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Samsung is Working on a Tri-Fold Smartphone
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I’ll pass thanks. There is no way I’m dishing out all the money for a screen that has two creases and will eventually crack. Any folding screen I have seen looks like garbage.
I'm pretty sure Apple's will be like this:
- iPhone XX - It folds
- iPhone XX Pro - It folds into thirds
- iPhone XX Pro Max - It folds into quarters (it may be a choking hazard)
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
See "tri-fold wallets" or "tri-fold brochure."
Literal read: you are right. Traditional spin (of those wallets, brochures, science fair boards, etc): apparently the panels are the "tri" and the creases are the "folds."
Stay tuned! Apple is developing a folding phone that has as many panels as those old road maps. Only problem is you can never get them to fold back the way they came!
I have tried the XT from H. Similar weigth and thickness as a 14 pro max. Feels sturdy for that kind of device and it truly feels like the future. Sadly USA wont get it and Apple will take another 15 years or never to release a foldable phone. Maybe a foldable computer screen, but a foldable or double foldable seems like the on acreen touch id rumor. Forever in the making as there is no competition in the USA.
Meanwhile apple is working on shrinking the Dynamic Island
If I see a small device that unfolds into a large device that is stable enough to use regularly I think that sounds cool, sure. But engineering wise, the issues likely create fairly clumsy and useless devices that have a bevy of problems with screens, color fidelity ETC. And you have to look at the cost of that tech in light of having a single pretty big device (good enough) or two devices. A $7,000 foldable will sell about as many units as the Apple Headsets. I'm as tech obsessed as most with my experience and history, but I'm not imaging devices without reality being involved. Happy to see one that's affordable, useable and provides for use in real life.
Meh. I’m waiting on the one that folds like a high school note.
Samsung has been making foldable smartphones since 2019, but we have yet to see a foldable iPhone from Apple. Rumors suggest that Apple's first folding iPhone could come out in 2026 or 2027, but by then, Samsung will be even further ahead in foldable device development.
Huawei's tri-fold Mate XT Ultimate
Right now, Samsung has the Galaxy Fold and the Galaxy Flip, which fold in different ways. The Galaxy Fold is larger and unfolds horizontally like a book, while the Flip has a vertical fold. According to rumors, Samsung is working on yet another foldable, this one with a tri-fold design.
Samsung's tri-fold device has been rumored for quite some time, and Samsung even teased it as a "multi-fold" device at its Unpacked event, but more information about the device came out this week. As noted by GSMArena, it's looking like Samsung could call it the Galaxy G Fold, which would make it a new product line distinct from the current Z Fold models.
The tri-fold smartphone is expected to fold out into a 10-inch screen, which would make it significantly better than the current Z Fold6 flagship foldable smartphone from Samsung. The Z Fold6 is 7.6 inches when it's opened up, while the Z Flip6 is 6.7 inches unfolded.
Samsung won't have the first tri-fold smartphone on the market, because Huawei has already released the Mate XT Ultimate. You can't get Huawei's device in the United States, though, and it costs $2,800, so Samsung will be first to a tri-fold smartphone in markets outside of China.
Samsung typically announces new foldable smartphones around July, and it's looking like we could see the tri-fold smartphone unveiled this year ahead of a launch in early 2026.
If Samsung's tri-fold smartphone launches in early 2026, it will beat any Apple foldable to market, since the earliest we expect to see an Apple foldable is 2026.
As of 2024, Apple was supposedly working on a foldable iPhone with a design similar to the Galaxy Z Flip, which means a vertical fold. Such a device would likely be similar in size to the iPhone 16 Pro Max, but with an option to fold it in half to make for a more compact size.
Article Link: Samsung is Working on a Tri-Fold Smartphone
Breaking: Scientists are getting close to finding the problem that this solves
Forget folds, I'm waiting for the sushi ROLL version
With no small phones on the Apple horizon, I'm keeping an I on Samsung for sure.
If I take the step to a small flip-phone, the step is not far away from iPad also perhaps.
But I wait for Tim leaving Apple 1st - 2nd my iPhone or iPad dies and the need for a new device escalates dramatically.
If I take the step to a small flip-phone, the step is not far away from iPad also perhaps.
But I wait for Tim leaving Apple 1st - 2nd my iPhone or iPad dies and the need for a new device escalates dramatically.
I love my Galaxy Z Fold6. I use it together with my iPhone 16 Pro (for the camera) and I'll never go back to a Non-Fold. I have not touched my iPad for months. OneUI has also come a long way. It's great and basically like iOS with much more options. Dont even get me started on Good Look. Apple would never
2 of my colleagues have Samsung folds, I played with them briefly. They were cool but no way in hell I’m paying that much for a phone.
Tri-fold is nice because you can make the leftmost panel a single screen facing out, and close the middle and right panels on themselves with the back of the right panel having a camera assembly.
It also means a roughly 6" 9:17 portrait phone folds out into a roughly 10" 16:10 tablet.
But the questions are - would it be rigid enough, or would tablet form only usable in landscape mode lest it folds back in on itself?
Would it be thin enough to use comfortably as a phone, or is that just how you are meant to use it to decide whether it needs to be 'unpacked' into its full form?
And, what would the ergonomics be, considering that each of the three panes has completely independent design requirements. Is the middle piece thinner because it has to accommodate two parts hinging against it on either side? Do the biometric sensors fit in the leftmost "phone" panel? Is the rightmost piece thicker to accommodate a 48+ MP camera?
As another poster explained, this is the standard nomenclature for these form factors. You see it used in, for instance, wallets (bifold and trifold). If you want to break it down, "trifold" doesn't mean it has three folds. It means it folds into three sections.
The nomenclature refers to the result, not the mechanism.
While bipanel and tripanel would be more precise, this is just the way the word use fell out. If Samsung tried to assign a different meaning to the terms from what's currently used, that would have led to confusion.
See, for instance, the entry for "trifold" in the OED, which shows it's consistently used to mean three sections, not three folds:
trifold, adj.² & n. meanings, etymology and more | Oxford English Dictionary
trifold, adj.² & n. meanings, etymology, pronunciation and more in the Oxford English Dictionary
www.oed.com
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