The first phone with a foldable screen by Samsung, Galaxy Fold, is ready to go in September. (Image: Mashable)

Amid trade dispute, Samsung to release Galaxy Fold in September

Alfonsus Adi Putra
Business & Industry
Electronic Device
Jul 25, 2019
1475
In April, Samsung once wanted to introduce its most advanced contender against Huawei’s Mate X, Galaxy Fold. Galaxy Fold is the first phone with a foldable screen manufactured by Samsung. However, after experiencing a screen issue reported by its reviewers, Samsung decided to postpone the release for a while to no certain period.

Fortunately, now the certainty for Galaxy Fold has been set. According to an official statement on Thursday (25/7), Samsung revealed the most exciting news to its loyal customers that its US$2,000 foldable phone will be released in the upcoming September. Samsung stated that the Fold will be released at selected markets in selected regions.

It was considered a bold move, looking at the condition between South Korea (S. Korea) and Japan as one of the key exporters for the production of Samsung’s smartphones. Earlier this month, Tokyo had announced a temporal export ban to S. Korea, restricting exports of core tech materials for the development of smartphones in S. Korea as well.

The export ban was a clear reply to S. Korea’s demand for Japan to compensate for its wartime crime against S. Korea laborers during Japan’s invasion over S. Korea from 1910 to 1945, during WWII. Japan denied that they neglected the responsibility, adding that the settlement of its heinous deeds was included in the Treaty on Basic Relations between Japan and the Republic of Korea signed in 1965 between the 2 countries.

Galaxy Fold is also included among the products affected by the export ban. All this time, the development of Galaxy Fold’s screen film depended on Japanese chemical company, Sumitomo Chemicals. The tech experts were concerned that the condition would hike the price of Galaxy Fold even more expensive for customers worldwide.

What did Samsung improve to make it confident to release the Fold? Samsung blamed the reviewers for the broken screen issue prior, stating that the removal of the protective layer of the “Infinity Flex” display was wrong since the beginning. So, Samsung made the layer beyond the bezel, making it even clearer for the buyers to not take it off.

In addition to the protective layer improvement, Samsung has also ensured that its Fold is good to go to be folded all the time with new protection caps, metal layer underneath the “Infinity Flex” display and the reduction of space between the hinge and body of the foldable phone, along with other miscellaneous improvements for better user experience.

The tech experts think that the date is not a coincidence since Huawei unveiled the same release month for its foldable phone. Beforehand, Huawei took the advantage to prevent themselves from humiliation after having seen the display issue in Galaxy Fold, saying that they wanted to conduct further tests so that Mate X would not end up like Fold. Then, Huawei unveiled Mate X’s release month around September.

Xiaomi, one of the smartphone giants in China, also did not want to lose. In January, through a post on Weibo, a Chinese-owned social media platform, the president of Xiaomi, Lin Bin, teased a three-way folding phone that could be folded into a tablet.

Source: https://www.afp.com/en/news/3954/samsung-launch-foldable-smartphone-september-doc-1j31oz4

Business , Technology , Telecommunication , Smartphone , S.Korea , Samsung , Galaxy-Fold , China , Huawei , MateX , Xiaomi