Samsung Galaxy Fold Price And Specs - Can You Afford It?

Spread the love

The Samsung Galaxy Fold is by far the most exciting smartphone of 2019. It was an instant hit, as we tested it in public, and most people don’t know or worry about the five-month delay due to reliability issues.

This is the first major folding smartphone and is officially available in the US on Friday, September 27, after being released in the UK on September 18 and in Korea on September 6. It’s being released worldwide, but it’s not for everyone as it is still incredibly expensive.

Table of Contents

Samsung Galaxy Fold Review and Price in Nigeria

What do early users of Galaxy Fold get at twice the price of the new iPhone 11? The chance to have the future of smartphones and tablets, with a 2 in 1 design that only makes sense – if flexible display technology persists.

Having a smartphone with a small 4.6-inch screen, we can easily grab it from the outside and, at any time, unfold into a 7.3-inch mini-tablet with a separate inside screen is extremely cool, but It also seems practical in daily use.

We were able to quickly take photos and check our notifications in bend mode as we walked through a bustling New York City, comfortably maintaining a secure grip on a phone that we would describe as thick in circumference but slender in actual width. This is very easy to understand compared to today’s Max and Plus smartphones.

Galaxy Fold is the answer if you want a big screen without being overwhelmed by a big phone. When we sat in the subway, we were able to use the 7.3-inch screen to review the photos we took and respond to emails. It maximizes screen space and is designed to increase productivity when we use the big screen keyboard and plot our next step on an expanded Google map.

As we test the durability and continuity of the software between the two screens of Samsung’s first folding phone, the satisfying magnetic folding and folding click is constantly catching the attention of the people around us. It’s like we have the first iPhone. “What’s this? Tell me more about it!” Oh, we will.

We will continue to publish our findings here, and below, you can learn more about the release date history and our previous thoughts on Fold.

Samsung Galaxy Fold Price and Release Date

The launch date of the Samsung Galaxy Fold was September 6 in South Korea. Samsung originally intended to launch the folding phone on April 26 in the US and May 3 in the UK and Europe.

It is now available in the United Kingdom (where it was released on September 18), as well as France, Germany, and Singapore. The official release date for Galaxy Fold in the USA is Friday, September 27th.

As far as we know, the Samsung Galaxy Fold is still priced at $ 1,980 / £ 1,800 (€ 2,000), which makes it one of the most expensive smartphones, you can buy and roughly matches the cost of the next Huawei Mate X folding.

Samsung Galaxy Fold Price in Nigeria

Samsung held a launch event in the state of Lagos on February 20, 2019, to unveil its new five phones. This includes four variants of the Samsung Galaxy S10 – S10e, S10, S10 + and S10 5G.

The main highlight was the Samsung Galaxy Fold. Techcrunch describes it as “a 7.3-inch (4.2: 3) tablet that can be folded into a 4.6-inch smartphone or a 4.6-inch (21: 9) smartphone that can fold into a 7.3-inch tablet”.

In addition to its incredible folding capacity, it comes with a high price tag – $ 1,980 (approximately N717,000).

Samsung’s new Galaxy Fold is worth N717K which is enough for you to buy a car.

Samsung Galaxy Fold Price in Nigeria

The Samsung Galaxy Fold will come in 4G and 5G variants, with the latter packaging a slightly smaller battery, but it is currently not 100% clear which countries will get which variants and what will be the price difference between the two models?

We know the phone is exclusive to EE in the UK and you can only buy the 5G variant of the phone – in fact, the phone will be advertised and sold as Samsung Galaxy Fold 5G in the UK.

Samsung Galaxy Foldable Design

Samsung believes the Galaxy Fold has the most intuitive form factor for a folding phone, with the screen folding to provide protection like a laptop.

The company certainly did not accept the challenge of lightly designing its first folding phone. This is a phone that is more than ten years old and has gone through over 1,000 different prototypes and other durability improvements.

The book-like folding action looks like a natural way to open the phone, and it’s certainly easier to handle than Huawei Mate X – Huawei has taken the opposite design approach to Samsung, with the display on the outside of the screen device when it is folded.

