Samsung Announces Galaxy Z Fold 2: Second-Generation Foldable
by Andrei Frumusanu on August 5, 2020 12:45 PM EST
Alongside the new Note20 series smartphones, Samsung is today pre-announcing the brand-new Galaxy Z Fold 2, the successor to last year’s quite controversial Galaxy Fold smartphone, a device which had been marred by manufacturing defects and delays. Today’s coverage of the Z Fold 2 isn’t an actual launch, but rather a pre-announcement ahead of the device’s proper debut in September. Today’s coverage mainly divulges the new phone’s design, with Samsung talking about how they have improved the folding mechanism of the phone and solve some of last year’s issues.
Starting off with the main characteristic of the device, the main large folding screen, Samsung has changed things up a bit to make the new Z Fold 2 appear more of a contemporary device rather than the more dated look of the original Fold. Improvements here include reduced bezels on all sides, and the removal of the very large “corner-notch” in favour of a hole-punch interior front camera, centred on the right half of the main large screen.
The only specification Samsung has released on the phone so far is the display dimensions, with a 7.6” diagonal for the interior main screen.
Samsung says that they’ve improved the materials of the laminated plastic and glass screen, improving durability and robustness of the display in more conditions. The company has refined the hinge mechanism to further improve against dust ingress whilst increasing rigidity.
One larger change in the hinge mechanism is the ability to snap in at three different angles mid-fold, allowing for more different use-cases for the external and internal screens, again improving rigidity during such usage.
On the exterior sides of the phone, we’re seeing more significant design changes, with notably the vast increase in screen size for the outer hard-glass display screen, which has now been increased from 4.6” to 7.2” and covers almost the whole footprint of the (that half of) the phone. There’s also a front-facing hole-punch camera here as well.
We’ll be hearing more details about the Galaxy Z Fold 2 at its planned launch in September.
Related Reading:
- Samsung Announces The Galaxy Fold: The First Folding Display Smartphone
- Samsung: Galaxy Fold Is Tested to Fold/Unfold 200,000 Times
- Samsung Delays Launch of Galaxy Fold Smartphone
- Samsung Resolves Galaxy Fold Issues: New Launch In September
- Samsung Unveils Galaxy Fold Availability, Sort Of
- Samsung’s Galaxy Fold Hits the US on September 27th
- Update: Sales of Samsung Galaxy Fold Are Nowhere Near 1 Million Units
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nandnandnand - Wednesday, August 5, 2020 - link
This could be the best device ever made for watching old 4:3 film and TV content.PeachNCream - Wednesday, August 5, 2020 - link
Typo in "allowing fore more different use-cases" - Should not be the word "fore"FaaR - Wednesday, August 5, 2020 - link
My biggest question here is if the screen still retains that fragile plastic foil on the outside. I could not imagine myself buying a folder that has a plastic-surfaced screen, because it will start looking like crab immediately. Even pocket lint when crushed between the screens is going to put wear into that plastic layer, whereas a grain of sand would devastate it.The tech just isn't sufficiently mature yet I'd say.
Dexter101 - Wednesday, August 5, 2020 - link
You're a crab! And of course it will still be a fragile inside screen, don't get a device like this if you can't keep it in clean environments at all times.Cooe - Thursday, August 6, 2020 - link
Yes, but now there's a layer of ultra-thin glass underneath the plastic top layer, just like on the Galaxy Z Flip. While UTG IS indisputably stronger than the fully plastic displays as used on the OG fold, it does FAR more for feel than it does for durability (it mostly feels like a normal glass display instead of a mushy plastic one). The plastic layer on top of the ultra thing sheet of glass is still super soft (can be permanently scratched with one's finger nails) & non-replaceable though. Thankfully the foldable screen is on the inside of the device, & not on the outside like the idiotic Huawel Mate X, so it should be reasonably easy to keep protected.PeachNCream - Wednesday, August 5, 2020 - link
I'm sure there are use cases for that much screen real estate on a phone, but folding a fragile display panel in a device that costs around $2K USD seems like an inelegant answer to getting more screen. It may have been better to improve wireless technologies like miracast/widi or wired means of docking a phone like MHL in order to permit easy, universally standardized ways to put a phone's image onto any sized screen the owner desires even if the handset is inexpensive. This ensures the phone does not lose durability and the price out of pocket can be much lower.Quantumz0d - Wednesday, August 5, 2020 - link
What a complete trash Aspect ratio, a damned Square screen. Or a Remote. Completely useless, a phone's primary aspect of interaction is screen and this one has a weak plastic screen, two that horrible aspect ratio. Why hiding those ugly holes ? Shame that Samsung couldn't make a foldable that even CCP's Huawei got without bullshit notch or hole.$2000 disposable toy for the uber rich, battery impossible to DIY with this fragile design, Screen will be subjected to wear and tear, No 3.5mm jack, no SD slot as well probably, what about IP rating, Qi charging, guess none of them as well.
So what you get is a brick which can be used for social media and bragging, with Android 11 the Scoped Storage fucks up the whole Filesystem so it's complete trash. I hope this fold-able fad fails and instead they make the batteries use Graphene instead of this dispostable planned obsolescence devices.
Spunjji - Thursday, August 6, 2020 - link
Trying to figure out if you don't properly understand Scoped Storage or are an Android malware writer, because nobody needs to be so buttmad about this that they rant about it several times on every single article related to Android that came out this week.Zanor - Sunday, August 9, 2020 - link
If you know that scoped storage is mandatory to Android 11 I'm not sure why you're acting like it's an it's an issue with the phone. And most of those other things are common to most phones now. Just stick to a S5 or something.mercucu1111 - Tuesday, August 11, 2020 - link
And if Apple releases a foldable phone, you'll praise it as innovation, right?