Samsung has announced that its beleaguered Galaxy Fold folding phone is on sale in South Korea from tomorrow, 6 September. The company said in a press release that it’d launch afterwards primarily in the UK, US, France, Germany and Singapore.
We’ve since heard that in the UK Galaxy Fold will arrive on 18 September and cost £1900 direct from Samsung. On a contract it will be available exclusively through EE. Both options ship with wireless Galaxy Buds and a Aramid case.
Samsung has not said what it has changed to the design to try and prevent the faults of the first wave of devices.
It’ll cost 2,398,000 won, which equates to $2,000 USD. There is a “5G-ready option” according to Samsung, though it will not be available in every region or for every operator. In Korea Samsung even went as far as to brand the phone the Galaxy Fold 5G, implying Korea will only have that version.
A US press release stated, “The Galaxy Fold will arrive for U.S. consumers in the coming weeks, and will be available in Cosmos Black and Space Silver.” At the time of writing there has been no official UK announcement.
The launch of the Fold earlier in the year was scuppered when US journalist with early review units reported multiple screen issues relating to, unsurprisingly, the fold. Some screens ruptured at that point while others suffered after people peeled what they thought was a screen protector off but happened to be an integral layer of the display.
Complaints were so widespread that it beggars belief that the product even got into reviewer hands. Samsung has surely tucked that part of the display under the bezel now.
In our hands-on with the phone before it was pulled, we thought it was technically amazing but criticised the comically poky outer display and the fact that aside from a tablet screen thanks to the technical marvel, it did nothing else that a phone a quarter of the price can do.
That said, the Fold is stuffed with the same specs as the Galaxy S10 and S10 Plus including the same cameras, so it is obviously a high-end phone. But after so many previous issues, we want to see what Samsung has actually changed – details that it has yet to reveal.
Author: Henry Burrell, Phones Editor
Henry is Tech Advisor’s Phones Editor, ensuring he and the team covers and reviews every smartphone worth knowing about for readers and viewers all over the world. He spends a lot of time moving between different handsets and shouting at WhatsApp to support multiple devices at once.