Fold the phone: all the foldables coming in 2023

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When Samsung released its first premium Fold phone, it was a technical feat: it was essentially a thick and tall smartphone that unfolded into a tablet. But it was also kind of a disaster, the folding mechanism crunched on dust, and the “screen protector” that came pre-applied would permanently damage the screen if removed.

Samsung’s persistence paid off with last year’s Galaxy Z Fold 4, which seems better able to handle daily use. Now almost every manufacturer, from Honor to Google, is chasing the folding device form factor.

Smartphones, including Apple’s iPhones, are getting boring with their iterative updates, so a new form factor could keep people interested with a whole new screen that literally folds away when you don’t need it.

Besides the hard-to-completely-ignore center crease and durability questions, foldable are still really expensive, with prices kissing a $2,000 ceiling that zaps away your whole college tech budget.

But with foldables trending toward abundance, perhaps a price war is around the corner. Stay tuned here for all the latest on the foldables launching this year, like the Pixel Fold, Motorola Razr, and whatever Samsung has planned next. Just don’t try folding your regular phone in the opposite direction unless, of course, your phone is a Surface Duo.

Highlights

  • PinPINNED
    Google’s Pixel Fold opened in its tablet form, held up by a hand.

    Google’s Pixel Fold opened in its tablet form, held up by a hand.

    Google’s Pixel Fold is one of the most highly anticipated folding phones of the past couple of years, and it debuts this summer.
    Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge

    Maybe you spotted one at the coffee shop, sitting conspicuously on a table in an L-shape position. Maybe you’ve seen one on the subway, in tablet mode, held by someone who’s trying very hard not to drop their $1800 gadget. They’re out there in the wild, but foldable phones are still a rare sighting. That might be about to change because we are entering — and I’m making an official call on this — hot foldable summer. 

    They’ve been on the market for years, but there are tons of good reasons why foldables haven’t caught on in the mainstream, starting with the fact that they’re expensive as all get-out. There were also some real bad problems with durability early on, and although build quality is much better now, there’s still a question mark over how a folding phone will hold up four or five years down the line. And then there’s the simple math: there’s basically one company selling folding phones in the US right now. Samsung has more or less run unopposed over the past few years, with no real competition prodding it to innovate. 

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  • Motorola Razr Plus in-hand showing cover screen interface.

    Motorola Razr Plus in-hand showing cover screen interface.

    The Razr Plus’ cover screen is the biggest on a flip-style phone right now.

    Motorola’s new Razr foldables are official, confirming what we learned from a set of substantial leaks over the past few weeks. Just as it was foretold, the Razr Plus comes with a massive cover screen, while the standard Razr offers a much more modest screen on the front panel. They’re both coming to the US, though only the Razr Plus is launching this month — June 23rd, to be exact, for $999. And it’s a real head-turner.

    You might have seen the specs already, but just to recap: the Razr Plus (the Razr 40 Ultra internationally) comes with a Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 chipset (the flagship Qualcomm chip from last year), 8GB of RAM, 256GB of storage, a 12-megapixel f/1.5 stabilized main camera, and 5W wireless charging. Its outer display is a 3.6-inch OLED with a 144Hz refresh rate covered by Gorilla Glass Victus, and the inner OLED unfolds to a 6.9-inch 1080p panel with a 165Hz refresh rate. It uses an “Ultra Thin Glass display,” with a protective multilayer treatment and is also an LTPO display, so it will downshift to 1Hz for activities like reading an ebook to save on battery life.

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  • A leaked Italian graphic of the Motorola Razr 40 Ultra’s specs

    A leaked Italian graphic of the Motorola Razr 40 Ultra’s specs

    The specs for Motorola’s upcoming flagship foldable have leaked. A marketing image posted by leaker SnoopyTech indicates that the premium Razr 40 Ultra could come with a massive 3.6-inch pOLED outer display at 144Hz, as well as a 6.9-inch inner pOLED display when the device is unfolded.

    The leaked image, which contains Italian text that we translated with the help of Google, suggests that the device will come with Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 chip. That’s the same component that comes in Samsung’s flagship Galaxy device and the one that Motorola added to its 2022 version of the Razr, which was only released in China and Europe.

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  • “Everything at a glance” and “Flip the script” text atop images of a folding phone, both folded and unfolded, showing off a pair of rear cameras, with light and shadow playing over the phone’s colorful screen as it floats in various positions above what seems like a table.

    “Everything at a glance” and “Flip the script” text atop images of a folding phone, both folded and unfolded, showing off a pair of rear cameras, with light and shadow playing over the phone’s colorful screen as it floats in various positions above what seems like a table.

