Update, July 14th: We were hoping Samsung would announce its first tri-folding camera phone at its July 9th Galaxy Unpacked event, however it was only the Galaxy Z Fold7, Flip7, and Watch8 which were unveiled. But that's not to say Samsung isn't working on a future triple-panel foldable.
In a press conference following the July 9th Galaxy Unpacked event, Roh Tae-moon, president of the Device eXperience (DX) division at Samsung Electronics, announced that:
“We are working hard to release [a tri-fold phone] by the end of this year".
It's been rumoured for several months that Samsung might be working on a tri-fold phone to rival the Huawei Mate XT Ultimate Design. Until now there hasn't been many details available, but a recent beta version of Samsung's One UI 8 operating system contains an animation of a triple-panel foldable phone. The graphic is used to demonstrate NFC chip function, and while it's a highly simplified illustration, it does show some revealing details about the phone's design.
It looks as though the phone would fold inward, with the rear, externally-facing surfaces consisting of a left panel containing the camera island, a central panel housing an external cover display, while the right panel would likely have no exterior function as it'd be enclosed by the other two panels when the phone is folded.
Currently dubbed the Galaxy G Fold, the graphic does somewhat resemble the tri-fold prototype Samsung exhibited at Mobile World Congress earlier in the year. In another animation, we can see a warning message displayed on the main screen when the panel containing the camera island is folded first. This is likely due to the two hinges being of different sizes in order to allow the phone to fold up neatly. This would mean the non-camera panel wouldn't have a large enough hinge to enable it to wrap around the camera panel, thereby leaving the screen vulnerable to breaking if the panels were folded in the wrong order.
Story credit: Android Authority, Telangana Today
