Is Samsung Ready to Regain Its Foldable Smartphone Crown?
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Samsung seems to have been left behind by its Chinese competitors, Honor and Huawei, in terms of foldable smartphones. However, the Koreans are not throwing in the towel and are preparing a range of new models that could be presented as early as July.
Samsung wanted to reopen the market with foldable smartphones and once again present itself as one of the major innovators in the industry. However, the reactions after the presentation were subdued and the subsequent generations were only able to meet expectations to a limited extent. And last year, Huawei of all companies finally showed the Koreans what a foldable smartphone could look like.
During the Mobile World Congress (MWC) in March, Samsung showed that it does not want to leave the field to Huawei alone. We were able to discover several prototypes at the company's stand. However, no details were revealed. The company seems to want to save these for the official presentation. A special Samsung Unpacked event is to be held in New York at the beginning of July.
Tri-Fold: Samsung Also Turns the Smartphone into a Tablet
Some details about Samsung's foldable plans have now become known. The manufacturer is said to be working on a foldable smartphone that, similar to the Huawei model, can be unfolded into a tablet with two hinges. It will have a total screen diagonal of 9.9 inches. However, the folding mechanism that was already shown during the MWC is being retained: The two outer parts rest on the middle one and are not folded in a zigzag like Huawei's.
Accordingly, Samsung will rely on an additional display on the front. It is said to be the same one that will be used in the upcoming Galaxy Z Fold 7, which has a diagonal of 6.5 inches.
Upcoming Galaxy Fold to be Significantly Slimmer
It is therefore becoming apparent that Samsung is expanding its range of foldable smartphones and that the Galaxy Z Fold will no longer be the spearhead. However, the upcoming new edition of the Fold 7 will also be extensively revised compared to its predecessors, as Techmaniacs has learned.
According to this, the upcoming version is only 8.2 millimeters thick when folded. That would be around a third less than the current models. Here too, Samsung appears to be responding to pressure from Chinese manufacturers Honor and Huawei. The Magic V3 (for review) and the Mate X6 are already delivering significantly slimmer foldable smartphones.
Samsung relies on its own SoCs
However, it remains unclear which technology will be used on the inside. However, it has recently become apparent that the company could rely more heavily on its own Exynos SoCs in the future. Due to major difficulties with the introduction of the 3 nm process, a number of contract manufacturing customers switched to TSMC.
Now that the problems have been resolved, Samsung is looking for ways to utilize production capacity better. However, technical details are also scarce. Rumor has it that the company could abandon the AMD GPU last used for the Exynos 2600 SoCs and rely on an in-house development - although this does not suggest that the gap to Apple, MediaTek and Qualcomm is narrowing.
