Samsung’s upcoming Galaxy Fold definitely isn’t the most hotly anticipated smartphone of 2019. Heck, it isn’t even the most hotly anticipated foldable smartphone of 2019, since Huawei’s upcoming Mate X appears to outclass the Galaxy Fold in every conceivable way. But the Galaxy Fold is unquestionably an exciting step in a new direction for Samsung, and it should be the first of many devices that cram a great big screen into a compact space by allowing users to fold it up.
Some avid Samsung fans already know that they’ll be buying the company’s first phone with a folding display once it hits store shelves on April 26th. They don’t care about the massive notch in the corner of the screen or the even more massive $2,000 price tag. It’s new, it’s novel, and they want it as soon as possible. But most people who are interested in the Galaxy Fold definitely want to learn more about it before they commit to spending a small fortune in early adopter tax to get their hands on Samsung’s folding phone. We still have a while to wait before sites like BGR get early units to review, but one person already managed to get his hands on a Galaxy Fold and he’s dishing all sorts of details that had previously been unknown or unconfirmed.
Just last week we saw the first hands-on Galaxy Fold video leak that was shot in the wild. Prior to that, Samsung would only allow media to see the phone, and only in a very controlled environment. The video was definitely informative, but the biggest takeaway was something that confirmed many people’s worst fears: you’ll be able to see a big crease in the middle of the screen while it’s unfolded. We all expected as much, of course, but there was still a glimmer of hope that Samsung had managed to somehow make it less conspicuous. No such luck.
Now, XDA Developers editor Mishaal Rahman is in touch with an anonymous user who managed to get his hands on the Galaxy Fold, and he took to Twitter to share previously unknown details about the phone and answer all sorts of questions. No, there are no photos or any other evidence that this person indeed has the phone in hand, but Rahman’s reputation speaks for itself and we have no doubt that this is the real deal.
So what kind of info is being shared about the Galaxy Fold? Here are some examples of questions and the answers that were relayed in Rahman’s Twitter feed:
Q: Does it fold completely or is it like a binder?
A: More like a binder, it leaves a small gap.Q: Have they fixed the open/close delay?
A: No that’s awful, especially with Chrome. Chrome wouldn’t re-render pages to full screen when switching sometimes. So you would have a webpage rendered in the small area and it would take a few seconds before re-rendering to full screenQ: Can the small screen run games normally? Or any app for that matter.
A: Yeah, runs them just fine.Q: Does the hinge bend outward? (Not intended behaviour, but want to know about quality)
A: Doesn’t bend outwards.Q: Can the Fold remain open at a right angle?
A: Fold is weird like you could make it stay open at that angle but the screen would be off and if you do manage to keep it open its more of a balancing.Q: How are the general performance and battery life so far?
A: Battery life has been great, but I’ve only used it inside the apartment so far. Performance is comparable to S10+ Exynos, but has a few weird software quirks which make it look bad. It might be a bit faster tbh.
On top of that, Rahman noted that this is a production Galaxy Fold model, not a pre-release version. He said it runs Samsung’s One UI 1.2, which is newer than the version of One UI that currently runs on the Galaxy S10. He also asked his contact with the Galaxy Fold to run storage speed tests since this is the first new smartphone to feature UFS 3.0 flash storage chips. Here are the results:
- Sequential Read: 1512.93 MB/s
- Sequential Write: 418.96 MB/s
- Random Read: 144.41 MB/s
- Random Write: 33.66 MB/s
- SQLite Insert: 2577.79 QPS
- SQLite Update: 3560.8 QPS
- SQLite Delete: 4236.68 QPS
For more info, definitely check out this thread on Twitter.
