Tri-fold phones are cool – but they’re NOT the next big thing

Photograph of hands holding a Huawei Mate XT tri-fold phone with a brown case.
Samsung is squaring up to compete with the tri-fold Huawei Mate XT, pictured – but I'm not convinced. (Image credit: Huawei)

At CES 2025, Samsung showed off two potential designs for a tri-fold Galaxy phone. At a show that otherwise felt pretty cautious and predictable, this was one of the more notable pieces of news – even though it wasn’t even an actual product announcement.

Rumors have been swirling for months about when – not if, but when – Samsung will bring out a three-section foldable Galaxy phone to join the rest of its folding phone line-up, which currently includes the Z Fold and Z Flip lines (some of the best camera phones). The manufacturer still seems to be settling on the exact form the tri-fold is going to take, hence the two designs shown off at CES, one folding fully inwards, the other with a portion of the screen still on show when fully closed. One assumes that part of the point of showing them off was to gauge public reaction.

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Jon Stapley

Jon is a freelance writer and journalist who covers photography, art, technology, and the intersection of all three. When he's not scouting out news on the latest gadgets, he likes to play around with film cameras that were manufactured before he was born. To that end, he never goes anywhere without his Olympus XA2, loaded with a fresh roll of Kodak (Gold 200 is the best, since you asked). Jon is a regular contributor to Creative Bloq, and has also written for in Digital Camera World, Black + White Photography Magazine, Photomonitor, Outdoor Photography, Shortlist and probably a few others he's forgetting. 

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