It’s barely May and Galaxy S10 rumors are already piling in, which is unusual for the handset. We should see more Galaxy Note 9 rumors at this time of year, but that’s not the case. A report just the other day offered us a look at the Galaxy S10’s key specs, and now a new story tells us the phone will be unveiled much earlier than expected.
The Galaxy S10 is rumored to be unveiled in January at CES 2019, and that’s exactly the kind of Galaxy S rumor we’d expect to see in the months following Apple’s most recent iPhone launch. Samsung has been rumored to launch the next Galaxy S at CES for years, and that never happened. But this time around it might be real, and the 2018 iPhone X might have nothing to do with it.
The news is buried right at the end of a new report from The Bell. The South Korean financial paper says the Galaxy S10 should undoubtedly at the next CES show, with manufacturing set to start as early as October. That’s all the report says about the Galaxy S10, because The Bell’s story is actually about Samsung first foldable phone.
Rumored to be called the Galaxy X, which could cause some confusion if the next Galaxy S is going to be called S10, Samsung’s first foldable smartphone is finally getting real.
The phone is likely to be unveiled at the MWC 2019 trade show in February, which is usually the place where Samsung would unveil the latest Galaxy S model. That explains why Samsung would move the Galaxy S10’s launch to January — so that the Galaxy X can shine a month later in Spain.
The Galaxy X has received a new code name, Winner, which indicates that the phone is getting closer to launch. Previously, the foldable phone project was called Valley, a name revealed all the way back in 2015. Samsung will supposedly begin sourcing parts for the foldable phone in November, but the phone will see a limited launch, as Samsung still intends to gauge interest in the market for foldable handsets before going all in.
The report notes that a foldable Galaxy phone was shown privately to partners at CES this year. That phone had a fold-in design and three 3.5-inch OLED displays, one on the outside and two of the inside. That’s as big as the original iPhone’s screen used to be.
The report says that the two 3.5-inch screens placed inside actually create the front of the handset. The result, The Bell says, is a 7-inch screen, although that’s not exactly how geometry works. It’s more like a screen between 6 and 7 inches. The third OLED screen is on the outside of the phone, allowing the user to interact with the handset when it’s folded closed.
It’s too early to tell whether this prototype will become the commercial version that Samsung will sell at some point next year. As has been the case before, there’s always a chance that Samsung will continue to delay the foldable phone.
