Hands-on with Samsung's Galaxy Fold: The folding future is almost upon us

Samsung's folding phone does feel incredibly exciting, but is there a need for it yet?

After months of anticipation, the Samsung folding phone, the Galaxy Fold, is finally making its way to the UK, and into your pocket.

This product has been in the works for years: the company first revealed it was working on foldable screens at CES in 2011, before announcing the Galaxy Fold was on its way back in November 2018.

Now, it’s almost here. The new phone will go on sale in the UK on May 3, with pre-orders opening on April 26.

After getting some hands-on time with the device at a Samsung event in London, here’s what we thought.

Samsung Galaxy Fold: the specs

Some pretty impressive tech has gone into making that screen fold. Samsung says it had to create an advanced composite polymer layer for the screen, so it could be flexible and durable enough to be folded. As well, this is the thinnest mobile display it has ever created, 50 per cent thinner than the standard display for a Samsung phone.

When shut, the Samsung Galaxy Fold has a 4.7-inch Super AMOLED display on the front of the device, complete with a selfie camera. This is bordered by rather thick bezels considering that when open, the device has a 7-inch immersive display.

The Samsung Galaxy Fold has a 7-inch screen when open

The screen and hinge can take at least 200,000 open and shuts, which means if you only open it 100 times a day, it should last at least five years. But who knows what a folding phone will look like in five years time.

It comes in four colours, silver, black, green and blue. The final two colours are exclusive only for Samsung.com customers, and the hinge colour can be customised.

Inside the device, it has a 7nm octa core processor, 12GB of RAM and 512GB of storage. There are two batteries, one on either side of the phone, which work together to power the device, with a combined power of 4,380mAH.

There’s a total of six cameras: three on the back, like the Samsung Galaxy S10+, two selfie cameras when the phone is open, and one on the front of the phone.

Why do you need a folding phone?

For one, to watch all the content. Samsung says it has worked with the likes of Instagram and Netflix to optimise their apps for usage on the phone. Therefore, scrolling social media, or watching a film looks pretty great on this screen, as well as gaming.

A lot of work has gone into improving the user interface and experience on this phone, so you can work on two, even three, apps at the same time in an easy, seamless way.

It's not just about having a bigger screen to do emails or play a game on your commute though. Samsung wants us to move beyond what we can do already and imagine the possibilities.

“We’re not just bringing out a new smartphone, this is a completely new category, a new way of interacting with a smart device,” said Mark Notton, portfolio director at Samsung Europe.

What does it feel like to use it?

This device is heavy, at a whopping 263g, nearly 100g more than the recent Galaxy S10+, so it does have a lot of extra weight. When folded, it feels bulky, and noticeably sticks out in the pocket of your jeans.

That chunky bezel on the front looks fairly ugly too, and would take some getting used to.

The folding phone looks like an old-school iPhone when folded, thanks to that chunky bezel

There are some cool features. If you’re making a call with the phone closed, when you open the device it changes the call to via the loudspeaker.

Moving between apps is pretty seamless, particularly going from open screen to closed, and back again. In settings, you can ensure that certain apps don’t go to the front screen when you shut the device for extra privacy.

It seems like it would take a lot of practice to be able to use the Fold one-handed. Trying to take a picture with the open screen was tricky, because it is like taking a picture with a tablet, and we all know how much people love that.

Then again, I often struggle to use "normal" plus-size devices one-handed. It usually takes time to get used to the feel and handling of a new device, and that will certainly be true for the Fold.

That screen fold can look quite noticeable too, depending on what app you’re using. On something like Instagram, you can’t really see it but when generally using the device and on the homepage, you can detect that crease.

Like with the chunky bezel, and the weight, these are first-generation problems and will likely be straightened out with the subsequent folding phones.

It does feel like you’re holding something unbelievably exciting and innovative but the use case doesn’t seem to have been proven yet beyond what you can do on a normal smartphone.

Give it time, the analyst firm Gartner thinks 30 million foldable phones will be sold in 2023, around five per cent of all smartphones. Though niche at the moment, there is potential for devices like this in the future.

Samsung Galaxy Fold: UK price and release date

The Samsung Galaxy Fold will be available to pre-order from Samsung.com and EE from April 26, with the phone on sale from May 3, for £1,800. That is a substantial amount of money but if you want to be the first in line for a new piece of tech like this, it's justified.

The device comes with a free pair of Samsung’s Galaxy Earbuds, as well as a year’s free insurance from Samsung Care+, which covers accidental damage and water damage.

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