Samsung’s hotly-anticipated Galaxy Fold successor is expected to be unveiled on February 11 alongside the Galaxy S11 at the Seoul firm’s next Unpacked event. The flagship appeared to leak in full last month when alleged photos of a Motorola Razr-esque folding phone running Samsung’s One UI skin surfaced on Chinese social media. While the lid seems to have been lifted on the pliable product’s design, its specs had remained a mystery. Until now.
Teenage tipster Ishan Agarwal recently claimed the Galaxy Fold 2 will come packing Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 855 chipset and not the American manufacturer’s brand spanking-new Snapdragon 865 that was unveiled at a glitzy event in Hawaii last month.
If true, this does make a bit of sense. Because foldable phones are a huge emerging market and some of the biggest names in tech are still figuring how best to design them, it’s expected Samsung has been working on the Galaxy Fold 2 for a while.
It’s therefore possible the Snapdragon 865 wasn’t around at the time its internal components were being designed to fit in its pliable body. However, the Galaxy Fold 2 could certainly look a bit antiquated next to Samsung’s Galaxy S11 series – which is expected to leverage the latest and greatest components on the market.
It’s presumed the South Korean firm will follow tradition by packing the S11 with its own in-house Exynos processors and Qualcomm’s Snapdragon series depending on the region sold.
According to Agarwal, Galaxy Fold 2 will come equipped with a single 10-megapixel front-facing camera which is rumoured to be the same as the one fitted to the flagship Galaxy Note 10 launched last year.
Internals aside, the Galaxy Fold 2 might be a very impressive piece of kit and could be Samsung’s attempt to ride the retro wave that took off following the debut of Motorola’s new Razr.
Leaked images of the Galaxy Fold 2 have exhibited it with a huge pliable OLED display front and centre with a hole punch cutout at the top for a single front-facing camera. The device is expected to follow the example set by recent Samsung flagships by exterminating pretty much all bezels around its panel.
Folded, the device is expected to come with a small display on its outside to give Android fans a quick glance at the time and date. Additionally, a dual-camera system has also been pictured on the phone’s rear, suggesting Samsung could be looking to one-up the photography prowess of the Motorola Razr that only comes with a single lens on its rear.
That said, it seems the Galaxy Fold 2’s external display might be substantially smaller than that offered by the revamped Razr. While Motorola made a big song and dance about the Razr’s outside screen being able to function as a camera viewfinder and a quick way to see new notifications, it seems Samsung fans could miss out on these features.
Rumours have suggested the Galaxy Fold 2 could adopt a glass display rather than a plastic one. If true, that’ll certainly help to substantially boost its durability – remember all those videos of user fingernails leaving permanent marks on the original Galaxy Fold’s panel? That could all be a thing of the past.
Of course, we have no idea how much Samsung will charge for its Razr-inspired Galaxy Fold 2. But we’re expecting pricing as well as detailed specs and release information to be discussed if Samsung’s CEO DJ Koh pulls the new device out of his pocket on February 11.
Express.co.uk will be covering Samsung’s showcase live next month. So stay tuned for all the latest announcements.