Open Galaxy Fold fully to reveal the 7.3-inch screen and the 20-piece dual-axis hinge locked in place, preventing you from widening the screen beyond 180 degrees.

Fold it again, and the phone will close satisfactorily, giving you the confidence that it will not accidentally unwind in your bag.

Samsung Galaxy Fold Specs

These are the specifications of the updated Galaxy Fold model

· Weight: 276g
· Folded: 62.8 x 160.9 x 17.1 mm
· Unfolded: 117.9 x 160.9 x 7.6 mm
· OS: Android 9
· Main screen size: 7.3 inches
· Resolution: QXGA + (2152 x 1536)
· Cover Screen Size: 4.6 inches
· Resolution: HD + (1680 x 720)
· CPU: Octa-core
· RAM: 12GB
· Storage: 512GB
· Battery (4G): 4,380mAh
· Battery (5G): 4,235mAh
· Camera Cover: 10MP
· Front camera: 10MP + 8MP
· Rear Camera: 16MP + 12MP + 12MP

Samsung has spent a lot of time working on the dual-axis hinge and gives the device a tactile feel with smooth movement between its two states. It is designed to withstand more than 200,000 folds and folds, resulting in 100 openings and closes per day for five years – so it should last.

It certainly looks robust and capable of surviving repeated folding and unfolding, and a nice touch is a way the hinge disappears into the body of each half of the phone when it is fully opened.

The second version of the phone also comes with covers on the top of the hinge to ensure dust does not enter the device. It also feels sturdier when opened in tablet form, as Samsung places metal inside the device to ensure you don’t tilt it too far.

When Samsung first unveiled the device, it had a different screen saver than what you would get on a standard smartphone. Some testers have removed this protector, and this has caused structural problems on the phone.

Samsung has now included a thin border around the outside of the inner screen that prevents you from removing the screen protector and also helps keep the device closer when it is folded back into its thinnest form.

It doesn’t look like the most the premium aspect of the phone, but if you make sure people don’t remove the screen saver, it will have done its job.

The fingerprint sensor is located on the right edge of the bottom half of the device when it is closed, falling well under the thumb or finger and therefore remains in this position when the phone is opened. The sensor also acts as a Bixby launch button when pressed, directing you directly to Samsung’s smart assistant.

Above the digit, the reader is power/lock/volume keys, also in easy-to-reach positions, while at the bottom of the fold you will find a USB-C port on the bottom half of the frame and a speaker on the other half. However, there is no headset.

There are two speakers – the second at the top end of the phone – providing AKG-tuned stereo sound and Dolby Atmos support. They looked rich and noisy in our tests.

As fun and futuristic as the Galaxy Fold design, however, it’s also big, bulky and heavy. The Fold measures 62.9 x 160.9 x 17 mm, making it twice the thickness of most smartphones – meaning it’s not that easy to slip into your pockets, especially if you’re a fan of skinny jeans.

It tilts the scale by 269g (the updated Galaxy Fold has increased the weight to 276g), making it one of the heaviest devices on the market. For comparison, the Galaxy S10 Plus has 175g, the iPhone XS Max is 208g and the Huawei Mate 20 Pro arrives with 189g.

Originally, Samsung said the Galaxy Fold would be available in Space Silver, Cosmos Black, Martian Green, and Astro Blue, but it seems that the blue and green options were dropped, at least at the initial launch of the device.

In hand, the Galaxy Fold, covered with six glass caps, looks solid but doesn’t have the same premium appeal as its S10 brothers, which feature a sleek palm finish.

Another thing to note is that the Galaxy Fold is a huge fingerprint magnet – we were constantly cleaning the device during practice time and the super-reflective glass body clearly shows the fingerprints.

Samsung Galaxy Fold Display Screen

The Samsung Galaxy Fold has two screens, with the 4.6-inch HD + Super AMOLED screen on the front (when the device is closed in ‘phone mode’) looking a bit small by today’s standards when most phones have a display at least five inches in size.

It’s made to look smaller thanks to the handsome over and underframes that resemble phones from about ten years ago. It’s a trade-off that needs to be made because the technology needs to fit in somewhere, and the benefit of its small size is that it can be easily used with one hand.

