Just yesterday, the world got its first look at a hands-on video of the Galaxy Fold being used in the wild. Until that video leaked on Tuesday, we had only ever seen the Galaxy Fold in promotional videos or in Samsung’s hands — we weren’t even allowed to really play with it when we went hands-on with the Galaxy Fold last month. In this new video, however, we can see how the phone functions in real life, and it wasn’t all good news. If you watch the video again, you’ll see how visible the crease is in the middle of the screen when the phone is unfolded. It’s pretty unbecoming of a $2,000 smartphone, and we can see it getting annoying very quickly. Let’s hope it’s only an issue with pre-release Galaxy Fold models and that the launch version will be much better.
The Galaxy Fold is definitely the most hotly anticipated new handset Samsung is readying for release, but it’s not set to hit store shelves until April 26th. There’s another exciting new smartphone Samsung has in the works though, and it appears as though it may be released even sooner than we expected.
When Samsung announced its new Galaxy S10 lineup, it showed off four different smartphones. Three of them — the Galaxy S10e, Galaxy S10, and Galaxy S10+ — have already been released. But there’s a fourth model that Samsung wasn’t quite ready to launch alongside the rest of its Galaxy S10 models. It’s called the Galaxy S10 5G, and it may be released in the coming weeks.
We first went hands-on with the Galaxy S10 5G back in February. Well, we actually went “hands-off” with the phone, since Samsung wouldn’t let anyone touch it. The Galaxy S10 5G is indeed similar to the Galaxy S10+ that’s already available to purchase from every major carrier, but it has a larger AMOLED screen, a four-lens camera system on the back, a larger 4,500 mAh battery, and no microSD slot. You can check out the Galaxy S10 5G’s full specs right here.
When Samsung announced the Galaxy S10 5G, it said the phone would be released “sometime in Q2.” Like most people, we were expecting a release sometime late in the second quarter once 5G networks are more widely available, but it looks like Samsung fans might not have to wait that long.
The Korea Herald reports that South Korea’s National Radio Research Agency granted approval to the Galaxy S10 5G this past Monday. The agency typically publishes approvals within a few weeks of a smartphone’s release, so it appears as though the Galaxy S10 5G could hit store shelves in South Korea as soon as early April. Samsung almost always releases new phones in the United States around the same time as in its home country, so there’s a good chance the Galaxy S10 5G will be released in the US early next month as well.
Samsung announced last month that the Galaxy S10 5G would be available in the US initially as a Verizon exclusive. The good news, however, is that Samsung confirmed to BGR at the time that the period of exclusivity will only last a few weeks, after which the phone will be made available through additional US wireless carriers.
5G coverage will continue to be scarce through 2019 and into early 2020, which might leave some people wondering why anyone would splurge on a 5G phone in April 2019. The answer is fairly simple: Most people keep their phones for two, three, even four years, so investing now in a phone that will have access to 5G networks down the road certainly isn’t a terrible idea.
