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Podcast: Galaxy Z Fold 2, NVIDIA RTX 3000 and Intel's 11th-gen CPUs
It's been an intense week for those covering tech news and on this episode of the Engadget Podcast, we dive into Samsung's Galaxy Z Fold 2, NVIDIA's new RTX chips, Intel's latest processors and a slew of IFA announcements.
Watch us unbox Samsung's new Galaxy Z Fold 2 live at 4PM ET
We’ll be cracking open a freshly delivered Z Fold 2 and taking questions from straight from our audience. You get some answers and a first look at beautiful new hardware, we get a better sense of what the people want us to focus on as we start working on our review. It's a win-win!
Watch Samsung unveil the Galaxy Z Fold 2 in detail with us at 9:40 AM ET
The Galaxy Note 20 and Note 20 Ultra may already be in the company's rear-view mirror, but today it plans to talk about the new Galaxy Z Fold 2 in much greater detail than it did at Unpacked in August, and we're going to discuss those revelations live as they happen.
Samsung will give the Galaxy Z Fold 2 a proper unveiling on September 1st
Toward the end of its last Unpacked press conference, Samsung spent a surprising amount of time talking about its new Galaxy Z Fold 2 before promising more detail on September 1st. Now, the company has made those plans more concrete: Rather than a news dump or PR blast, Samsung will stage a streamed event at 10AM Eastern/7AM Pacific that day to focus on the foldable. In years past, such an announcement would've been made on the ground at the IFA trade show in Berlin, but continued concerns over the novel coronavirus pandemic forced Samsung to back out of the event in July.
Watch Samsung's Unpacked event with us live from 9:40AM ET
Samsung hasn’t been shy about the fact that it has a ton of devices to show us at its upcoming Unpacked event, and that day is finally here. You can get excited with senior mobile editor Chris Velazco and myself right here as we head over to YouTube for a real-time reaction stream with a post-show to share our thoughts (and insider info) after. Based on the sneaky silhouette that Samsung has shared, we can tell there will be at least a foldable, a Note phone, a watch and what looks like wireless earbuds.
Samsung's $1,450 Galaxy Z Flip 5G will land in the US on August 7th
Samsung's Galaxy Z Flip is the best foldable we've tested so far this year. What's peculiar is just how quickly Samsung cooked up a new version of its charming foldable flip phone. The company officially announced the Galaxy Z Flip 5G this morning, and as its name suggests, the device packs the next-generation network support the original missed out on.
Motorola has a two-for-one deal on its foldable Razr phone
If you really want a foldable smartphone, Motorola's two-for-one deal on its new Razr flip phone could be worth checking out.
YouTube now takes full advantage of Samsung's Galaxy Z Flip
YouTube has been optimized to make the most of the Galaxy Z Flip's folding screen, including hands-free viewing.
Motorola's Razr is still $1,500 but now you can get it in 'blush gold'
The Motorola Razr is now available in blush gold.
Foldable phones are the future, but their software is stuck in the present
Take your boring glass rectangle of a phone and fold it in half! Or thirds! Or.. quarters? It's time for the shape of smartphones to change again. Over the last decade, they've settled into a largely uniform look. If I were to draw an icon for a phone, it would be a vertical rectangle with rounded corners and maybe a button on the front. There -- I've just described the Galaxy S line, iPhones, Pixels and pretty much every other phone.
TCL's concept device folds twice to fit a 10-inch screen in your pocket
It's no surprise that 2020 continues to be the year of foldables. We've already seen the Motorola Razr and Galaxy Z Flip go on sale, and TCL is ready to wow us with more. But don't get too excited. It's only showing us concept devices, not products it actually plans on launching (yet). The company has unveiled two prototypes -- the results of its experiments to see what's possible with flexible screens. One of these is what TCL calls its tri-fold tablet concept, which is a screen that folds twice to create three panels. The more interesting of the pair is what the company says is the "world's first rollable extendable display smartphone concept."
Huawei’s Mate Xs is a tougher foldable phone lacking the apps you want
Despite nailing the reveal at MWC last year, Huawei's impressive foldable phone, the Mate X, never made it any further than briefings, press conferences and Chinese early adopters -- there's a reason we didn't review it. The Mate X wasn't cheap, it wasn't perfect but it still seemed like the strongest foldable option at the time. (And we all know how Samsung's first attempt turned out.) Samsung's remade Galaxy Fold is the perfect analog for Huawei's Mate Xs 5G, a phone that should be better prepared for prime time. Nothing particularly major has changed since the Mate X. There's still an 8-inch unfolded display, transforming to a 6.6-inch phone in standard smartphone mode. So what has changed on the Mate Xs? There's still a release button to satisfyingly unfurl the smartphone, but the hinge itself has been upgraded. According to Huawei, the number of parts and components inside the hinge is up from around 100 to 150. I can feel the difference -- I think? Huawei didn't have last year's Mate X around for comparisons, but it feels like it has more heft to it -- something that the original Mate X wasn't particularly lacking.
