Samsung is expected to announce its upcoming flagship smartphone the Galaxy S11 series in February 2020 at a special Unpacked event in New York. However, the world's largest smartphone vendor teased another very interesting smartphone earlier this year – a clamshell folding Galaxy smartphone.
Leaked pictures of the purported Galaxy Fold 2 surfaced on the internet earlier this month and now the launch date information has just been leaked, and it looks like the first foldable clamshell smartphone from Samsung could be coming sooner than we'd expected.
Galaxy Fold 2 will go on sale immediately after launch
According to Korean news agency Yonhap News, Samsung will be unveiling its clamshell foldable smartphone, which is said to be the Galaxy Fold 2, alongside the Galaxy S11 series at the Unpacked Event in February. Interestingly, the agency claims that the foldable phone will go on sale "immediately" after the event.
The immediate sale after launch is a little surprising, as Samsung usually launches its flagship devices in February and makes them available for sale a little later and not immediately after launch. However, it is still unclear whether the sale date is for Samsung's home market of South Korea or if it applies to other international markets such as Europe, Asia and America as well.
Samsung is reportedly talking to Korea's three major mobile carriers to release the devices, according to Yonhap's sources close to the matter.
Galaxy Fold 2 will be priced much lower than original Galaxy Fold
The sources also claim that the Galaxy Fold 2, or whatever Samsung chooses to officially call it, will carry a price tag that will be in the "mid-$1000 range." This is slightly higher than the $845 estimated price that was reported earlier the Korean Herald, but it is way too lower than the $2000 price tag of the original Galaxy Fold, which isn't particularly a bad thing at all.
The lower price tag for the next Galaxy Foldable smartphone suggests that Samsung is now more confident about the foldable technology and the new clamshell design could also be a contributing factor.
Galaxy Fold hiccups
To recall, the original Galaxy Fold which transforms into a tablet when unfolded, was the first of its kind in the smartphone world. But Samsung had to push its launch from April 2019 to September after reviewers who were given the phones to test complained about the folding screen breaking near the point of folding, therefore rendering the phones unusable.
Samsung then took note and improved the hinge mechanism which is responsible for the folding and unfolding of the phone and reinforced the plastic display and re-launched the Galaxy Fold in late September. The company got a lot of praise for its effort in fixing the issue that had plagued the earlier batch.
Samsung is on its way to master foldable phones
It now seems Samsung has improvised on the folding smartphones further and is on its way to master the technology, as the Galaxy Fold 2 is said to come with an ultra-thin layer of glass, instead of a plastic film on top of the display which was the case on the original Galaxy Fold. The glass folding display is expected to offer better scratch resistance and eliminate the creases that occurred at the point of folding in plastic displays.
It will be interesting to see just how durable and practical the Galaxy Fold 2 will be compared to the original Galaxy Fold.
