CNET
Foldable Phones Live Q&A and What to Expect at Samsung’s Galaxy Unpacked Event
Join us as we dive into the world of foldable phones and pontificate about what’s on the horizon for Samsung at its upcoming Galaxy Unpacked summer event. CNET’s mobile team will be taking your questions live and breaking down Samsung’s newest foldable screen tech. Read more about Samsung’s Galaxy Unpacked summer event on CNET.com Samsung’s…
@appropriateinput
July 15, 2026 at 3:07 pm
“Hot Take”: It should be illegal to sell phones that have processors so weak that they struggle to run basic Android out of the box.
**Looking at you, Samsung**
I know this isn’t perfectly related to the video, but we need capable, affordable new hardware in EVERY CATEGORY.
@nickthaskater
July 17, 2026 at 1:33 pm
Literally every new phone sold today is grossly overpowered for “basic Android.”
@SailingGalveston
July 15, 2026 at 7:10 pm
One possible alternative (although not as convenient/portable): For roughly the same amount of $$ as what this latest generation of foldable devices are expected to cost, you can get a phone and a tablet.
@digitaldeath1876
July 16, 2026 at 2:39 am
Or just one device
@nickthaskater
July 17, 2026 at 1:35 pm
A tablet doesn’t fit into my pocket, and is a secondary device to manage/sync. The “just get a phone and a tablet” argument has been levied against foldables since day one, and the answer will always be that two devices is beside the point, and a tablet isn’t something you can just stick in your pocket like a regular phone. If you want to carry two devices, go hard, but anyone considering a foldable likely isn’t interested in that.
@CNET
July 15, 2026 at 7:45 pm
You can read more about Samsung’s Galaxy Unpacked summer event on CNET.com
Samsung’s Galaxy Unpacked Event: We Expect Weird Foldables, Funky AI Glasses and More
@digitaldeath1876
July 16, 2026 at 2:34 am
Z Fold 7 is KILLING the game 💯
@nickthaskater
July 17, 2026 at 1:38 pm
Fold 7 is a compromised cost-cutting regression. I regret biting on the trade-in deal and sacrificing my Fold 5 for the Fold 7 every day. The Fold 5’s thickness and weight were never an issue, and it had an under-display camera (amazing for work/content consumption as it got out of the way rather than leaving a black hole, and was perfectly fine in video calls, which is all it’s eve used for), and it had S Pen support, which is something I used every day and stupidly convinced myself I wouldn’t miss it. The Fold 7 hinge is terrible, too. It barely holds an angle in Flex Mode, and feels mushy. The camera hump on the 7 is hilariously bad, too, and leaves the phone rocking like a teeter totter every time I put it down.
@FPLUSABrian
July 16, 2026 at 1:15 pm
really hope the Apple Fold isn’t $2500 😵
@nickthaskater
July 17, 2026 at 2:45 pm
6:05 I’ve never had an issue with my Z Folds’ inner displays surviving drops. The inner displays’ weakness has been fatigue cracks rather than drops (although I’ve thankfully never experienced that, either, on my Fold 4, 5, and 7). All of this talk about reducing the crease is only worthwhile if it correlates to reduced stress/fatigue failures (which have been less and less over the years, but is something that is swept under the rug as opposed to the “crease factor”).
10:00 Huawei’s Mate XTs trifold has proven to be fine with the screen wrapping around the outside (let’s remember all foldables have user-replaceable screen protectors on the folding displays, so just replace it if it’s ever scuffed). It makes for a far better user experience as you get both standard candybar screen, a “regular” bifold, and a full-width trifold in the same device, with seamless transitions between all three form factors. Samsung’s trifold design is far too compromised from a UX perspective.
16:25 Foldable screens have not been “plastic” for years. With that said, there’s no reason the privacy display feature couldn’t work on a foldable; it’s just disabling pixels in the display. As far as the anti-glare point, Samsung already makes fantastic anti-glare screen protectors (they happily sold you one with the Z Fold 7). They just need to apply them to the inner display rather than the glossy protector that the Z Fold ships with.