    The Moto Razr Ultra foldable still isn’t official — but thanks to reliable gadget leaker Evan Blass, who’s been on top of this phone for months, we now have what appears to be an official 44-second commercial for the phone.

    This is what you came for:

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  • Z Flip 4 in an L-shape with camera app open

    Z Flip 4 in an L-shape with camera app open

    The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 4.
    Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge

    Samsung’s expected to reveal the new Galaxy Z Fold 5, Flip 5, and Tab S9 devices at its Unpacked event later this year, and thanks to reports from Winfuture and the Korean news outlet The Chosun Ilbo, we now have an idea of when exactly this could take place. Rumors suggest that Samsung could hold Unpacked on July 26th, while the devices could become available in stores on August 11th.

    If these reports hold true, this means Galaxy Unpacked will occur a couple of weeks earlier than last year’s event, which Samsung held on August 10th. Just like last year’s mid-summer Unpacked, Samsung’s set to reveal the latest iterations of its flagship foldables, including the Galaxy Z Fold 5. This device is rumored to feature a much thinner design when folded compared to its predecessor, along with the same 6.2-inch cover display and a 7.6-inch inner display.

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  • A partially opened Pixel Fold playing a YouTube video on its top half.

    A partially opened Pixel Fold playing a YouTube video on its top half.

    For US buyers, the Pixel Fold is the first credible alternative to Samsung’s Galaxy Fold series.
    Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge

    I don’t give a damn about the bezels. Just let me get that part of Google’s new $1,799 Pixel Fold out of the way. They’re fine. And I’m absolutely on board with the squat form factor: having this phone / tablet hybrid feel like a notepad in hand when it’s closed seems like a far better solution than Samsung’s tall boy.

    The Galaxy Fold 4 is too narrow for us large-handed humans, and when opened up, its square-ish inner display leaves sizable black bars when watching videos. In his Pixel Fold hands-on, my colleague Dan Seifert found Google’s wider aspect ratio to feel more natural for multitasking.

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  • We finally got our hands on Google’s Pixel Fold.

    Forget the leaks and the spec sheets; we went to Google I/O and got to use the company’s pricey (it starts at $1,799.99) new folding phone.

    Dan Seifert can tell you more about the Pixel Fold’s hinge and show you what it looks like next to Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 4 — check out our entire writeup if you need even more details.

  • A Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4 next to the Google Pixel Fold.

    A Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4 next to the Google Pixel Fold.

    Do you like your Fold long or tall?
    Photo by Dan Seifert / The Verge

    Google’s taken a page from Samsung’s book and made itself a foldable phone. In fact, the newly announced Google Pixel Fold, shown off at Google I/O 2023 alongside the Pixel 7A and Pixel Tablet, looks as if it borrowed a few chapters from Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 4. The foldables share a fairly striking resemblance since Google opted for the phone-unfolds-into–tablet method of design philosophy and an equally lofty $1,799.99 starting price. However, when you look just a little closer, you notice some stark differences.

    Here, we’re pitting the two folding ultra-flagships up against one another to compare their specs and features on paper. While Samsung is on its fourth iteration of the Galaxy Fold, Google will be a first-time player in the world of foldable phones when the Pixel Fold launches in late June. But can Google really even compete with a first-gen product?

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  • A black Pixel Fold phone, unfolded on a table with its larger inner screen facing upward and turned on.

    A black Pixel Fold phone, unfolded on a table with its larger inner screen facing upward and turned on.

    Suddenly, June can’t come soon enough.
    Image: Google

    After the rumors, leaks, and an early tease, Google has now properly introduced both its new flagship foldable and midrange slab phone offerings: the Pixel Fold and the Pixel 7A. These were some of the showcase device announcements at the tech giant’s Google I/O 2023 keynote, accompanied by other Android and AI-related news.

    The Pixel 7A continues Google’s formula of taking some of the best features from its latest generation of flagship phones, leaving out extras that cost a premium and dropping the cost to a more budget-friendly price. And speaking of premium, the Pixel Fold is a new ultra-flagship addition to the Pixel lineup, one that represents Google’s first attempt at a foldable phone and takes a page from Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 4 in the “it’s a regular-ish phone that also unfolds into a small tablet” department.

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  • Google’s Pixel Fold opened in its tablet form, held up by a hand.

    Google’s Pixel Fold opened in its tablet form, held up by a hand.

    The Pixel Fold is a smartphone that opens up into a small tablet.

    Following literal years of rumors and leaks, Google has finally announced the Pixel Fold, its first folding device. The $1,799 Fold is set to go head-to-head with Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 4 with preorders starting today, May 10th, and will be shipping to customers in June.

