Samsung Foldable Phone To Launch 2018, Says DJ Koh

2016, 2017, and now 2018. Those are the years when Samsung has been expected to finally bring out its dream foldable phone. But those expectations have mostly been based on speculation, rumors, and, admittedly, wishful thinking. But this time it's different. The foldable phone that Samsung has always been talking about might finally debut next year. And that's because DJ Koh, Samsung's own head of mobile business, said so.

The revelation came at a press event in Korea for the Galaxy Note 8 launch, where Koh talked about the present and the future of Samsung's phones. He mentioned that either the Galaxy S or the Galaxy Note lines will get a foldable variant, and that variant might come next year.

This is the first time any Samsung exec spoke about a probably launch in public. Until this, the company has been very coy about its actual implementations, though it loves to brag about how it has the display technologies to make it happen.

But a foldable phone is more than just about a foldable display. That reality has kept Samsung's wild ambitions in check as it works to address the other parts of the smartphone that don't lend themselves easily to a form-changing design. Even with foldable displays alone, there are a number of hurdles to be overcome. It seems that Koh is confident that they have sufficiently overcome those.

As two which of its two premiere Galaxy lines will get a foldable model, it makes more sense to place it in the Galaxy Note family. The Galaxy Note has always been more experimental and adventurous in the technologies it adopts, and the notebook style of a foldable phone seems to be a perfect fit for a "Note" phone anyway.