Samsung Showed Off Its Elusive Tri-Fold Hardware

• Samsung showed a trifold at APEC in a glass case—no hands-on, just a folding animation.

• Design uses two hinges and a "G-style" inward fold, not the accordion fold rivals use.

• Samsung vows a 2024 launch, but timeline, high price, and limited availability make that doubtful.

Samsung's foldable lineup is getting a new member. Eventually. At some point. Samsung's tri-fold hardware has been so elusive you'd be forgiven for thinking of it as vaporwave despite the rumor mill and Samsung itself confirming it's coming. Now, it has been officially teased, though we still don't know much about it.

Samsung has offered the public a first glimpse of its anticipated trifold phone hardware at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Korea this week. This is not, however, your typical "Samsung is teasing a device it's not launching yet" tease. Instead, this is much more akin to how Samsung would show off a concept device or a new display technology. The device was presented in a static display, enclosed within a glass case that prevented attendees from handling the hardware or testing its folding mechanism. Both the folded and unfolded states of the phone were shown. You could only look at it from afar and not go hands-on with it, which is a bummer.

There was an animation that demonstrated the device's fold-and-unfold process, which is the closest thing we have to a hands-on. The phone has two hinges and a "G-style" folding mechanism, where both sides fold inward. This design differs from the accordion-style fold used by competitors, such as the Huawei Mate XT.

Samsung has not provided an official name for the device, nor has the company confirmed if the model shown at the APEC summit represents the final consumer-ready hardware. But there are several problems with this that I'm seeing.

For starters, we need to consider the fact that Samsung has repeatedly said that the phone will launch this year, and it still insists that's the case. We're nearing the end of October, and Samsung only has two months to fulfill this promise. A report hailing from Korea even said we'd see a launch as soon as this week. This is probably not what you would do with a phone that's supposed to be finished and ready for launch, though, unless the "this year" part is a horrible lie.

I'm not saying this is vaporware, but at the very least, this is not how Samsung has handled previous "pre-teased" releases. Back when the company teased the Galaxy S25 Edge during the larger Galaxy S25 announcement event, it at least confirmed the name and allowed journalists to go hands-on with a prototype before introducing it properly later in the year.

Other rumors include a price tag way higher than that of the Galaxy Z Fold 7, as well as very limited availability, out of which there's a non-zero chance that the US might miss out. We'll have to wait a bit more and see, but we only have two months, and the clock is ticking fast.

Source: The Verge