After weeks of silence, Samsung is starting to talk about the Galaxy Fold again. The foldable flagship was announced in a shower of hyperbole alongside the Galaxy S10e, Galaxy S10, and S10 Plus during the Galaxy Unpacked event in February.
During the launch, Samsung executives heralded it as the future of the hugely-popular Galaxy smartphone series during the launch. However, the pliable phone was unceremoniously pulled days before its April launch date due to issues with the flexible OLED display purportedly caused by the 'alarmingly fragile' folding design.
But now the Samsung Galaxy Fold is "ready", with fixes in place for a number of the issues that plagued the first wave of review units that were issued to US media.
According to The Investor, Samsung Display Vice President Kim Seong-cheol confirmed in a speech during a recent industry event organised by the Korean Information Display Society that the Galaxy Fold is now "ready to hit the market".
The Vice President claimed that "most" of the issues that had plagued the folding OLED, which Samsung brands as Infinity-Flex, have been "ironed out" two months after the problems with Galaxy Fold first emerged.
For those who are desperate to get their hands on the futuristic new foldable flagship phone, that will be music to their ears. But for everyone else, the careful use of the word "most" is likely to trigger a few alarm bells. Let's not forget, Samsung rolled-out a fixed version of its problematic Galaxy Note 7 a few weeks after the global recall that suffered the same battery over-heating issued that plagued its predecessor.
The speech follows a growing number of reports that Samsung is gearing up to re-launch the Samsung Galaxy Fold. That makes sense, especially since the Seoul-based company is set to hold a Galaxy Unpacked media event in early August to unveiled the long-awaited Samsung Galaxy Note 10. It seems like a pretty good opportunity to address what has been changed inside the £1,800 ($1,980, €2,000) handset.
According to a recent report from SlashGear, whatever happens with the Galaxy Fold launch it will not impact the release window already set aside for the Galaxy Note 10. Both handsets have their own launch schedule and will not be delayed or set back to make room for one another, Samsung says.
Last month, a Samsung representative claimed the Galaxy Fold release date would be announced "in the coming weeks," something that has yet to happen. With this latest update though, it sounds like that is more likely than ever before.
The news comes as arch-nemesis Huawei pushed back the launch date of its own folding flagship phone, the Mate X. Originally scheduled to debut this month, the Huawei Mate X will now launch in September, the company has confirmed.
"We don’t want to launch a product to destroy our reputation," a Huawei spokesperson told CNBC in the interview – a not-so-subtle jibe at rival Samsung.
Huawei isn't being specific about why exactly it's decided to pull its feverishly-anticipated first foray into foldables but in a series of interviews with CNBC and The Wall Street Journal, Huawei explained that it wanted to take a "cautious" approach after the issues that have plagued the rival Samsung Galaxy Fold.
