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Samsung next month is expected to unveil two new smartphone flagships, including the Galaxy S10 that dominates mobile rumors right now, and the Galaxy F, its first foldable handset. The latter already got a soft launch back in November, but Samsung only really showed the phone’s Infinity Flex screen,
as well as the new One UI user interface that will power all Samsung
mobile experiences, Galaxy F included. And, according to a new report,
Samsung is looking to make the most of the foldable phone experience
it’s about to introduce, a form factor not many other handset vectors
will have in stores this year.
Samsung is currently testing new experiences on foldable phones The Korea Herald said
in a post, revealing that development for the upcoming phone may be
done primarily in the States, at the Samsung Design Innovation Center
(SDIC).
The SDIC is responsible for the design of Samsung’s new
products and services, the report notes, having operated in California
for decades. From the looks of it, the foldable experience is of utmost
importance for Samsung. The phone will be prohibitively expensive, and
only up to one million phones will be made in the first year. But it’s a
new product category that Samsung wants to succeed.
“The
foldable phone is a breakthrough in technology innovation,” SDIC head
Federico Casalegno said during a press event on Thursday. “For now you
design only one interface, but when you start to open up the
possibilities, there are new breakthrough innovations that we can
imagine in terms of how the human and computer interact.”
The
phone will have three screens when unfolded, including the primary panel
that’s placed on the inside of the phone, as well as a smaller display
on the outer shell.
“Our group here is working to reinvent and
reimagine how we can create new experiences based on this new platform,”
the exec added. “And of course we are very well situated here because
the Android system has not been designed for that (foldable). We need to
explore new ways to do so.”
But SDIC is not alone developing
Android features for foldable devices. We already know that Google
helped Samsung adapt Android for foldable screens, and we may see future
versions of Google’s mobile operating system get additional
optimizations for foldable handsets.
Casalegno said that Samsung’s
in-folding display phone might provide better experiences for users in
terms of design compared to the kind of wrap-around display phone Apple
may be designing.
Apple is just one of the companies that are
reportedly working on foldable handsets of its own. While Apple isn’t
expected to unveil a foldable iPhone this year, various other phone
vendors will do so, including China’s most significant player, Huawei.
Other big names in the industry, including Microsoft, LG, Xiaomi, and
Oppo are also developing foldable devices.
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