Initially postponed for various reasons, Samsung has now announced that its Galaxy Fold is ready for launch, after quite a few modifications were made. The phone will first be released in South Korea.
Back in July, Samsung announced an unspecific September date for its new Galaxy Fold smartphone. The phone which was originally expected to be launched much earlier was postponed after the initial reviews came back with several complains, especially with the screen and general protective layers. Now, Samsung has just published an announcement on its website, with plans to officially launch the Galaxy fold in Korea on Thursday the 6th of September.
The new smartphone will be released in two colors including Cosmos Black and Space Silver and will support 5G networks in select countries. Some of these countries to be launched after Korea include France, Germany, Singapore, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Already, the Samsung U.S. website has given customers the opportunity to sign up to a waitlist and some reports have it that Samsung plans to cater to the U.S. market starting from Friday the 27th of September.
South Korean customers will receive the phone with 5G connectivity, 512GB storage, and a 12GB RAM, through one of SK Telecom, LG Uplus Corp or KT Corp. Furthermore, the Galaxy Fold will cost 2.39 million won, approximately $1,980, the expected price for the U.S. In addition, the Galaxy Fold will have six cameras, with a 4,235 mAh battery for the 5G version and 4,380 mAh for the non-5G.
For the German market, the new smartphone will come in two versions, and one will not have 5G support. The non-5G version will cost 2,000 euros while the 5G enabled model will be a little more expensive, at 2,100. So far, there are no reports of specific prices for the U.K.
Samsung has also announced the “Galaxy Fold Premier Service” which is purportedly a service that will give customers “direct access to Samsung experts” for specific support through a “one-on-one onboarding session”.
It is however interesting to note that this launch is coming less than a week before Apple will release its new iPhone 11 along with other products. Tech enthusiasts are already gearing up for some sort of showdown between the two firms to see which one would be preferred or more powerful. For a long time, and especially because they come with different operating systems, Apple has always been pitched against Samsung by many tech reviewers worldwide.
There are however reports that Samsung is already working on another foldable phone – Samsung Galaxy Fold 2 – to be released in 2020. Supposedly, the phone would be a luxury 6.7 inch display device which will easily fold down into a small square. The plan is for Samsung to make a much cheaper and lighter phone than the upcoming Galaxy Fold.
Regardless, not everyone is especially excited about the prospects of foldable phones. According to an analyst, Ben Wood, these phones might be a little too extra and may not have any real need. Wood said:
“I’ve consistently held the view that so-called ‘foldables’ are currently a solution looking for a problem.”
Samsung is expected to cancel the new phone if the Galaxy Fold does not perform well enough in the market. This is a plausible scenario because current reports from the International Data Corporation has shown that the smartphone industry seems to be far away from much-needed growth as phone shipments have reduced recently.
The post appeared first on CoinSpeaker
