Foldable Smartphones – The innovations that make Samsung the market leader

There’s a lot of talk, rumours, and hype about foldable smartphones in 2026 – new players, new form factors, a whole new audience.  But much of that story won’t tell is the seven-year-long journey Samsung has been on to create and prove this market for consumers.

What started as a tease in 2019 at the launch of the flagship Galaxy S10 series smartphones quickly became hype at that year’s Mobile World Congress before a slow roll-out to consumers across the year, resulting in the device going on sale in Australia in October.

Looking back on that phone now, it seems clunky, chunky, and even strange – but that’s only given the knowledge of the generations of devices that have followed.

Staggeringly, in 2020, Samsung changed the inner screen to be a foldable glass, something I to this day struggle to get my head around, but it offered a durability over and above that which was found on the first-generation device.

Perhaps just as important to the Samsung Foldable story in 2020 was the introduction of the “Flip” variant.  A traditional-looking smartphone that folded shut from top to bottom, rather than the “open like a book” style of the Samsung Fold.

This addition gave Samsung a fashion- and style-oriented device with the Flip, and another – the Fold – aimed at productivity.

Improvements to specifications like refresh rate or screen size improvements to the front of the fold were what followed over the next generation to make the device more and more usable in daily life.

Those changes also included IPX8 water resistance based on lab test conditions, stronger materials, and in my opinion, even more durable displays.

On the Flip version, the tiny little outer screen grew to be more functional and usable without even opening the device.

2023 saw perhaps the second biggest leap in the foldable range with a “zero gap” design.  Side-on, the devices had always been a little “wedge” shaped with a gap where the actual crease sat.

With the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold5 and Z Flip5, a new generation hinge design allowed the phones to close shut flat, thus making them both thinner and far more polished in their design.

That same year saw the Flip gain the 2.4-inch “Flex Window,” adding vastly more usability to that front screen yet again.

As if to chip away at the feedback and usability gaps, Samsung just kept iterating each year, with weight, slimmer form factor and hinge redesign.

However, the biggest leap forward for Samsung was in 2025, when the Fold7 was released with a staggeringly thin frame, making it folded shut a similar thickness to a large traditional smartphone, as well as its best-performing camera capability yet.  This, to me, proved Samsung was all-in on this category for the long term, and that they had drawn a line in the sand for others to push toward if they wanted to be taken seriously.

No longer is a “Foldable” a compromise of weight, form factor, battery life, or camera capability.  Instead, it’s a choice.

Samsung doesn’t own the market; in Australia, there are at least two other brands with foldable devices of different form factors, and overseas, there are many more. But with expectations of a big launch in the months ahead for Samsung and others, it’s a good time to remind ourselves that Samsung isn’t new to this party— they’ve been understanding the devices and consumers using them for longer than anyone else out there.

This article was written with the support of Samsung Australia, supported editorial allows us to write the stories we love sharing, and dedicates our time to them – along with helping produce all the content you read at EFTM.