The foldable future of smartphones has officially arrived.
Just one day after we saw the first folding smartphone hit the market, Samsung took the wraps off of its new Galaxy X smartphone that packs a folding display that allows it to also be used as a tablet.
https://twitter.com/geoffreyfowler/status/1060261976100691968
Samsung showed off the device during its annual developers’ conference in San Francisco this morning. Specs for the device are being kept under wraps along with its official name, but Samsung did give a few details about the upcoming device.
The folding Samsung phone uses a technology called Infinity Flex Display. Samsung dimmed the lights during its presentation to protect some of the design elements, but you can see in the GIF above that it has a cover display for the phone mode and a 7.3-inch flexible tablet display.
Three apps can be run on the device simultaneously. The company says it will being mass producing the Infinity Flex Display in a “matter of months,” though it hasn’t said when we can see an actual folding Galaxy smartphone.
Pretty much every Android manufacturer is planning to release a folding display device in 2019 or 2020. Huawei, Microsoft, Xiaomi, LG and other companies have already teased their prototypes. Most of the prototypes we’ve seen are bulky and not really worthy of a flagship device yet. Apple is also reportedly looking into flexible displays but isn’t expected to bring it to the iPhone or iPad until 2020 at the earliest.
