Alleged leaked renders of Samsung's soon-to-be-unveiled foldable smartphone have emerged online ahead of the company's Unpacked product launch event on Wednesday.
Samsung has been teasing its upcoming "Galaxy Fold" phone for some time and demoed a prototype of the device back in November, but coming just hours before the company's launch event, these images via Slashleaks could be the real deal.
The Galaxy Fold features Samsung's new Infinity Flex display technology, and assuming no major changes since November, we can expect a device with a 7.3-inch display that can be folded in half, collapsing from a tablet size down to a 4.6-inch smartphone size.
Judging from the renders, the phone has a notch in the upper right corner of the display for the front-facing camera, and a dual-lens setup on the corresponding upper rear-side of the chassis.
Samsung is developing a new software platform for the device in partnership with Google, which is designed to support two UIs – one for when the device is open and one for when the device is closed – and will allow apps to orient into three possible layouts. A price tag as high as $1,800 was rumored for the phone in November, although Samsung may not have finalized costs at the time.
Following Samsung, Huawei and Xiaomi revealed that they too will launch folding smartphones, and there are plenty of signs Apple is looking into the possibility of a foldable iPhone. Apple has filed several patent applications related to folding phones that variously fold inward, outward, and both inward and outward.
Apple supplier LG Display is said to have created a dedicated task force to start developing a foldable OLED display for a future iPhone, while its sister company LG Innotek reportedly has a team developing a rigid flexible printed circuit board or (RFPCB) to go along with it.
Samsung's Galaxy Fold will officially debut at its February 20 event, where we can also expect the launch of the new Galaxy S10 smartphone lineup. Samsung's Unpacked event starts at 11.00 a.m. Pacific Time at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco, California, with a simultaneous launch event to be held in London at 7.00 p.m. GMT.
