While at its SDC 2018 developer conference in San Francisco, Samsung showed off a rather thick smartphone that folds. It is a prototype device sporting the company's just-unveiled "Infinity Flex" flexible display technology.

Samsung has been rumoured to be working on this anticipated device for the past couple years, and the company itself has been teasing it for weeks. Now, it is giving the world a first glimpse. Samsung mostly focused on the foldable phone's display technology, and quickly previewed the phone while on stage. It has a tablet-sized screen and can indeed be folded up, as demoed during the show.

Samsung shows off foldable phone with an Infinity Flex display image 2
Samsung

The company seemed to use dark lighting to disguise the phone's overall design, but we could still see that it opens to a 7.3-inch tablet display and closes in to what can only be described as a brick shape. It also has a cover display that acts as a phone. Samsung said up to three apps can run at the same time on the phone too, thanks to a "multi active window" feature it has developed.

Samsung expects to start mass production of the Infinity Flex display in a “matter of months,” but it didn't explicitly say when its still-unnamed foldable phone will move from the prototype or concept phase to ready for retail. However, in a separate announcement on 7 November, Google revealed Android will support foldable phones, and that Samsung "plans to offer" one next year.

There's no word yet on how much Samsung's foldable phone will cost or where it'll launch first. We will keep you posted as we learn more.


You can watch the SDC 2018 keynote here: