Samsung announced its first foldable smartphone, the Galaxy Fold, at its Unpacked event a few days ahead of Mobile World Congress. There wasn’t a whole lot of details announced about the Galaxy Fold, and it was not even in the product experience zone for the media to check out at Unpacked. But we are starting to learn a bit more about the Galaxy Fold and its April 26 launch.
When Samsung announced that the Galaxy Fold would be available on April 26, it shocked everyone. But perhaps not as shocking is how limited the Galaxy Fold actually will be. The Verge spoke with Samsung at Mobile World Congress this week, and found out that the Galaxy Fold is going to be in limited supply when it launches this April. Samsung, however, did not say how limited it would be. But don’t expect to see everyone with a Galaxy Fold in their hands, later this year.
Samsung also confirmed that there will be a separate event for the Galaxy Fold in April, ahead of its official release. It’s being teased as a “luxury” launch event. Which means it’s likely going to be a pretty big deal for Samsung. The company has not sent out invitations for the event yet, but that will likely start in the next couple of weeks.
Having an actual launch event closer to when the Galaxy Fold will be available, makes loads of sense. Seeing as no one has been able to get hands on with the device, or really even touch it. Having a launch event in April is likely when people will be able to actually touch the device and also experience more final software. At this point, it’s likely not finished hardware or software yet, and that’s why Samsung is not letting anyone get up close and personal with it, just yet.
The Galaxy Fold is one of the more polished looking foldable phones that has been announced in the past week. Most of the others have a screen that wraps on the outside, whereas Samsung has it on the inside with a second screen on the outside. Though many are complaining that the screen on the outside is fairly small with some large bezels. But keeping the foldable display on the inside means it’ll be more protected than on the outside. This is important since it is not a glass display, it’s plastic. Since glass can’t fold. And it’s going to scratch fairly easily.
So far, only two US carriers have announced that they will be carrying the Galaxy Fold – that’s AT&T and T-Mobile in the US. It’s unclear if Verizon or Sprint will carry the device, but we should know for sure at this April launch event. It is also possible that Samsung only made a GSM model of the Galaxy Fold, which means no CDMA support for Verizon and Sprint. The Galaxy Fold is going to cost around $1,980, making it a pretty expensive smartphone, and one that not a lot of people are going to buy.