While flip-phones were wildly popular in the last decade, the ubiquity of the modern smartphone has almost killed off the good old form-factor. Some manufacturers like Samsung and LG, though, have not given up on the flip-phone completely, and even though the market for such devices is a fairly small one these days, the two South Korean electronics giants keep releasing the occasional flip-phone that stands out amidst a sea of glass slabs from global smartphone vendors including themselves. The devices appeal to a niche audience for the retro-chic vibe they ooze, and while they are not expected to sell by the truckloads, they still apparently have a large enough fanbase for the two companies to keep launching new devices year.
Samsung has been launching flip-phones like the Galaxy Folder and the Galaxy Golden in some Asian markets over the past few years, although, these handsets have not seen a wider global release until now. The company is now believed to be prepping the launch of its next-gen Galaxy Folder flip-phone, with details of the upcoming device apparently propping up on GFXBench. According to the listing on the benchmarking website, the upcoming device will have fairly modest hardware, which will be a departure from earlier flip-phones from the company that have traditionally come with high-end hardware under the hood. One important point to note is that there’s no way to know whether the recently-listed device will indeed come with a clamshell form-factor, but the listed display size, at 3.8-inches likely hints at that possibility. It’s also worth mentioning that a Samsung flip phone (model number SM-G1600) with a 3.8-inch display was recently imported into India for testing, although it couldn’t be confirmed independently whether we’re looking at that same device here (presumably the Galaxy Folder 2).
According to the available info, the upcoming device will feature a 3.8-inch display panel with a WVGA (800 x 480) pixel resolution and run Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow out of the box. The handset will be powered by a Qualcomm SoC that comes with an integrated quad-core 1.4 GHz Cortex-A53 CPU and an Adreno 308 GPU. While the new entry-level Snapdragon 425 matches these exact criteria, there’s no word on whether that will indeed be the chip powering the upcoming handset. With 2 GB of RAM and 16 GB of internal storage to go along with 5-megapixel cameras on the back and on the front, the device is not expected to be anything out of the ordinary and looks to be an entry-level or lower mid-range smartphone as per its spec-sheet.