Galaxy Z Fold2: Untold Stories | Samsung By Samsung

The smartphone industry has continuously evolved in recent decades but the form factor has remained unchanged until the arrival of the Samsung Galaxy Fold. And the launch of the Galaxy Z Fold2 marks another step toward the future. Here's the story, of how it all began. We started this research and work when we were working on the Note back in 2011. People wanted a device that could deliver a completely immersive viewing experience but still be portable in the palm of your hand. Is it ever possible to meet both needs? It's possible if you fold the smartphone.

To find the best configuration, Samsung explored every possible way to fold a smartphone. And then in 2019…… It's finally here. The launch of the Galaxy Fold changed the shape of the future. This is one of the few truly new form factors... pretty exciting.

It’s pretty cool. Samsung has really impressed me. I love it. I just like it. I like the Fold.

It's the reason this channel exists and it's the reason that it's started. That's the Samsung Galaxy Fold. But what about this flood of questions unleashed with it? Okay. Let's find the answers one by one. Make a folding phone, you need something other than glass, so you have plastic on this outside.

Of course glass doesn't fold Well, that is common sense, but THIS glass can be folded. We call it UTG, meaning Ultra Thin Glass. It’s 100% glass, but it’s processed to be extremely thin. How thin? Thinner than a human hair. The UTG on Z Fold2 makes seeing and touching the screen more natural.

But this display requires both strength and flexibility at the same time. Striking a balance between these two different qualities is no easy task. We had to optimize the formation of the display layers. For the Z Fold2, we rearranged the physical interaction between the soft layers and rigid layers, to give it enhanced strength. Then we optimized the property and thickness of the adhesive, so the display would remain flexible even in low or high temperatures.

After rigorous tests, the Z Fold2’s display is now ready to provide a premium look and upgraded usability. But there's one more thing that required improvement. So what about my experience of it? Let’s start with this front display. It's very small Next is the notch. I generally just want to see this smaller if not gone in the next iterations to come Our mission was to expand the display as much as possible, while retaining the satisfying grip of the first Fold.

So we added Infinity-O Display to the main and cover screen, creating a significantly larger viewing area. But for a display like this to open and close properly, you need a pretty complicated mechanism. This technology holds the answer to doubts like this. You guys are bringing back my flip phone from 2009? From the outside it may look the same. But the technology inside - the hinge - is completely different.

A flip phone is built around a long cylindrical hinge. Its purpose is to connect the two separate parts. But Galaxy foldable devices have a single display attached to the set. If we use the same mechanism as in a flip phone, a slip will form between the set and the display. To solve this, we designed two virtual axes to lie hidden under the display, so when it is opened or closed, there is no slip.

And the engineers are constantly improving this hinge. It has a more firm snap. To placing it flat and then unsnapping it from flat. You can stand it up like this, in this thing they call Flex mode. What will the next one be like? We designed the Z Fold2 to stay open at multiple angles, like the Z Flip.

What makes this possible is the CAM mechanism. Here's how it works. This is a CAM. These two ridge-shaped parts of the CAM slide up and down with watch-like precision, and the friction created here allows the device to free stand at different angles, so users can prop it up effortlessly. Together with larger screens, the new hinge creates many new user scenarios.

Z Flip is long and narrow, while Z Fold2 is large and wide. A larger and more solid display needs even stronger power in the hinge. To create that strength, we doubled up the CAM and elastic components. Including the CAM, there are over 60 components in the hinge, all moving in unison. But for them to have space to move, there must be a gap.

So if you get this phone, it might be a good idea to vacuum out your pockets every morning before you put on your pants. To sweep away these worries, the engineers tried out over 100 different ideas. The 99th try gave them the starting point for a solution, and it was the 108th try that resulted in what we now call the Sweeper. Funnily enough, we got the idea from a vacuum cleaner commercial. We found these machines use bristles made up of carbon and nylon fibers that can rotate 20 times a second for two years.

These fibers were elastic and durable enough to be placed under the hinge, sweeping through it with every move. Thanks to the upgraded cutting technology, this sweeper became even smaller in the Z Fold2. But can the Z Fold2 be anything more than the sum of its technology? That's another question to be answered. Is the thing still interesting? Is it still useful to have a little screen on the front to open it up to a big screen? And I wan't to talk about that question. I think the answer to it starts with the software That's right.

Hardware is only a part of the equation. The product planning process requires us to think through the entire user experience in all aspects. Thinking about the user experience is what brings our products to life. So the designers and engineers listened to what Fold users had to say. Many of them said that after experiencing the Fold, they can't go back to a regular smartphone.

What was it that led them to think that way? One of them was the Multi-Active Window. Research showed that Galaxy Fold users were enjoying the Multi-Active Window function approximately 8.5 times more frequently than other smartphone users. So now on the Z Fold2, you can divide the screen horizontally as well perfect if you spend a lot of time watching videos on your smartphone. You can also drag-and-drop an app to instantly fit it into another window or save a particular layout on Apps Edge for immediate access. That's something a lot of the Fold users requested.

And then there's App Continuity. As in the first Fold, this allows for a seamless transition from the cover to the main screen, so you don't need to reopen the app you were using. Then what about from the main screen to the cover screen? An interesting point was that some users wanted to continue using the app they were operating on the main screen, even after folding their phones. We assumed that closing the phone means the users were done with what they were doing, but that clearly wasn’t the case. Research showed that 20% of users would manually turn on app continuity to work both ways, from cover to main screen, and back again, across more apps.

So on the Z Fold2, users will see a pop-up message which makes setting up this experience even easier. There’s also Flex mode, which was a favorite of many Galaxy Z Flip users. Research shows that many users turn to Flex Mode when they’re shooting videos longer than 15 seconds. And even more when it goes over 1 minute. Seeing that the new user experience worked as we intended, we gave Z Fold2 the same useful feature with further refinements.

The Flex mode on Z Fold2 maximizes the benefits of the foldable form factor, transforming everyday use into a whole new experience. With these new experiences, like App Continuity or Multitasking, we wanted to make sure that they were scalable. We worked closely with our friends at Google to define the framework and guidelines for all Android-based apps to work with our foldable device. With Microsoft, we brought to life an advanced productivity experience, which allows people to really multi-task in an innovative way with all the Microsoft Office. These collaborations will continue, as Samsung and our partners share this common vision on expanding the foldable ecosystem.

The moment all these innovations come together is when it's finally in the users' hands, providing whole new experiences that are only possible on a Galaxy foldable device. Innovation has always been in Samsung’s DNA. Nowhere is that more true than with our foldable phones. We’ll be unfolding many more innovations in this category.

Source : Samsung