    Though this is Google’s first attempt at a folding phone, there’s a lot to like here. As a general gadget or device that you hold and manipulate in your hands, the Pixel Fold is very nice — the hinge is stiff but not cumbersome, the screens look great, and it feels like the expensive object it is. Google’s apps and software appear to work well on it, and it’s likely that any future folding phone features built into Android will be done with the Pixel Fold front of mind.

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  • An image showing the Pixel Fold opened

    An image showing the Pixel Fold opened

    Yet another leaked teaser for the Pixel Fold has surfaced just hours before its expected launch at Google I/O. In a promo video by leaker SnoopyTech, Google highlights just how thin its flagship foldable really is and also shows off how you can prop the device up on a table when watching videos.

    The ad offers a look at what multitasking on the device might be like as well. As shown in the clip, a user has a video call open in one panel when the device is unfolded, while Google Drive is open in another. They’re also able to drag and drop files across both screens.

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  • Google’s Pixel Fold foldable phone, showing two phones slightly opened back to back to show both the inside and outside screens.

    Google’s Pixel Fold foldable phone, showing two phones slightly opened back to back to show both the inside and outside screens.

    Pixel Fold
    Image: Google

    The rumors are true: next week, Google will introduce its first foldable phone, the Pixel Fold, during the Google I/O 2023 event.

    Google hasn’t revealed any specs for the device, but a brief teaser video shows off a full-size outer display on a phone that opens up similarly to Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold devices. The camera bar on the back is similar to other Pixel devices but doesn’t stick out as prominently, reflecting what we’ve seen in leaked marketing materials and even a hands-on video.

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  • An unofficial render of two Z Flip 5 phones.

    An unofficial render of two Z Flip 5 phones.

    Recent unofficial renders of what the Galaxy Z Flip 5 could look like.
    Image: OnLeaks / MediaPeanut

    Ice Universe, an anonymous Twitter account with a good track record of leaking details about unannounced smartphones, says Samsung’s upcoming Z Flip 5 will have a 3.4-inch cover screen with a resolution of 720 x 748. This isn’t the first time Ice has predicted that 3.4-inch secondary display, but it’s the first time we’ve seen a specific resolution listed. It’s a big increase over the 1.9-inch 260 x 512 cover display on the Z Flip 4.

    The leak comes a few short days after OnLeaks and MediaPeanut published a series of unofficial renders of the upcoming handset based on leaked specs, while also claiming the phone will have a 3.4-inch cover display. Meanwhile, OnLeaks expects the size of the internal display to remain unchanged at 6.7 inches. Late last year, supply chain analyst Ross Young also reported that the Z Flip 5 would have a secondary display in excess of 3 inches.

    Read Article >

  • Leaked images showing the outer displays of the upcoming Motorola Razr

    Leaked images showing the outer displays of the upcoming Motorola Razr

    Image: Evan Blass via Twitter

    The latest leaked images of the upcoming Motorola Razr give us an even better look at the foldable’s large outer display and interface, as first spotted by 9to5Google. In a set of images posted to Twitter by reliable leaker Evan Blass (who has made his account private), you can see how the display extends from the phone’s hinge and wraps around the device’s dual cameras.

    The images also show off some of the different clock displays you can use and suggest that you can customize the interface’s font, layout, color, theme, and wallpaper to your liking. It seems like Motorola may add a new color option into the mix as well, with the above image showing two devices featuring a deep red hinge.

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  • Motorola is going big with the next Razr’s cover display.

    Lenovo executive Chen Jin has confirmed that the upcoming Motorola Razr foldable will have a 3.5-inch cover display.

    That’s bigger than the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 4 (1.9 inches), it’s bigger than the last Razr (2.7 inches), and it’s even bigger than Oppo’s recent Find N2 Flip (3.26 inches). Here’s hoping Motorola’s software makes the most of the screen real estate.

  • Motorola’s next-gen Razr could come with a “Lite” option.

    Reliable leaker OnLeaks shared what appears to be images of the Razr “Lite,” a more affordable version of the company’s upcoming fourth-generation foldable.

    Unlike what we saw with the leaked images of Razr’s flagship foldable, the Lite option seems to come with a much smaller outer display that surrounds — and barely extends beyond — the device’s dual cameras.

  • The Mate X3 folded and unfolded.

    The Mate X3 folded and unfolded.

    The Mate X3 folded and unfolded.
    Image: Huawei

    Huawei’s Mate X3 is its latest foldable phone, and it has a set of specs that, in an alternate universe, would give Samsung’s Z Fold 4 a run for its money. It pairs a 6.4-inch external display with a 7.85-inch internal foldable screen in a device that’s 5.3mm thick while unfolded and that weighs 239 grams. That’s theoretically thinner and lighter than Samsung’s latest foldable, which is 6.3mm thick and weighs 263 grams and matches its IPX8 rating for dust and water resistance.

