Samsung is fully committed to the foldable smartphone with its Galaxy Z Fold and Flip 6. But next year it is reportedly ready for the next step.
Samsung is a company that experiments plenty and is never afraid to be the first to bring a new shape or product to market. For example, it was one of the first brands with a foldable smartphone. Now it seems to be embracing another technology: the roll-up screen.
The big question is what exactly it means for Samsung’s foldable Galaxy Z Fold and Flip line, as the brand’s first roll-up smartphone may roll out of the factory as early as next year.
Samsung goes for rollable smartphone
South Korean medium The Elec is often well informed when it comes to Samsung news. One of the site’s latest reports is that the company is working on a foldable smartphone. One with a 12.4-inch screen, which is thus larger than the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6.
That smartphone seems to be coming pretty soon. If everything goes according to plan, the model will be launched in the second half of 2025. The special thing is that this smartphone has the selfie camera below the screen. So you really get a screen without notches. The latter technique, by the way, is not entirely new, as Samsung already applies it to some models.
Huawei’s trifold. (Image: Huawei)
This innovation is not entirely unexpected, either. Several brands have already shown concept versions of devices where the screen rolls itself up instead of unfolding. At this year’s Mobile Word Congress MWC, for example, we saw a smartphone from Tecno that unfolds itself with the push of a button.
What does it mean for the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold and Flip?
A new battle seems to be brewing between different smartphone makers. For example, Huawei and Xiaomi are working on trifold models, or devices that you can fold twice. Samsung seems to be betting on rollable smartphones.
The big question is whether Samsung will immediately leave the Galaxy Flip and Fold 6 behind. That seems unlikely to us, as folding phones are becoming more common on the streets. New technology often needs a large start-up period to develop itself. At the very least, the roll-up smartphone will coexist with the folding smartphone as the latest innovation. A trifold, on the other hand, seems too much of a good thing to us. And then there is Apple, which is proving that the “regular” smartphone is still heartily relevant.