19:15 Now *that* is a “plastic screen.” We’ve come a long way since then.
22:00 I want to like Moto, particularly the Razr Fold; however, Moto is treating the Canadian market like they couldn’t care less. They launched the Razr Fold in Canada a month after other markets. They still aren’t selling the Moto Pen Ultra in Canada, nor are any retailers, and Moto doesn’t allow their US store to ship to Canada so Canadian Razr Fold buyers can’t even order up from the US. It’s such a wasted opportunity, as the Razr Fold does everything the Z Fold 7 should have and I’d love to move on.
24:20 Software is 100% the biggest thing for a foldable to make sense. Samsung was on top of this for many years, but with the Fold 7 and Android 16 (OneUI 7+), there have been significant regressions in capability, compatibility, and functionality. Samsung’s insistence to continue integrating baseline Google-ized Android in place of their custom software solutions has greatly diminished the argument for buying a Samsung over other, more hardware-capable foldables, as Samsung is cutting themselves down to software parity while still lacking on the hardware side.
24:35 Instagram on the cover display is fine. It displays a cropped verison of a reel because that’s what Meta has programmed the app to do. If you tap on the reel, it’ll open in the uncropped aspect ratio. This is a Meta UI decision and has absolutely nothing to do with foldables. Likewise, scaling and UI issues when moving from the outer to inner display (or to an external display via DeX) are issues with the app being lazily coded and not respecting basic best practices for responsive app design (Google and Samsung are, ironically but not surprisingly, also very guilty of this).
24:55 One of the biggest slaps to the face of Z Fold users was Samsung rolling out DeX on the inner display of the Z Trifold, while withholding it from the Z Fold. This is despite well-documented demands from Z Fold users for years (going back to the Fold 3 days) to enable DeX on the inner display of the Z Fold. Some with rooted Z Folds went as far as to enable it themselves (it’s literally just one software parameter that Samsung locks out) to demonstrate there’s no technical reason why it can’t work.
Samsung did the same thing around the Z Fold 4 time where the Second Screen function was previously included on the Z Fold so it could be used natively as another display for a PC. Samung then locked out this feature from the Z Fold’s software, restricting it to Tab devices only. Samsung rolled out the Z Trifold and, lo and behold, Second Screen was included on the Trifold but remains absent from the Z Fold.
I wish reviewers/journalists would pay more attention to things like this rather than always talking about cameras and thinness. These are actual UX issues, not to mention anti-consumer practices, that ought to be called out.
29:05 If Apple doesn’t treat the inner display like an iPad (with windowing, Stage Manager, etc.) *and* allow external display output like iPads already can, it has no business being called an “Ultra.”
29:20 The “passport” form factor achieves nothing other than losing vertical screen real estate, unless the device itself is physically larger than a “standard” foldable like the Z Fold 7. At this point, the passport foldables have all been on par size-wise with the “tall” foldables – unfold and rotate a Z Fold 7 to landscape and put it next to a Pura X and you’ll see it’s the same width, but the Pura loses about 3cm (yes, centimetres) in height. You’re giving up a massive amount of productivity space for the sake of fratctionally slimmer letterboxing when watching a single 16:9 video. There’s nothing about that which should be praised or held as being “right.”
37:20 “Duo had that 4:3 ratio” – My friend, rotate the Z Fold 7 to landscape and you get a 4.2:3 ratio.
39:40 The Fold 8 “Ultra” should have S Pen support on both inner and outer displays (literally no excuse not to now with the Find N6, Magic V6, and Razr Fold all doing this), at least a 5,000mAh battery, and support DeX on the inner display.
I wish the UDC would come back, or at least see the inner hole punch moved to the corner where it should be, but I’m not holding my breath on that vs. those other points.