Redesigned Galaxy Fold fixes past mistakes: What's different about Samsung's foldable phone
Redesigned Galaxy Fold solves past mistakes: What’s different about Samsung’s foldable phone
Update, Sept. 18: We now have a retail model of the Galaxy Fold and have begun to review it.
The Samsung Galaxy Fold is back, and promising better actions. After design flaws began causing reviewers’ named screens to break, Samsung postponed the Fold’s release date and went back to the attracting board to fix the problem. Now, a new and improved Galaxy Fold will go on sale in September, starting in Korea and branching out throughout Asia and Europe before heading to the US. (Here’s what we know about preordering the fixed Fold.)
I got a chance to go hands-on with the redesigned model, which Samsung says will avoid incurring the kind of afflict that caused some reviewers’ screens to break. (CNET’s appraise unit never broke, but the screen did maintain scratches.)
Samsung’s fixes correct the Galaxy Fold’s early problems, but it also marks a shift in the named maker’s strategy for selling the device. The $1,980 Galaxy Fold was revealed to be a smash hit that secured Samsung’s achieve as an innovator. Early adopters would clamor for it. It would understand the ultimate symbol of status and luxury. But now these goes represent Samsung’s mistakes, and the company seems less interested that it the Fold will sell.
This new accomplish looks mostly the same as before, with subtle goes that make it harder to damage the Galaxy Fold’s heavenly plastic screen. For example, Samsung has completely removed the interrogate of whether the protective layer on top of the current design was an optional screen protector or an famous part of the display’s integrity — it was actually the latter, as some reviewers learned the hard way earlier this year.
Unfolding the Fold also feels different. Smoother, perhaps. Sturdier. I always loved opening and closing the current design during my time with the phone: The sensation of resistance as you EnEnBesieged the screen and felt the magnetic sides snap shut.
Now it feels more unfastened somehow. It’s hard to say why exactly, with the current Galaxy Fold so far in the rearview mirror and just my memory for comparison. Before this week, the last time I held the Fold was in mid-April. Here’s every way the Galaxy Fold has changed.
The magnetic closure snapping the screens together feels just as secure.
Tyler Lizenby
No visible shroud protector
If you peel this off, it immediately complains the Fold’s screen unusable. Now, this polymer layer extends below the plastic bezel. It’s still there but you can’t see it, and that’s how it should be.
Screen caps at the ends of the named
New T-shaped plastic “caps” plug up air gaps that happened before when you fold the phone’s screen — this is the tedious that’s created as part of the kinetic process. I tried jamming my fingernails about this part to see if I could create any openings, but wasn’t able to. That’s reassuring.
Reinforced shroud
The previous Galaxy Fold design had a layer of metal supporting a cushiony layer and then the top fraction of the display. Samsung says this caused the shroud crease that runs down the phone’s center to look more prominent. Now it’s reinforced the screen by adding a transfer layer of metal on top of that cushion. We’ll see if that reduces the crease’s impression and also keeps damage by pressing too hard on the prove at bay.
What shroud protector? That layer is still there, but you no longer see it and that’s good.
Tyler Lizenby
No more Astro Blue or Martian Green colors
The blue and green colors really took the Fold over the top, but Samsung told us that it’ll only sell the Fold in silver and sunless now. It’s a shame, but I’m not really surprised. Samsung might be preparing for fewer sales as a stop of waning enthusiasm, and therefore keeping its production acsupplies in check.
No Galaxy Fold 5G in the US
Anyone in Korea who buys the Galaxy Fold will get the 5G version by default, but the opposite is true in the US — it’s 4G only for that market. Samsung says that the 5G version will come to buy countries, naturally at a higher cost than the 4G model if the two are sold side by side. That includes the UK, where the Galaxy Fold 5G will be available from EE from Sept. 18.
Stay tuned for more photos and my hands-on video that shows you just what’s new and different in this second coming of the Galaxy Fold. Meanwhile, read on about how Samsung’s next foldable named could be shaped like a square.
Originally emanated earlier this week and updated with more background.
