Samsung shows off concept flip phone with a foldable design

By Christian de Looper Published October 29, 2019

Samsung is already working on a new foldable phone: At the Samsung Developer Conference, the company showed off how One UI 2.0 would look on a clamshell-style phone — all but confirming that it’s working on a phone with such a design.

The news isn’t all that surprising. Given the amount of money Samsung has poured into developing foldable devices, it makes sense that even given the muted reception of the Galaxy Fold, the company would want to continue with the concept until it makes its way to more consumers.

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The new concept, which was only shown off in an animation, looks basically like a flip phone with a large display covering the entire inside of the device. Instead of attempting to bring larger displays to consumers, this type of phone would be aimed at offering a smaller form-factor that can more easily fit in users’ pockets.

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Samsung didn’t spend much time on stage detailing any actual new device, nor when it actually plans on releasing a phone with a form factor like this. It also didn’t talk about whether or not the phone would use the exact same folding display technology as the Samsung Galaxy Fold, which was officially launched to the public a few weeks ago.

The Samsung Galaxy Fold was originally supposed to be launched earlier in the year, but early reviewers found that the screens on their review units were breaking. As a result, Samsung recalled those review units and announced that it would take some time to work on making the display technology more resilient and stronger. Finally, the company launched the new-and-improved Galaxy Fold a few weeks ago, and so far most users seem to have had a good experience with the phone.

Of course, we ultimately expect Samsung to release all kinds of foldable phones. Some predict that foldable screens will change smartphone technology, and if that’s true, then even companies like Apple will want to make use of the technology. When that time comes, it could be Samsung supplying the foldable screens to those companies. In the meantime, Samsung will likely continue to show off what foldable phones could look like.

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Christian de Looper

Christian de Looper is a long-time freelance writer who has covered every facet of the consumer tech and electric vehicle…

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