The Samsung Galaxy Fold is a fascinating but ultimately disappointing piece of technology. Foldable phones may be the new trend in smartphone design, but the versatility of the Fold isn’t quite good enough to make it worth the $1,980 pricetag.
But at an event in Beijing today (via TechRadar), Samsung has revealed the W20 5G, its second foldable phone that shows how it’s refining the Galaxy Fold’s design both with the mechanisms and the internal components.
The exterior of the W20 now has a white edge rather than a plain metal, and the folded-up device has less of a gap than the Galaxy Fold (as can be seen in the below images posted on Twitter by Ice Universe), which will hopefully stop debris making its way into the phone and damaging the display and folding mechanism.
The biggest difference in appearance between Galaxy Fold and W20 5G. pic.twitter.com/0sn0OmMXxnNovember 19, 2019
As for the W20’s internals, Samsung have sprung for a Snapdragon 855+ CPU, a boost from the standard 855 in the Galaxy Fold, along with 12GB RAM and 512GB storage, which match the Fold’s memory capacities.
The W20’s battery is actually a touch smaller than the Fold's, rated at 4,235 mAh instead of 4,380 mAh, but hopefully other refinements to the design mean that this difference won’t be noticeable in the phone’s battery life.
Many details are the same between the two phones, however. You still have a small 4.6-inch HD+ external display and the foldable 7.3-inch AMOLED panel within, as well as the six total cameras (12MP/12MP/16MP rear, 10MP/8MP inside and 10MP front). As you can tell from the name, this phone’s also 5G ready, or at least is for China’s networks.
The W20 will go on sale in China in December, which hopefully means it won’t be too long until this upgraded Samsung foldable comes to the US and UK, and hopefully show us how Samsung should have made the Galaxy Fold in the first place.
