SAMSUNG

Samsung postpones the controversial Galaxy TriFold

If you were expecting Samsung to continue releasing increasingly thinner phones or phones with increasingly elaborate folds just to try and steal the spotlight from the latest releases from Apple or Chinese brands, you'll have to readjust your expectations for this year. The South Korean tech giant has decided to put the brakes on form factor experiments and adopt a much more pragmatic and cautious market strategy.

According to recent statements by Won-Joon Choi, Samsung's Chief Operating Officer for Mobile, the brand no longer intends to create a direct rival to the much-talked-about iPhone Air, nor is it in any hurry to launch a successor to its own triple-screen phone. The focus now is on listening to the market.

To understand exactly why this sudden change of course, we have to look at the cold numbers of recent sales. In 2025, Samsung tried to anticipate the trend of super-thin phones with the launch of the Galaxy S25 Edge. The goal seemed obvious and ambitious: to offer consumers a stylish and thinner alternative before the arrival of the competitor's iPhone Air.

It turns out that the public simply didn't respond as the brand expected. According to production reports shared by Bloomberg, between September and December 2025, the Galaxy S25 Edge had a shockingly low production volume, settling at around 300,000 units. If you compare this figure to the monstrous 3.4 million units of the Galaxy S25 Ultra and the 2.9 million of the standard Galaxy S25 produced in the same period, you quickly realize the magnitude of the failure.

Consumers have clearly demonstrated that they prefer traditional, robust cell phones that guarantee large batteries and cutting-edge cameras, rather than sacrificing these features for a slightly thinner profile. As a logical result of this lack of demand, Samsung nipped the problem in the bud and removed any "Edge" or ultra-thin version from the lineup of the newly launched Galaxy S26 family.

Samsung's extreme caution also extends to the futuristic world of flexible screens. Although the brand was one of the pioneers in demonstrating concepts and launching one of the first commercial devices in three parts, the famous Galaxy Z TriFold, if you were already saving up to buy the second generation, you can put your wallet away for a while longer.

The company executive made it very clear that Samsung is not currently committed to creating an immediate successor to this complex format. The justification for this pause is purely commercial. Before proceeding with the mass production of such intricate and expensive designs, the brand wants to assess the true maturity of the technology, its real usefulness for those who use it in their daily lives and, crucially, whether the market is willing to absorb and pay for these devices. Samsung refuses to launch innovative formats just to gain technological headlines if the financial viability of the operation is not fully guaranteed.

The secret of the Privacy Screen that arrived late...Another fascinating revelation from Choi's interview had to do with screen technology. If you followed the launch of the new Galaxy S26 Ultra, you certainly noticed the innovative "Privacy Display," a technology built directly into the panel's hardware that prevents people sitting next to you from reading what you're doing on your phone.

What almost no one knew is that this incredible feature was originally planned to be released last year, on the Galaxy S25 Ultra. The official confessed that the engineering team "was almost there," but ended up encountering last-minute technical challenges that forced them to postpone the novelty for a whole year. It was a complex journey to ensure that the quality of the front image did not suffer any degradation because of the side privacy filter.

The iconic S-Pen isn't going anywhere...For eternal productivity fans and heirs to the legendary Note line, the news is excellent and very reassuring. Despite the S-Pen digital pen receiving significantly less screen time in the recent S26 line presentation (and having suffered some cuts in the past), Choi was keen to confirm that it remains an absolutely central and untouchable technology for Samsung.

The big news shared is that engineers are actively working on a new and advanced screen structure for the next generation of the S-Pen. The main goal is to substantially reduce the physical "penalty" that the inclusion of this stylus demands, namely the valuable internal space it steals from the battery or camera module. This way, you can continue to take quick notes and draw on the screen with precision, without your phone needing to be unnecessarily large or heavy to accommodate it.

These statements clearly demonstrate that Samsung will focus in 2026 on what you truly use and value in a smartphone, leaving risky format experiments to brands that still feel the need to prove their capacity for innovation to the market.

by mundophone