seems a little soon after the release of the first foldable, so we'd expect to see it at the beginning of 2020 at the earliest. We could see it launch alongside the Samsung Galaxy S11 range, as the original Fold was revealed at the Galaxy S10 launch event.

We'll likely hear more about the Galaxy Fold 2 before then, as foldable phones tend to get many leaks and rumors, so stay tuned to TechRadar to find out everything we hear.





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With the subscription economy already taxing our budgets will the Galaxy Fold, which starts at $66 a month for 30 months, is able to take wallet share?

Samsung's Galaxy Fold will be available April 26 and the first look reviews are generally positive. Samsung has a superpremium concept device that will certainly garner attention.

And then you do the math, look at your wallet and decide that the Fold better be able to teleport you somewhere.

Sure, CNET's Jessica Dolcourt is impressed with the Galaxy Fold. Other first looks were also favorable.

Meanwhile, carriers are announcing availability. T-Mobile notes it's time to go big on the Fold and touts a bundle and perks, but doesn't talk price or financing.

AT&T also does its play on words, touts the Fold and outlines all the reasons you should buy. Here's what caught my eye:

On AT&T Next over 30 months, consumers can buy the Samsung Galaxy Fold for $66 per month when you have eligible service.

Now you're paying off the Fold over 2.5 years?!? And you're paying that installment plan for the device that's the low-end Fold. The $66 a month plan is the starting price for the Fold, which has 4G. The 5G Fold's price is unknown, but safe to say it's higher.

At $2,500, the Fold would run you $83. Soon just the financing on a superpremium phone is going to hit $100 a month.

Let's get the obvious out of the way. No corporation is going to pay for a Galaxy Fold unless you're in the C-suite and even then it's a stretch.

What about consumers looking for bragging rights? Perhaps, but I'd argue we're at an inflection point with the subscription economy. Essentially, smartphones have become a subscription in practice although technically the buying model is more installment plan.

But $66 a month for the phone is still a decent chunk of change considering the following:

1. Chances are you're an Amazon Prime subscriber.
2. Chances are you're paying for backup storage and photos somewhere.
3. Chances are you have a streaming music service, possibly two of them.
4. Chances are you have at least one standalone streaming TV service and you're pondering more as media giants launch alleged Netflix killers.
5. Chances are you still are paying cable companies for broadband.
6. And chances are wireless companies are taking more of your money.

At some point, there's a breaking point and the reality is that all of these monthly payments start competing with each other. Subscription purges are going mainstream.

The Galaxy Fold is an impressive device for sure and I'll be looking forward to checking one out. But the reality is that the price of the Fold is starting to compete with the price of a decent vacation for one person. I'll take the vacation and get a cheaper phone.




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Samsung's likely tease of a foldable device will highlight something well beyond vaporware, but the use cases remain a bit of a mystery. Maybe it won't matter.

Samsung will tease a foldable device at its Unpacked powwow and it's likely to elicit a few oohs, ahhs and maybe even a meme or two. It's unclear when this foldable screen device will be available, but I'm haunted by a simple question: What the hell am I going to do with a foldable phone.

This foldable device (Note 10, Galaxy Fold or whatever they want to call it) is clearly going to be a nice shot in the arm for the smartphone industry. After all, somebody has to innovate somewhere for a device category that has flatlined.

But here's the catch. Samsung isn't that great at telling me what I should do with their cool innovation. In theory, this use case conundrum should be sorted out by developers and consumers. It doesn't quite play out that way with Samsung though. Samsung will wow us, but we know there's a price for foldable glory. This premium device won't come cheap.

Now take this rant with a bit of salt. I mocked phablets back in the day too. Now I have one. Today, I'd chuckle at a 7-inch screen smartphone too--and then probably buy one.


The foldable Samsung device, which may or may not is shown and may or may not be available anytime soon, bring backs a bit of device lust nostalgia. I want one but have no idea why.

Maybe it'll be the ability to use DeX and have a laptop on the fly. Maybe I'll be able to go dual screen just so my work life is as cluttered on mobile as it is on the desktop. Maybe there's some collaboration big bang that makes a foldable phone enticing. Or perhaps the footprint of the device is actually smaller. Perhaps businesses will find a great use case for a foldable phone.

For now, I wait to see what this contraption actually does. Make it good Samsung.

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'Galaxy X' phone teased ahead of the presumed unveiling

With Samsung's Galaxy Unpacked 2019 event scheduled for February 20, it's always been assumed that the company's upcoming Galaxy S10 smartphone range would be officially revealed at the conference.

Now, it seems it won't be alone – thanks to some not-so-cryptic billboards installed at the famous Place de la Concorde in Paris, France, it appears that Samsung's highly-anticipated foldable phone will also be officially unveiled at the event.

Written in Hangeul, which is the South Korean alphabet, the billboards read “미래를 펼치다” and “이월 이십일”, which translates to “The future unfolds” and “February twentieth.

Samsung's delightfully unsubtle messages back up previous claims that the Galaxy X (or Galaxy F, as it's also known) would be making an appearance at the event, which will be held just one week prior to MWC 2019.

As clear as all of this may seem, we can't confirm anything at this stage – you'll have to tune in to Samsung's live stream, which will be hosted on its website, at 11am PT (2pm ET, 7pm GMT) on February 20 to see what Samsung truly has in store for us.

But you might be able to spread the cost

Samsung's folding phone - which could be called the Galaxy X, the Galaxy F, or according to the most recent rumors, the Galaxy Flex – is finally coming soon, but if you want it prepared to pay a lot, as the latest report puts it at £1,500 - £2,000.

That's rough $1,930-$2,570 / AU$2,660-AU$3,550 and is a price supplied to Gizmodo UK, by a source that the site claims to have verified works for Samsung. It's also a price that's even higher than an earlier leak, which put the Galaxy Flex at around $1,850 / £1,375 / AU$2,400.

Apparently, the Samsung Galaxy Flex will come in multiple configurations, with the most expensive being around £2,000, so even for the cheaper model, you might be paying more than earlier estimates suggested, with the top version potentially costing twice what the iPhone XS starts at.

Exclusive to EE and Samsung

It's not just set to be expensive though, it could also be a bit harder to get hold of than most phones, as according to the same source, the Galaxy Flex will be exclusive to the EE network in the UK. Though you'll also apparently be able to buy it SIM-free from Samsung.

As Gizmodo UK notes, Samsung has its own server where you can pay off some of its phones over two years. So if that’s offered for the Galaxy Flex then it may be an alternative to EE for anyone who can't stomach paying the likely massive price in one go, but if you want to buy it directly on contract with a network other than EE you might be out of luck.

There's no word on whether it will be exclusive to certain networks in other regions, but we wouldn't be surprised, especially as this isn't likely to be a phone with mass appeal.

Though Samsung clearly has reasonable hopes for it, as in a statement to Gizmodo UK the company confirmed that it is planning to produce at least one million units of the handset.

If the possible price hasn’t put you off, you should be able to buy the Samsung Galaxy Flex at some point in the first half of 2019.



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