True Galaxy Fold successor to arrive Q2 with a perfect looking set of upgrades
XDA’s Max Weinbach has gotten word that Samsung will be launching a proper successor to its original Galaxy Fold. The original device has its fans (including this writer) with Samsung confirming that it has sold between 400,000 and 500,000 units (amounting to around US$1 billion in sales) despite famously screwing up its launch. This means (unlike the foldable Galaxy Z Flip expected at Galaxy Unpacked on February 11, which is clamshell smartphone) the proper Galaxy Fold 2 will arrive some time Q2 with a May launch window a possibility.
The rumored upgrades also look like they tick every box in terms of addressing some of the shortcomings of the first-gen model. Chief among these is a larger 8-inch display in tablet mode (up from 7.3-inches) which is covered in the new ultra-thin foldable glass expected to debut on the Galaxy Z Flip. This means that Samsung now also has scope to add an S-Pen to the equation, which is something the original Fold could have benefited from but couldn’t support due to its soft plastic covered display.
Weinbach also expects to see the 108 MP Samsung developed camera sensor expected to debut on the forthcoming Galaxy S20 Ultra, which makes sense as Samsung packed the current model with the very best camera tech it had to offer at the time. Naturally, a Snapdragon 865 is expected to make its way under the hood as is the likelihood that it will ship in a single 5G variant instead of also offering a 4G model as it did last time. With the original Galaxy Fold packing 12 GB of RAM as standard, we can probably expect at least 16 GB of RAM to match what is expected to be fitted to the S20 Ultra as well.
The only key questions that remain at this stage are: whether Samsung will be able to get the Galaxy Fold 2 to shut completely flat; whether it will be able to eliminate the display crease; whether it can manage to reduce the thickness and weight of the original model; and whether it can also increase the size of the secondary front display. Whatever happens, we can expect that Samsung’s newly minted head of its global smartphone division, Roh Tae-moon, will be doing everything possible to avoid the mistakes made by his predecessor, DJ Koh.
