Samsung Previews Its Foldable Flip Phone, Galaxy Z Fold In Oscars Advert
Two days before its official unveiling, the forthcoming Samsung Galaxy Z Flip bore it all in a commercial during the 92nd Academy Awards. Samsung previewed its second foldable phone in a 30-sec advert ahead of its Galaxy Unpacked event that’s set to take place on 11 February.
The advertisement corroborates earlier leaks featuring a flip phone with a single, tall bendable screen you can fold in half and offers the best look so far at a handful of the Galaxy Z Flip’s headlining use cases. More importantly, it confirms that the South Korea-based manufacturer hasn’t yet figured out that crease in the middle as the ad in the small print says: “You may notice a small crease in the center of the main screen, which is a natural characteristic of the screen.”
In addition, the commercial shows the Galaxy Z Flip will have a tiny color screen on the front that will allow users to check on notifications without flipping open the screen entirely. Samsung also claims the transition from you picking up, for instance, a video call from the front to the larger display will be nearly seamless. Plus, the Galaxy Z Flip’s foldable screen will be seemingly strong enough to stay put when bent even only halfway through letting users place it at a 90-degree angle on a table and watch a movie or video chat.
Surprisingly, Samsung didn’t go all the way to handing the phone to a few celebrities — a product placement move the company has adopted several times in the past.
The promotion also doesn’t shed light on any specifications. However, other unofficial reports suggest the Galaxy Z Flip will be likely powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 855+ chipset, a 3300mAh battery, 8GB of RAM, and a non-expandable 256GB of onboard storage. The phone will be dominated by a 6.7-inch, 2,636 x 1,080 folding display that’s made out of an “Ultra-Thin Glass” instead of plastic.
As for the cameras, the Galaxy Z Flip will have a total of three shooters. Housed inside a hole in the 6.7-inch screen will be a 10-megapixel selfie camera. On the back, the Galaxy Z Flip will have a standard 12-megapixel f/1.8 sensor coupled with a secondary ultra-wide sensor.
Editors' RecommendationsSamsung Aired A Galaxy Z Flip Commercial Before It Even Announced The Phone
Filed under
It’s not just leaked that let us know what big tech companies plan to announce at their keynotes, increasingly it’s the companies themselves. Since this year’s Academy Awards fall ahead of Samsung’s February 11th Unpacked keynote, the company decided to go for a huge tease of the Galaxy Z Flip — it basically showed off the whole phone.
We are expecting Samsung to announce new Galaxy S20 phones (three of them) and the Galaxy Z Flip, a folding phone rumored to have a glass screen. The ad showed the phone sitting on a table at a 90-degree angle on its own, the better to do video chatting. It also gave us our first, best look at it folded up and it doesn’t appear to fold completely flat. The Motorola Razr, which was just released but has already been plagued with reports of creaky hinges, does fold completely flat.
In the small print for the ad, there’s a copy that says “You may notice a small crease in the center of the main screen, which is a natural characteristic of the screen.” So that answers that question. As with the Fold, the Z Flip will have a crease. The ad also shows two different colors: purple and black.
Samsung just showed off the entire Z Flip during its Oscars ad. The small print says screen crease is normal, heh pic.Twitter.Com/uBesJ0FonT
— Nilay Patel (@reckless) February 10, 2020
We also got our first look at the outside screen, which is very tiny but nevertheless full color. The ad shows the screen can do caller ID and also has sliders for accepting or rejecting a call.
Samsung has always gone big with ads at the Academy Awards. Its previous Oscars ads have ranged from product placement celebrity selfies to subtle apologies for its exploding Note phones. As for the trend of companies teasing their own products, after Google went big with it in 2019, Samsung took a more traditional approach this year (up until this ad, at least). Leaks, however, still about: Samsung itself leaked the Galaxy S20 last week.
We’ll be live at Samsung’s event on February 11th to find out if there’s anything that hasn’t already been leaked, photographed, rumored, or teased by Samsung itself. It’s still possible there will be.
Developing...
Next Up In Tech Sign up for the newsletter ProcessorEmail (required) By signing up, you agree to our Privacy Notice and European users agree to the data transfer policy. Subscribe
Samsung Shows Galaxy Z Flip Phone During Oscars 2020
Jason Hiner/CNET
We've heard the rumors and seen the links, but on Sunday Samsung showed off its Galaxy Z Flip phone officially for the first time -- at the Academy Awards, of all places. An ad playing early in the Oscars night show the Galaxy Z Flip in action (though it didn't actually name the phone), folding like Moto's new Razr, but was mostly a teaser for Unpacked, Samsung's New York launch for the phone that'll take place on Tuesday.
The 15-second ad showed the Flip Z first as a camera, with the bottom half of the folding display housing the picture-taking interface and the top half of the screen showing the image about to be captured. It then moved onto the Flip Z's video-calling capabilities, showing two totally not models chatting through a FaceTime-like feature. How do folding screens improve video calls? We may find out Tuesday.
The beginning of the ad featured small print at the bottom corner of the screen that read: "You may notice a crease at the center of the main screen, which is a natural characteristic of the screen."
The Galaxy Z Flip in photo mode.
Jason Hiner/CNET 
And in video-call mode.
Daniel Van Boom/CNET
The Galaxi Flip Z is rumored to have a 6.7-inch folding display, dual 12-megapixel cameras on the rear (one regular, one ultrawide), two batteries and to run on a Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 Plus processor. See more about what leaks show about the Flip Z here.
Tuesday's Unpacked event won't just see Flip Z's true unveiling. The company is also expected to launch a trio of Galaxy S20 phones, replacing what would normally have been called the Galaxy S11 phones. The biggest addition to the new phones is 5G support along with a 120Hz refresh rate OLED screen (matching the Asus ROG Phone 2) and a new 108-megapixel camera. At least, that's what the rumors say.
After only three significant devices in 2019, foldable phones still teeter on the edge of futuristic fancy and reality. The Galaxy Z Flip looks to take on Motorola's Razr flip phone, which went on sale (and failed CNET's folding test) last week. Samsung is leading the pack in terms of output, with the Flip Z being the company's second folding phone after last year's Galaxy Fold. That phone was an uber-luxury device, selling for $1,980 (£2,000, AU$2,950). The Flip Z is rumored to be slightly cheaper -- but we'll find out in a few days for sure.
Comments