in limited quantities<\/a> in its home market of South Korea. The idea is promising although not without compromises, as is typical of new devices like these.<\/p>\nThe phone is impressively slim as a tablet, but clunky as a phone. And it\u2019ll almost certainly be too expensive to woo many early adopters, let alone the average smartphone shopper. (Samsung hasn\u2019t announced pricing yet, but its Galaxy Z Fold 7, which has a smaller screen that folds in half instead of folding into thirds, starts at $2,000.)<\/p>\n
Whether the phone catches on broadly may not matter. It\u2019s an effort by the world\u2019s largest smartphone maker to prove that the rectangular devices carried by billions haven\u2019t peaked and still have a long runway to evolve. Liz Lee, associate director at Counterpoint Research, said in an email to CNN that the phone is likely a \u201cstrategic pilot\u201d to test how new technology lands with consumers.<\/p>\n
And given that Samsung is the world\u2019s top phone maker and nearly every Android phone brand has followed in its footsteps with book-shaped foldable phones, even relatively rare products like these can carry weight.<\/p>\n
A giant screen in your pocket<\/p>\n
Samsung\u2019s goal with the Galaxy Z TriFold is to provide a screen that gets bigger when you need it to and smaller when you want to carry it with you, building on its moderately successful Galaxy Z Fold series.<\/p>\n
The TriFold has a 10-inch screen that folds in two places like a pamphlet, compared to the Galaxy Z Fold 7\u2019s 8-inch screen that folds in half.<\/p>\n
Samsung says the new phone is aimed at those who use their device primarily for work and productivity, and it\u2019s easy to see why.<\/p>\n
In addition to running apps in split-screen mode, the Galaxy Z TriFold\u2019s display can also behave more like a PC\u2019s \u2014 making it possible to run apps more like desktop windows that can be resized and dragged around the screen as needed. Pairing the phone with a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse could make it a viable mini-laptop alternative for some.<\/p>\n
Google\u2019s Gemini assistant can also answer questions about multiple apps being used on screen, Samsung says, potentially making it easier to juggle apps with fewer taps and swipes.<\/p>\n
More flash than function for now<\/p>\n
But keep your expectations in check. While the device feels almost paper-thin when opened, when it\u2019s closed it\u2019s like holding two phones stacked on top of one another.<\/p>\n
Still, Samsung in some ways is off to a stronger start with the Galaxy Z TriFold than the earliest folding smartphones. The first few generations of those devices had subpar cameras compared to standard, non-folding phones and a visible crease running down the middle, among other shortcomings.<\/p>\n
The TriFold\u2019s cameras are similar to those on Samsung\u2019s top-of-the-line Galaxy S25 Ultra phones, meaning shoppers won\u2019t have to sacrifice much camera quality for a giant screen. And while the two creases running down the screen are visible, I didn\u2019t find them too noticeable.<\/p>\n
Yet Samsung doesn\u2019t lay out a very compelling argument for why consumers need to carry around larger screens. Aside from viewing more apps at once and having a larger surface for reading and watching videos \u2014 tasks the Galaxy Z Fold 7 can already do \u2014 the TriFold doesn\u2019t offer much that\u2019s unique compared to a standard smartphone.<\/p>\n
Foldable phones have already faced an uphill battle in the market. Samsung\u2019s other smaller foldable phones only recently started to gain momentum after first going on sale roughly seven years ago, and foldables still only account for a sliver of the broader smartphone market.<\/p>\n
Foldable phones like the Galaxy Z Fold 7 and Google\u2019s Pixel 10 Pro Fold are already more expensive than the average smartphone. And most US shoppers only buy new phones when their current one needs replacing, according to Consumer Intelligence Research Partners, a firm that tracks Americans\u2019 tech spending habits.<\/p>\n
But whether consumers want them or not, the foldable phone trend is seemingly here to stay. Nearly every major Android phone maker now offers one, and Apple is expected<\/a> to release its first later this year.<\/p>\nAnd it\u2019s all part of Samsung\u2019s broader strategy to sell phones in all sorts of forms and see what catches on.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the exciting part is getting it out into the wild and then ultimately seeing what different users are attracted to different form factors,\u201d Drew Blackard, senior vice president of mobile product management at Samsung Electronics America, told CNN in September ahead of the phone\u2019s introduction. \u201cSo I think you\u2019ll only see an evolution from here of what we can do.\u201d<\/p>\n
The-CNN-Wire<\/p>\n
\u2122 & \u00a9 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Las Vegas, NV (CNN) \u2014 For years, sci-fi shows have depicted futuristic computers with shapeshifting screens that can…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":393512,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[165,3,74,452],"class_list":{"0":"post-393511","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mobile","8":"tag-mobile","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-technology","11":"tag-top-stories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393511","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=393511"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393511\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/393512"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=393511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=393511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=393511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}