The nearly decades-long battle between Apple and Samsung for smartphone dominance may soon enter a new phase. Samsung on Wednesday introduced three new foldable phones, including a redesigned model called the Galaxy Z Fold 8 that it hopes will appeal to a broader audience. The fresh design comes at a critical time: Apple is expected to release its first foldable iPhone in September.
But Samsung thinks Apple’s release could even help their phones, Drew Blackard, the company’s senior vice president of mobile product management, told CNN. An Apple foldable could bring more attention overall to those kinds of devices. “People now kind of know what a foldable is, but many consumers in the US have never touched or even felt one,” he said.
Foldables represent a small slice of the smartphone market. But they give big-spending, profit-driving customers more choices at a time when most smartphones look the same. One analyst compared the foldable market to airplane tickets.
“You’re going to have a certain number of first-class seats and a certain number of coach, and you’ve got to balance it,” said Dave Nicholson, chief tech advisor for research and intelligence firm Futurum, which monitors the tech sector. “You want to get as much money out of the market as possible, making people happy at every point along the way.” Samsung, until this point, has been the primary seller of those “first-class seats.” It might soon find itself sharing the spotlight. Samsung’s new phones The Galaxy Z Fold 8 represents the biggest physical change to Samsung’s book-shaped phone in years.
While Samsung has previously made its foldable phones thinner and lighter, the Galaxy Z Fold 8 is shorter and wider. It almost resembles a Moleskin notebook that can nearly fit into the palm of your hand. Samsung has marketed its Z Fold devices to early adopters and those who primarily use their phone for work in the past.
With the Z Fold 8, it’s tailoring the design for more general tasks like watching videos and reading, the company says. Some users previously complained that most clips aren’t made to fit the older Z Fold phone screens, resulting in large black bars at the top and bottom. The new look could also improve how AI features work on Samsung’s foldables, market research firm Counterpoint Research wrote in a report just before Samsung’s announcement.
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