We still have no idea when the Samsung Galaxy Fold will officially hit the market after all the delays caused by bad, early reviews. But since then we’ve been getting rumors that they have also been working on other versions of a foldable phone. A South Korean online news site is saying that one of the things they’re working on is a clamshell type of a foldable smartphone and if true, this may be a more affordable version than the more than the almost $2,000 Fold device.
A report published on ET News is saying that one of the foldable devices that they are working on is a phone with a 6.7-inch OLED display that when folded in its horizontal axis will have a 1-inch display on the front for “simple information”. It will be in a clamshell-like form similar to what we were used to a few years back when it was the “in” thing to have a flip phone you can, errr, flip.
If true, then this is a simpler version of the foldable device as compared to the more complicated Galaxy Fold with its 7.3-inch foldable display and 4.6-inch cover display that we’re getting. It may also be more affordable since the mechanism should be less expensive. The OLED panel will basically fold around a horizontal axis and when folded out, it should just be the same size as any flagship smartphone in the market.
However, that means the 1-inch external display will not be much use and you will still have to unfold the phone to be able to use it properly. The idea behind Galaxy Fold was to still get a lot of things done even when your phone is folded since the cover display is pretty big and functional in itself.
But then again we’re not seeing the release of the Galaxy Fold anytime soon as Samsung continues to fix what went wrong in its initial outing. The clamshell foldable device will reportedly come out sometime next year. Hopefully it will not be before the Galaxy Fold.