    Huawei has announced the foldable alongside a series of more traditional smartphones including the P60, P60 Pro, and P60 Art.

    Read Article >

  • Renders of Google’s rumored Pixel foldable phone.

    Renders of Google’s rumored Pixel foldable phone.

    Image: OnLeaks and HowToiSolve

    The Google Pixel Fold could be available as soon as the second week in June, according to WinFuture’s Roland Quandt. The reliable leaker tweeted on Tuesday that the phone will come with 256GB base storage and that you’ll be able to get it in either a black / dark gray color or white.

    The foldable has been rumored for a long time, and there have been whispers that it would be announced sometime in the next few months. However, a January report from The Elec threw some cold water on that idea, saying that the screen wasn’t even set to go into production until July or August.

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  • Galaxy Z Fold 4 folded in half on a desk with hinge facing outward.

    Galaxy Z Fold 4 folded in half on a desk with hinge facing outward.

    The Galaxy Z Fold 4’s U-shaped hinge might make way for a new shape this year.
    Photo by Allison Johnson / The Verge

    We have good reason to believe that Samsung will put a new kind of hinge in its next flagship foldable, and a South Korean trade publication has just supplied more confirmation. Spotted by 9to5Google, The Elec reports that Samsung has started reliability testing a new water drop-style hinge for the upcoming Galaxy Z Fold 5.

    The new hinge design would make the folded phone thinner and help reduce the appearance of a crease with the main screen unfolded. But according to this report, Samsung is testing the hinge to withstand 200,000 folds like the last one, which falls short of longevity claims from recent competitors like the Honor Magic VS and Oppo Find N2 — both rated to 400,000 folds.

    Read Article >

  • Trade shows like Mobile World Congress are filled with one of my favorite kinds of phones. They’re the ones that have a single amazing, standout feature to offer to the world, even if their overall package might not represent something you’d want to buy and use as your everyday smartphone.

    They’re phones like the Vivo X20 Plus UD, which we tried out at CES 2018 and was the first phone to ship with an under-display fingerprint sensor. And although it wasn’t announced at a trade show, I’d put the OnePlus 7 Pro in the same category for being one of the first mainstream smartphones with a 90Hz display. Sometimes, it feels like all it takes is for one phone to show how beneficial a feature can be before the rest of the industry rapidly catches up. 

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  • The Razr’s Quick View display

    The Razr’s Quick View display

    The 2020 Motorola Razr is the most recent one released in the US.
    Photo: Dieter Bohn / The Verge

    Motorola’s launching yet another Razr this year, according to a report from CNBC. Yang Yuanqing, the CEO of Motorola’s parent company Lenovo, told the outlet that the next-gen foldable would arrive “very soon” with some improvements to the device’s hinge.

    In an interview with CNBC, Yang didn’t expand much on what’s new with the upcoming Razr but said its inner display could have a less notable crease when unfolded — an issue that just about every foldable maker has to contend with. “I think it’s much better,” Yang told CNBC in reference to the new device.

    Read Article >

  • Unrolling Lenovo’s latest laptop and phone concepts at MWC 2023.

    Just when we were getting used to foldable phones, tablets, and laptops, these concept designs suggest rollable screens are in the near future, ready to extend the view by a few more inches when you need them to, without taking up more space in your pocket or bag.

    Jon Porter is at Mobile World Congress 2023 this week and can show you Lenovo’s rollable screen laptop plus its Motorola-branded rollable phone.

  • Honor’s Magic VS placed on a table, partially folded.

    Honor’s Magic VS placed on a table, partially folded.

    Honor’s Magic VS, partially folded.

    We finally have global pricing for the Honor Magic VS, which is the first foldable from the company that it’ll sell outside of China. During its presentation at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, the company said it’ll be available to buy in global markets starting at €1,599 (around $1,690) for a model with 12GB of RAM and 512GB of storage. It’ll be available in the UK in June, but release dates in other global markets are yet to be announced. For reference, at €1,799 (£1,649 / $1,799), Samsung’s competing Galaxy Z Fold 4 was priced a little higher at launch last year.

    Alongside it, the company announced a more traditional flagship smartphone series headed up by the Honor Magic5 Pro, which will cost €1,199 (around $1,267) for a model with 12GB of RAM and 512GB of storage and which will be available in the UK in May and in the second quarter of this year in other global markets. There’s also a non-Pro Magic5, which will start at €899 (around $950) for a model with 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage.

    Read Article >

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