In terms of aesthetics, however, it is far from pleasing to the eye. In a world where panels are disappearing almost completely, the look here is a real blast from the past – and when you look at the price asked by the Samsung Galaxy Fold, some might argue that their look, at least in ‘phone mode,’ does not exactly match your premium price.

The small screen is bright and clear, with Samsung’s Super AMOLED panel providing many colors. You can easily navigate Android and is useful for checking notifications, reading messages, and controlling music playback.

The larger tablet screen, which kicks in when the phone is opened, has an advanced composite polymer layer that is glued to the body with a folding adhesive, allowing the screen to fold. It is also the thinnest screen that Samsung has ever made.

When you open the device, you are greeted by a dynamic, bright, clear, sharp, and colorful 7.3-inch (2152 x 1536, 362ppi) AMOLED Dynamic AMOLED display. It also supports HDR10 +, for an enhanced viewing experience with supported video.

According to Samsung, the screen has the best contrast ratio in the world and has excellent outdoor visibility – we only have Galaxy Fold indoors so you will have to wait for our full review to find out if it can survive to this last claim.

However, there is one very important point to note about this view: the crease.

If you look at the screen from an angle, there is a visible crease running the full length of the screen in the middle where it folds. It’s not something that can be remedied or hidden, and you’ll have to learn to live with it if you choose to spend money on Galaxy Fold.

That said, the crease is much less noticeable when you’re looking at the front screen (it’s still there), and when we launched Asphalt 8 for a quick run, it disappeared from sight as we focused on the game (we came first of course).

Samsung says the crease will no longer be pronounced over time, so those who fear becoming more visible over time should be able to rest peacefully – although we will only really know-how it can stand a year or two below the line.

Interface And Performance

There are several ways to use Samsung Galaxy Fold. When closed, ‘phone mode’ provides one-handed operation for tasks such as calling and music playback.

The 4.6-inch screen operates like a regular smartphone, so apps and games work just as you would expect, although with a larger screen just a quick scroll, working on the smaller screen may seem tight.

Open your device in ‘tablet mode,’ and the larger screen makes it easy to edit social media, messaging, web browsing, games, and photos/videos.

Each time you transition from screen to screen, compatible applications follow your usage patterns for the perfect experience. For example, if you start Google Maps in ‘phone mode’ and open Fold, Google Maps will automatically appear on the big screen.

Any application preinstalled on Galaxy Fold (including the Google app package, WhatsApp, and Microsoft Office) supports continuity between monitors, and it will be up to other developers to make their applications compatible.

Samsung says it is easy to add the required functionality, as it does not require developers to redesign existing applications – they just need to add extra features – but we will have to wait and see how widely it is adopted.

It is also unclear how many apps support the 4: 3 aspect ratio of the Galaxy Fold tablet mode screen as it is much more square than the screens currently found on smartphones – there may be a bit of a wait while the main apps are compatible with this feature screen ratio.

You can also use two or three different applications side by side on the big screen in multi-active window mode. Open an app on the big screen and swipe right in the middle to open a panel of compatible multi-active window apps. Tap one, and it will devour half of the screen next to the application that is already open.

Perform the same action to open the app menu again and tap the third option, and that app will occupy a quarter of the screen below the second app, which is also reduced in size to 25%.

You can then swap the positions of applications by dragging and dropping them, and you can adjust the width of applications by dragging the center split line from side to side.

Everything worked well during our time with Galaxy Fold, with apps opening and resizing readily, and we can see the benefits that being able to have multiple apps open on a big screen will bring.

Load a game – Asphalt 8 in our case – on the big screen, and Galaxy Fold will automatically rotate the app 90 degrees, forcing you to turn on the device. There is a smart reason for this as it provides better guidance for stereo speakers for an enhanced audio experience.

Samsung Galaxy Fold has been optimized with the Unity Game Engine, which means that games running on this platform will perform well here.

There’s more than enough power under the hood, with Galaxy Fold with a 7 nm octa-core processor and 12 GB of RAM. That means Android 9 – coated with Samsung’s One UI – works smoothly under your finger, with apps opening fast.

