Galaxy X foldable phone FAQ: Specs, release date, price

When it's open, it's a tablet. Samsung teased it's foldable phone this week at the developer conference in San Francisco. That's right, this is a phone that you can open into a tablet and the screen actually folds close. But there's still so much we don't know about this crazy new design. Like it's name, the price and Okay let's actually start with what we do know. We know that there's a 4.5 inch screen on the outside that hands off what you're looking at, to a 7.3 inch screen on the inside, when you unfold the device. The outer screen will go dark when you do that, which means you can't use both screens at the same time. Once we were using the larger screen you'll be able to have up to three different active windows open for multitasking. For example you might read the news text and scroll Instagram on three separate windows. In order to make a flexible phone Samsung has designed an all new display technology called The Infinity Flex display. This will allow all the layers that make up the display bend and flex. The two sides of the phone are also very thin, but exactly how thin? We don't know yet. But what we do know is that Samsung has created a brand new look to go along with the hardware. They call ie One UI. And it's completely replaces the Samsung experience software that came before. This is above leer interface that tries to declutter and simplify the screen. Samsung also wants you to be able to use it one-handed. I tried it out and it definitely looks fresher. Samsung will open up a beta later this month but it will only work with Android 9 pie. And speaking of Android we do know also that Google has thrown its full support behind foldable phones. And we will be building into the platform the APIs to ensure a seamless foldable experience. Supporting new capabilities like app continuity and multi-active window which will allow your application to handle multitasking in new ways as well as dealing with resolution changes as you use a full [UNKNOWN] device. On the hardware side we know that Samsung wants the foldable phones battery life to last as long as your typical Galaxy phone even though it will be drawing more power. Samsung isn't alone in pursing a foldable phone. Royal Is already selling its Flex Pi phone, mainly in China, and to global developers. LG and Huawei also said that they are making prototypes, and rumor is that LG will launch its foldable phone at CES 2019. Samsung said that it will start manufacturing the Infinity Flex displays in the coming months, so we won't see it before the end of 2018. Okay, now for what we don't know, which is pretty much everything else. Like the name for example. Galaxy X and Galaxy F are both kicking around the rumor mill. Or how about materials? Is the large screen on the inside gonna be made of glass or will it be made of plastic? I think it might be plastic. Will there be one camera or will there be two? And how much is this thing gonna cost? Samsung hasn't announced the price of course. But with the Galaxy Note 9 starting at a thousand bucks, this is bound to be much more expensive. If you want a foldable phone, you better start saving up.