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| © Provided by CBS Interactive Inc. The new, improved Galaxy Fold. Tyler Lizenby/CNET |
By Jessica Dolcourt, CNET
The Samsung Galaxy Fold is back. After a variety of problems affecting the foldable phone's bendable screen on review devices, Samsung postponed the Fold's sale and went back to the drawing board to fix the flaws. Now, a new and improved Galaxy Fold will go on sale in September, starting in Korea and branching out throughout Asia and Europe before heading to the US.
I got a chance to go hands-on with the redesigned model, which Samsung says will avoid incurring the kind of damage that caused some reviewers' screens to break. (CNET's review unit never broke, but the screen did sustain scratches.)
The Galaxy Fold looks mostly the same as before, but there truly are fewer opportunities for particles to creep under the screen, and Samsung has completely removed the question of whether the protective layer on top of the original design was an optional screen protector or an essential part of the display's integrity -- it was actually the latter, as some reviewers learned the hard way earlier this year.
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| © Provided by CBS Interactive Inc. Tyler Lizenby/CNET |
Opening and closing the Fold also feels different. Smoother, perhaps. Sturdier. I always loved opening and closing the original design during my time with the phone: The sensation of resistance as you closed the screen and felt the magnetic sides snap shut.
But now it feels more complete somehow. It's hard to say why exactly, with the original Galaxy Fold so far in the rearview mirror -- the last time I held it was in mid-April.
Here's every way the Galaxy Fold has changed.
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| © Provided by CBS Interactive Inc. What screen protector? That layer is still there, but you no longer see it and that's good. Tyler Lizenby/CNET |
No visible screen protector: If you peel this off, it immediately makes the Fold's screen unusable. Now, this polymer layer extends beneath the plastic bezel. It's still there but you can't see it, and that's how it should be.
Screen caps at the ends of the phone: New T-shaped plastic "caps" plug up air gaps that existed before when you fold the phone's screen -- this is the slack that's created as part of the kinetic process. I tried jamming my fingernails around this part to see if I could create any openings, but wasn't able to. That's reassuring.
Reinforced screen: The previous Galaxy Fold design had a layer or metal supporting a cushiony layer and then the top portion of the display. Samsung says this caused the screen crease that runs down the phone's center to look more prominent. Now it's reinforced the screen by adding a second layer of metal on top of that cushion. We'll see if that reduces the crease's appearance and also keeps by pressing too hard on the display at bay.
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| © Provided by CBS Interactive Inc. Tyler Lizenby/CNET |
No more Astro Blue or Martian Green colors: The blue and green colors really took the Fold over the top, but Samsung told us that it'll only sell the Fold in silver and black now. It's a shame, but I'm not really surprised. Samsung might be preparing for fewer sales as a result of waning enthusiasm, and therefore keeping its production counts in check.
No Galaxy Fold 5G in the US: Anyone in Korea who buys the Galaxy Fold will get the 5G version by default, but the opposite is true in the US -- it's 4G only for that market. Samsung says that the 5G version will come to select countries, naturally at a higher cost than the 4G model if the two are sold side by side. That includes the UK, where the Galaxy Fold 5G will be available from EE from Sept. 18.