Samsung Galaxy Z Flip review: Admire it, don't buy it
To date, every foldable you could buy has been the subject of at least some drama. Royole's FlexPai felt barely finished. The original Galaxy Fold wasn't much more than a prototype, with glaring design issues that were fixed in later production runs. Huawei's Mate X stole the show at last year's Mobile World Congress but was delayed for reasons the company never fully explained. And the Razr? Well, let's just say the results couldn't possibly live up to the hype. The Galaxy Z Flip ($1,380) is different. Of all the foldables I've used, this is the first one that seems to tick all the boxes: Excellent performance, great cameras, and even decent battery life — all packed into a flip-phone-style body that I honestly think makes the most sense for most people. If you're in a rush to embrace one possible future for smartphones, then I don't think you'll do much better than this. But why rush? Embracing that future means putting up with a lot of compromises. And even though the Z Flip has fewer than most, the same lingering foldable criticisms apply. They're more expensive than comparable smartphones. They're inherently fragile and app-makers don't know how to take advantage of them (yet). The Z Flip may be the best of its kind, but until foldables as a whole mature beyond these problems, they're still not worth the splurge for anyone who doesn't want to double as a beta tester.
Samsung says the Galaxy Z Flip will be back in stock on Friday
Last week Samsung announced and almost immediately released its foldable Galaxy Z Flip, but only in "limited" quantities that dried up almost as soon as they appeared, unless you spot one in a store somewhere. Now Samsung says that tomorrow, on February 21st it will make more of the $1,380 devices available online, coincidentally around the same time pre-orders will begin for its flagship lineup of phones that includes higher specs and 5G across the Galaxy S20, S20+ and S20 Ultra.
Samsung will sell its foldable glass display to other companies
Now that the Galaxy Z Flip is available to buy, Samsung plans to sell the phone's signature foldable glass screen to other manufacturers. The screen will carry the same ultra-thin glass (UTG) branding as of the Galaxy Z Flip's "cover window," with Samsung marketing the product as "tough, yet tender."
Teardown reveals how much hardware Samsung crams into the Galaxy Z Flip
The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip lays out a welcome mat for dust and debris. But while the hinge gap is concerning, it is impressive that Samsung was able to fit so many components into a foldable design. iFixit's teardown reveals a stack of two minuscule motherboards and two battery cells crammed into the palm-sized device. And thanks to its modular parts, it's slightly more repairable than Motorola's new foldable Razr.
The Galaxy Z Flip's hinge fibers aren't enough to keep dust out
Samsung made much ado over fiber layers in the Galaxy Z Flip's hinge that are supposed to keep dust and debris from ruining your day, but how effective are they, really? They might not be as effective as you'd like. iFixit has tested the hinge's dust resistance in the early stages of its teardown, and... it's not promising. While it's not surprising that dust would infiltrate other parts of the phone (Samsung explicitly warns the phone isn't dust-resistant), the hinge area was still coated in particles -- enough that they produced a disconcerting crunch when iFixit unfolded the device.
Samsung offers at-home Galaxy S20 trials to mitigate impact of coronavirus
As the spread of coronavirus continues to keep people in quarantine and threaten promotional tech events, companies in Asia gearing up for low sales -- but Samsung's new home visit service aims to mitigate some of this fall out. Reuters reports that the company is offering a smartphone delivery service to allow customers to test its new products without having to visit a physical store.
The Galaxy Z Flip's glass screen isn't very durable
When Samsung unveiled the Galaxy Z Flip, its display's extra-thin glass drew the attention of many people. It theoretically offered a better feel and more durability than the fragile plastic of the Galaxy Fold. You might not want to get your hopes up, however. JerryRigEverything (aka Zack Nelson) has subjected the Z Flip's screen to a durability test, and the results are... unfortunate. It's just as prone to scratching as the plastic displays of the Fold and the Motorola Razr, to the point where a fingernail can leave marks. Puncture and heat tests didn't fare any better.
Love at first fold: 24 hours with Samsung's Galaxy Z Flip
I'll admit it, when Samsung teased the Galaxy Fold at its Developer Conference in 2018, I wasn't sold on the concept. Sure, the technology was impressive, but it just seemed gimmicky to me. The only benefit I could think of for folding displays would be if they made regular-sized phones smaller.
