{"id":232199,"date":"2025-10-17T19:39:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-17T19:39:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/232199\/"},"modified":"2025-10-17T19:39:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-17T19:39:07","slug":"tri-fold-phones-are-a-dangerous-game-but-samsung-is-playing-to-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/232199\/","title":{"rendered":"Tri-Fold Phones Are a Dangerous Game, but Samsung Is Playing To Win"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you\u2019re still warming up to the idea of folding phones<\/a> with a crease in them, I have bad news; there are likely more phones with more creases on the way. According to a report from Bloomberg<\/a>, Samsung is going to unveil its tri-fold phone at the end of this month on the occasion of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in South Korea.<\/p>\n

That report, which confirms earlier reporting by the Seoul-based Yonhap News Agency, is significant for lots of reasons. The most obvious is, well\u2026 it\u2019s a tri-fold phone. As popular as the Galaxy Z Fold<\/a> and Galaxy Z Flip<\/a> are, there\u2019s only one company with a tri-fold phone on the market right now, and it\u2019s Huawei<\/a>. That\u2019s great for people interested in foldable phones who live in areas where Huawei actually conducts business, but for residents of countries\u2014such as the United States of America\u2014where Huawei products are restricted, the existence of that device means little.<\/p>\n

Samsung\u2019s phone, however, would mark a big expansion of tri-fold availability, and recent reporting from SamMobile<\/a> suggests that its\u00a0entrant will\u00a0launch in a bunch of countries, including the U.S., in contrast to previous reports suggesting that the product could be exclusive to China and South Korea. If the expanded range is to be believed, that would be strong evidence that Samsung isn\u2019t just dipping a foot into tri-fold phones; it\u2019s betting big,\u00a0and that huge bet is also evident in the timing of the unveiling.<\/p>\n

\"Samsung\u00a9 Adriano Contreras \/ Gizmodo <\/p>\n

As I mentioned previously, Bloomberg reports that the announcement of Samsung\u2019s tri-fold will coincide with the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, which has world leaders from Donald Trump to Xi Jinping planning visits to the host city of Gyeongju. That could just be a coincidence, but as Bloomberg notes, it\u2019s also a prime chance to express to the world that not only are tri-fold phones on their way, but Samsung\u00a0is going to sell them everywhere. In other words, it\u2019s looking more and more like Samsung is actually confident in its tri-fold phone, and it\u2019s betting that you, dear reader, might want to buy one.<\/p>\n

Now, whether you (or any world leaders) will\u00a0actually want to buy one is another question entirely. I\u2019m skeptical about the tri-fold, and not because Samsung can\u2019t execute. The manufacturer clearly has chops in the foldable game, given how well-received the Z Fold 7 was. But there are still a number of questions. For one, there\u2019s the price. Foldables with just one hinge are already pretty damn expensive. The Galaxy Z Fold 7, however nice it may be, starts at an eye-watering $2,000. That\u2019s, last I checked, a lot of money for the vast majority of people. I can\u2019t say for sure, but if I were to make a wager, I\u2019d bet that adding a whole hinge and a lot more screen won\u2019t bring that price down.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

How much phone\u00a0is too much phone? Will adding screen real estate substantially change the foldable experience? How much additional bulk are we talking? Do people even want\u00a0a phone with two hinges? A tri-fold is a big bet\u2014but one that, by parading its device out in front of the world\u2019s dignitaries, Samsung appears to think it can win.<\/p>\n

Working in the company\u2019s favor is its current lead in the foldable phone market. While it does have some big-name competition in Huawei and Google, the former, as I mentioned previously, doesn\u2019t sell phones in the U.S., and the latter, well\u2026 the Pixel 10 Pro Fold<\/a> going up in flames might be an apt metaphor. That leaves Samsung in a good place ahead of this unveiling.<\/p>\n

That being said, even the biggest names in tech can take missteps (just ask Apple about its iPhone Mini). I\u2019d be a fool to bet against Samsung when it comes to folding phones, but I\u2019m not quite ready to bet in its favor either. Good news is, we may only need to wait a few more weeks to get our first glimpse of the odds.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If you\u2019re still warming up to the idea of folding phones with a crease in them, I have…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":232200,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[67058,165,170,74],"class_list":{"0":"post-232199","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mobile","8":"tag-galaxy-z-fold","9":"tag-mobile","10":"tag-samsung","11":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232199","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=232199"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/232199\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/232200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=232199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=232199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=232199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}