It’s very unusual to surprise tech journos, but that’s exactly what Samsung did earlier this week when it showed off its “Samsung Fold” phone – a smartphone that folds into a far-larger tablet – at its Samsung Unpacked event held in Sandton recently.
They also took the wraps off of Samsung’s latest Galaxy phone – the Galaxy S10 – at the same time.
Folding phones have been promised for a while now, but Samsung is the first big manufacturer to actually bring one to market.
And admittedly, the phone looks incredible, and its ‘fold’ somehow magically invisible when opened. Check out the official video Samsung put out on it below:
https://youtu.be/7r_UgNcJtzQ
Inside, it’ll run some pretty powerful hardware, with an unheard-of 12GB of system RAM, 512GB of storage, and a 64-bit octa-core processor built with 7nm processor technology. If none of that means much to you, just know this is going to be one super-fast phone.
It’s not going to be cheap, though: the Fold is pegged at $1980, and no SA pricing or availability has been announced yet.
Those curves
The S10 might be less exciting – no folding screen here – but it’s also a more accessible device, representing an evolution of Samsung’s Galaxy S design language and a bump in hardware specs. Curved edges are still present, it has 8GB of RAM, 128GB of internal storage, and also runs an eight-core processor and Android 9 – the latest version of Google’s mobile OS.
MyBroadband says the S10 starts at R18 999 for the 128GB version, going up to R25,999 for the 512GB version. The S10+, the S10’s slightly bigger sibling, starts at R20,999 climbing to R35,999 for the 1TB version.
Availability
The phones are available for pre-order right now, and will launch into retail on the 9th of March, 2019. To place your pre-order or to express interest, get in touch with Charl Van Den Berg, Tarsus Distribution’s Samsung Product Manager, by phone (011 531 1000) or by email.
