Smartphones with foldable displays will hit the market in 2019 after years of rumor and expectation. Some say these folding phones will revolutionize the stagnant mobile world. Others expect nothing more than an exclusive gimmick.
Whatever foldable phones will become, one thing they surely are not is new. In fact, Samsung has been releasing luxurious folding smartphones for various years.
Though they’re commonly sold only in China, long-time Android Authority followers will previously know about Samsung’s W series. These clamshell phones don’t feature folding displays, but they are in lots of ways the precursor to the upcoming Galaxy F and could offer a quick look of what’s to come.
Unfolding the specs
Samsung has been manufacture W-series flip phones for the Chinese market since 2006, and it’s a line it continues to pursue in the present day.
W-branded smartphones offer high-end specs like you would discover in Samsung flagship Note and S series, counting the latest chipsets, multiple cameras, and lots of RAM. Last year’s Samsung W2019 has double 12MP rear cameras, a Snapdragon 845 chip, 6GB RAM, and 128GB or 256GB storage space.
Like phones in the W series, Samsung’s imminent folding phone is anticipated to offer best specs inside an unconventional form factor. The current rumors recommend it will ship with the Snapdragon 855 chipset (the latest and greatest from Qualcomm) and two batteries.
The W series evolved from a single-display smartphone to comprise two displays like the Galaxy F will. The W2019 has a 4.2-inch outward-facing display and a 4.2-inch display in — almost the same system as the folding Galaxy prototype Samsung showed off last November. Only, instead of opening up to make known a little screen, partition, and a keyboard, you’ll just have one tablet-sized display to admire once extended, like in the image below.
The Samsung W2019’s specs and design expose Samsung’s awareness, and willingness, to chase the premium end of foldable smartphones, but it has also exposed their viability.
Foldable, feasible
There appears to be no huge desire for premium clamshell phones in the West or else Samsung would probably previously sell the W series here — most people would most likely think it’s a little dated. However, this range’s sustained existence in China shows there is a market for position phones with uncommon designs.
The Samsung W2019 isn’t a one-off product sold in imperfect quantities. It’s a major line with yearly additions. Why the lineup has proved well-liked, according to a 2014 Samsung blog post, relates to China’s cultural history.
“Generally, the concept of ‘premium’ refers to a trendy product of superior excellence. In China, it refers to something more. The Chinese base their concept of ‘Premium’ on the thousands of years of their unchanged philosophy and admiration for the arts; it reflects China’s distinctive cultural individuality,” wrote Samsung.
If the W2019 thrives in China because it acknowledges the market’s concept of premium, possibly the Galaxy F will bear fruit in the markets hungering for technology’s flow edge.
Apple regular finds itself about the top of the leaderboard in yearly smartphone shipments, though it has usually focused on the premium section alone. A $1,500 phone with an extraordinary screen technology — as the Galaxy F is tipped to be — seems like a reasonable gamble in the markets where such devices have established successfully.
Samsung’s luxury flip phones have still given it a chance to assessment such high price tags. The latest W phone, the W2019 released previous year, cost 18,999 yuan (~$2,800) — far more than what predictable with the Galaxy F. The phone’s predecessor, the W2018, was priced at 15,999 yuan (~$2,360). The series’ pricing has actually increased every year.
These are amazingly expensive phones, yet they have a spectator even with their antiquated design because they fit their market. Though nobody can be certain of this yet, it appears ever more likely that phones with folding goblet displays will carve a niche in markets craving inventive tech.
Knowledge and experience
Samsung’s W series has reduced the business risk of its upcoming folding device in numerous key ways. It’s not just market observations based on similar folding devices in China, Samsung has also gained precious experience just by creating these products.
Samsung has for years had to believe the technological implications of two displays, things like toughness the physical constraints of the body (like how to fit the components around the folding mechanism), as well as how the Android software will combine with two displays.
A smartphone with a folding display is a dissimilar beast, of course, but it’s more like a double display clamshell phone than established flagships like the Galaxy S series.
What Samsung’s learned from clamshells will certainly help it in the folding display field, and present it an edge on manufacturers who’ve only ever developed for single screens.
Some of those OEMs will be hard at work readying their own folding phones, of course. Samsung faces competition from major OEMs like Huawei, Lenovo, Oppo, and potentially Motorola, which is said to gunning for a Razr series Restoration.
Samsung is previously aware people will pay big prices for its high-powered flip phones — it’s produced many. As much of a technological jump as the Galaxy F may be, it’s only a small step away from a luxury flip phone. For Samsung, that can only be an excellent thing.
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