RedShark News
Characterised as a solution looking for
a problem (but that’s what they said about the iPad), smartphones that
literally double as a tablet are set to be the new mobile computing craze with
Samsung bagging the obvious brand name and first mover status.
The Galaxy Fold
functions as a typical smartphone in 4.3 inch format but can be unfolded to a
second 7.3-inch touchscreen. It’s available to buy from May in Europe and is
sneakily announced just ahead of mobile operator jamboree Mobile World Congress
in Barcelona beginning Sunday where other manufacturers including Huawei are
set to unveil their own flexi-fones.
It’s not the first
- US-based Chinese firm Royole launched the FlexPai folding phone last year –
but the world’s biggest mobile phone seller has the chops to market it.
“We’re giving you a
powerful smartphone and a revolutionary tablet,” explained Samsung executive
Justin Denison.
Like rival Apple
though, the south Korean firm is suffering from phone sales. It issued a profit
warning last month and needs something new to attract consumers.
Pertinently
Samsung’s boss DJ Koh said the firm aimed to prove critics wrong. "The
Galaxy Fold … answers sceptics, who say that the Smartphone is a mature
category in a saturated market. We are here to prove them wrong"
But costing nearly
$2000 (£1520) this is definitely in the category marked luxury. Will Huawei and
Apple, readying its own foldable iPhone, dare to undercut this price mark?
What’s a foldable
phone for anyway? Well, it’s a neater way to stream Netflix or the Six Nations
on the on the move or view downloaded films on a plane, for example. The larger
screen could boost viewing of video over mobile.
The Fold is only 4G
on release although a 5G version is in the works. It may be worth waiting for
this before committing to buy since 5G will deliver super-fast streaming of UHD
video.
Other key specs
include an impressive 12GB of RAM and 512GB of on-board memory. Because the
phone folds up like a tablet from essentially two smartphone bodies, it has a
dual battery, one in each side of the device that link together.
The phone’s tech
has been stress tested such that it should last without breaking for several
hundred thousand folds.
App Continuity
Samsung has worked
with Google to develop ‘App Continuity’ which enables an app to continue as you
fold between the two displays WhatsApp and Microsoft Office have been similarly
adapted.
It also has six
cameras, with three on the rear (16MP ultra-wide camera, and two 12MPs), a 10MP
selfie snapper on the front and two (10MP, 8MP) above the 7.3-inch display.
Whichever way you fold or hold the phone you’ll be able to take a picture.
The Fold wasn’t the
only release from Samsung. It also has a clutch of four new versions of Galaxy:
S10E, S10, S10+ and the S10 5G.
All of these will
feature an Android version of Adobe Premiere Rush, the mobile oriented editing
software. Available on MacOS, iOS and Windows, the Android version is due later
this year.
This software is
aimed at making it easier to shoot then edit, colour correct and add motion
graphics then publish video to social media.
There’s a separate
Instagram Mode too that will allow users to quickly post any photo onto the
social media site.
5G model
The 5G phone isn’t
launching until later in the year and no pricing was given although it’s
expected to be more than the current S10 flagship at about $1100. US customers
of mobile network Verizon will get their hands on it first then Sprint,
AT&T, and T-Mobile.
Powered by the
Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 processor and X50 5G modem the S10 5G would be capable
of downloading a full TV show in minutes.
Not impressed?
That’s a full season of a TV show.
As a result, its
display is larger than the other three S10s at 6.7 inches with a 505ppi pixel
density and 19:9 aspect ratio.
It will carry five
imaging sensors including a 12-MP wide-angle camera,12-MP 0.5x and 2x optical
zoom and 16MP 123-degree ultra-wide lens camera with fixed focus and an f/2.2
aperture. They are on the back. The front camera has a 10MP Dual Pixel AF with
an f/1.9 aperture and 80-degree lens.
There’s a 3D Depth
Camera which will be used for burgeoning VR and augmented reality applications.
Samsung clearly
think video is going to be a major reason that will attract people to buy both
its 5G ‘conventional’ handset and the origami version. When 5G takes off expect
mobile streaming and video content creation using entirely mobile devices to
explode into orbit.
No comments:
Post a Comment