Beyond the Alphabet is a weekly column that focuses on the tech world both inside and out of the confines of Mountain View.
When you look at the Galaxy S25 lineup, Samsung has pretty much reached the peak. It's partially why I think the company is even venturing down a "new" path with the upcoming Galaxy S25 Edge; there's nowhere else to go. However, the same can't be said about either the Galaxy Z Fold or Z Flip lineups.
We still don't have flagship cameras in a phone that costs around $2,000, plus battery life is good for a couple of months and then becomes fear-inducing. Not to mention that the paltry battery takes forever to charge, because Samsung is still seemingly afraid of offering charging speeds faster than 25W. That's despite the Galaxy S25 Ultra supporting up to 45W chargers, which is still far behind much of the competition.
Oh, and that same competition already figured out how to ditch the crease, while Samsung continues acting like having the Grand Canyon in the middle of a screen is okay. At the same time, it's making appearances at different events and conferences to showcase the kinds of upgrades that I've been begging for.
That pretty much covers the meat and potatoes of my frustrations with what Samsung has done, or really hasn't done, over the past couple of years. So, with all of that in mind, I've been finding it increasingly difficult to get even remotely excited about the prospect of a tri-fold (bi-fold?) from Samsung.
Every time I see a picture or video of the Huawei Mate XT, I'm immediately put in a sort of trance, just because it looks absolutely beautiful. Then, reality sets in, and I'm forced to be reminded of where I live and that the Mate XT isn't actually viable for me.
Frankly, I don't know if I have the confidence that Samsung can come anywhere near what the Mate XT offers. Well, I take that back. I believe that Samsung is fully capable of designing a phone that's even better than Huawei, but would only do so as a limited release (i.e., the Galaxy Z Fold Special Edition).
I'm suspecting that the Galaxy "G" Fold will look fairly similar to the Z Fold 6, just with an extra hinge and wider screen. That's to say it'll be awkward, chunky, and while the software will probably be pretty solid, the hardware will leave a bit to be desired.
It's pretty obvious that Samsung has become complacent. It made massive leaps and improvements before some companies even got started, only to follow that up with a series of iterative updates, following the same cadence that we see with traditional slab phones.
At the same time, it's not like Samsung doesn't have an opportunity here to reassert its position as a leader in the foldable space. And what better way to do so than with the launch of a completely new product?
There have been a few leaks that give us an idea of what to expect from the Galaxy G Fold, much of which suggests it will share some DNA with the upcoming Galaxy Z Fold 7. According to @PandaFlashPro, the hinge mechanism is "similar," while the "speakers drivers are the exact same."
However, there is one thing that won't be the same, supposedly, and that's the crease. Samsung is rumored to finally give us an almost-crease-less display with the Fold 7 that matches up with the likes of the Oppo Find N5. Unfortunately, rumors point to this not being the case with the Galaxy G Fold, leaving me to assume that it will look more like the Fold 6. This will probably have an impact on potential sales for a phone that already has a steep hill to climb.
As for the software, if we ignore the debacle that has been the One UI 7 rollout, I'm actually not worried about that. It might miss out on a few things here and there, but by and large, Samsung arguably offers the best foldable software experience. I'm sure there will be bugs and quirks, but it likely (hopefully) won't have many growing pains as we've seen in the past.
What I would love for Samsung to do is shock the world and put all of its available resources into designing the "ultimate" foldable phone. A phone that truly has no compromises, meaning flagship camera hardware, a crease-less and PWM-friendly tri-fold display, a larger and thinner battery that also charges faster, and hell, figure out a way to get the S Pen in there.
I have little doubt that there isn't already such a device hidden away in the depths of Samsung's R&D department. Such a phone will probably never see the light of day, as it doesn't make financial sense for Samsung to release a phone that will lose the company money. But if there's one company that could do something like that without worrying about many repercussions, it's Samsung.
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