You also get 512 GB of storage inside Fold, giving you plenty of space for apps, games, movies, music, photos, and more, and most will be more than you’ll ever use – for advanced users, though, it’s worth watching. Galaxy Fold doesn’t offer expandable storage, so you get this 512 GB unless you choose to send your data to the cloud.

Some versions of the Galaxy Fold also come with turnkey 5G connectivity, but the phone is also available in a 4G flavor in some countries.

Samsung Galaxy Fold Cameras

The Samsung Galaxy Fold comes with six cameras – yes, six. The main trio is found on the back of the device, with a 12MP (f / 1.5-f / 2.4, OIS) main sensor joined by a 12MP (f / 2.4, OIS) telephoto lens and a 16MP wide-angle lens (f / 2.2).

This is exactly the same setting you will find on the Samsung Galaxy S10 and Galaxy S10 Plus, so the performance should be excellent, although we were not able to test them on Galaxy Fold as it was not running the final software.

You get a 10MP (f / 2.2) camera on the front of the Galaxy Fold, above the 4.6-inch screen, for a weird free selfie or a hastily organized video conference, while opening the device reveals two cameras in a notch that eats in the upper right corner of the screen.

At this level, a 10MP camera (with the same specifications as the selfie camera) is accompanied by an 8MP depth detection camera (f / 1.9), which provides the information for Samsung Live Focus mode with background blur. Samsung

The benefits of having a large 4: 3 aspect ratio when it comes to photography are clear. First, you get a considerable live view, providing a clear indication of what your photo will look like before you press the shutter button.

Second, the 4: 3 aspect ratio is the ratio of the cameras and therefore their final images, meaning that what you see on the screen is exactly what will be displayed on the camera roll, with the entire screen used and without black bars filling wasted space.

Samsung Galaxy Foldable Battery

Returning to the battery, the Samsung Galaxy Fold breaks with tradition again as it includes two power packs – one in each half.

The two batteries combine to provide a total capacity of 4,380 mAh, which Samsung told TechRadar to provide “all-day power,” although it depends heavily on how you use the phone.

If you spend most of your time using the 7.3-inch screen, we expect the battery to drain much faster – but you’ll need to wait for our detailed analysis to find out exactly how it works.

Galaxy Fold supports wireless charging and has the same Wireless PowerShare feature like the Galaxy S10 and S10 Plus, allowing you to charge other wireless compatible devices at the rear.

It even has a small magnet in the charging coil to keep devices – like the Galaxy Buds – in place, which should prevent them from sliding easily.

In the box

The price of Samsung Galaxy Fold is high, but at least it comes as a premium handset. The case is constructed of eco-friendly material and is embossed with embossed Samsung Fold graphics.

Open it and get the phone, charging pad, and cable, but there’s more: Samsung is also packaged in a pair of Galaxy Bud’s wireless headsets (MSRP: $ 149 / £ 139 / AU $ 249), along with a slim, lightweight yet strong case for the Galaxy Fold for a little added protection.

Every Galaxy Fold buyer will also receive one year of free Samsung Care Plus insurance, which protects you against accidental water damage. And finally, there is a one year YouTube Premium subscription as well.

Final Thought

The Samsung Galaxy Fold is an exciting player in the smartphone market, breaking the static rectangle mold we have also gotten used to and bringing two monitors, two batteries and six cameras.

Of course, it is expensive – but the first generation of any new technology is – while people point to its size, weight, crease on the screen and frames around the smaller screen as negative points; and for some, one or more of these may be business breakdowns.

However, the Galaxy Fold is more than a standalone device. It, along with Huawei Mate X and others to come, opens a thrilling new mobile format that will be refined, enhanced and made more accessible in the coming years – and you’ll have this phone to thank you for.

He had a big setback, and this should not be forgotten. It is up to Samsung to regain consumer confidence that the updated Galaxy Fold will not experience the same issues as previous review samples. If you are thinking of buying Fold, you should feel confident that your considerable investment will not break down within weeks.

But if you want to be ahead of the curve – sorry fold – the Samsung Galaxy Fold can take you there now (almost) … and that in itself is impressive.

But, can you afford this Samsung galaxy fold price when you know that another device will soon beat it? If you can afford it, would you buy it? Why would you like to buy it? Let’s hear your opinion via comment section.

Thanks for reading.