Samsung has been pretty cagey about letting anyone get hands-on time with the upcoming Galaxy Fold, and a new leaked video might well show us why.
Originating from Vietnam, the video shows someone using a Galaxy Fold up close, and it just doesn’t look very impressive for a device set to cost £1,800 (We still don’t have an Aussie price tag yet).
Behold:
For starters, there’s a noticeable crease down the middle of the screen. We’ve heard this could become a problem after 10,000 folds, but this video makes it look like it’s there all the time.
Secondly, the phone isn’t very responsive – it takes a couple of attempts to unlock, and when it’s closed, the small screen shows a distinct lag before it turns on. That’s not the insta-switching experience we were led to believe the phone would offer.
Thirdly, watching someone use the outside screen reinforces how small it really is. We haven’t seen much hands-on action with the phone yet, and most of what Samsung has shown has just been concept stuff rather than demonstrations of what it’s like to actually use. The outer screen is only wide enough for three app icons, which feels a bit cramped.
All of that said, this might well be a pre-production prototype unit, which means the phone that actually goes on sale will likely be different. The reason Samsung hasn’t been letting anyone get hands-on with the phone is almost certainly that it isn’t ready, so videos like this will presumably be frustrating to the team rushing to finish a phone they’re hoping people will pay close to £2k for.
We’ll wait for the official Galaxy Fold launch before we draw any firm conclusions about the phone, but in the meantime, this video definitely won’t be helping get people on board the foldy bandwagon.
[Engadget]
This post originally appeared on Gizmodo UK, which is gobbling up the news in a different timezone.