We told you time and again this year that the Galaxy Fold is a bad idea. Yes, foldable devices are the future, but the Galaxy Fold is just too fragile (and too ugly, and too poorly designed) to warrant a $2,000 investment. Still, Samsung deserves credit for going forward with the phone’s launch in spite of the early setbacks, because someone has to be first and failure is part of progress. Samsung will continue to launch new Galaxy Fold models in the future, including one that should definitely be on your list next year, assuming all the recent rumors turn out to be accurate.
Samsung already confirmed it’s making a vertical foldable handset that will compete against the $1,500 Motorola Razr handset. Then, a few days ago, we learned that the phone might be a lot cheaper than anticipated, with Samsung aiming to sell it for around $845 in Korea. At the time, we speculated that the Galaxy Fold 2 might feature mid-ranged specs for Samsung to meet that price point. After all, the Razr isn’t a flagship handset, and that’s the compromise that Motorola made to afford that $1,500 price point.
This brings us to Bloomberg’s report that detailed the massive Galaxy S11 camera upgrades Samsung is planning. The story says the Galaxy S11 will have a 108-megapixel sensor as the primary camera, as well as three additional lenses on the back, including one capable of delivering 5x optical zoom. These features sound familiar because they’ve been featured in previous Galaxy S11 reports, as is often the case when Bloomberg leaks things. But the site also dropped this amazing gem in the report:
Samsung will also extend the high-resolution sensor and 5x zoom camera to the Galaxy Fold clamshell device — which is expected to be publicly unveiled around the time of the Galaxy S11’s launch in February, the people said.
If accurate, that’s the confirmation we needed that the Galaxy Fold 2 will have high-end specs. As we explained the other day, Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 865 announcement confirmed some of the specs that 2020 Android flagships will be able to offer buyers, including support for up to 200-megapixel lenses. Should the Galaxy Fold 2 rock the same camera module as some of the high-end Galaxy S11 models, then it will likely also be powered by the same chipset. And the Galaxy S11 phones will likely feature Snapdragon 865 and Exynos 990 processors, depending on the market.
A sub-$1,000 Samsung clamshell foldable packing the same specs as the Galaxy S11 in a foldable design might be too good to pass up, no matter how fragile the screen still is.
We’ll add that there’s no guarantee that the Galaxy Fold 2 will rock top-of-the-line processors. Xiaomi’s CC9 Pro, which was unveiled about a month ago, sports the same 108-megapixel primary camera but it uses a mid-range Qualcomm chip, the Snapdragon 730G.
