Foldable phones have stuck in a rut for a few years. We saw conceptual smartphones play with something fresh folding designsbut since Samsung launched the trend in 2019there have really only been two major styles on the market: a book-shaped book fold and turn. However, new life is emerging in the category with significantly slimmer designs, like last year’s. Samsung Galaxy Z Fold7– and now that of the company “TriFold“, a smartphone that can truly transform into a 10-inch compressed.
Samsung is not the first to market such a phone: Huawei takes this cake with the Mate XT— but the Galaxy Z TriFold has a slightly different design. It’s only available in a handful of countries, like China, South Korea, and Singapore, but Samsung plans to launch it in the United States this year. The price? Samsung is remaining coy with the MSRP, but the 3,594,000 South Korean won price tag suggests it will cost around $2,500 in the US, or even more.
I was able to briefly spend time with the triple-panel smartphone at CES 2026. Here’s what it looks like.
Thick and thin
As the name suggests, Samsung’s most expensive foldable phone opts for a tri-fold design, while Huawei’s equivalent has a Z-fold. I haven’t used Huawei’s version yet, but it has one advantage: you can use one, two, or all three panels with its accordion design. The Galaxy Z TriFold only goes from a single panel to a triple panel.
As a single panel, the 6.5-inch front display feels a bit like that of a normal smartphone, but with thicker-than-usual bezels around the screen and a 309-gram weight that you’ll have to get used to. Open the screen to the right, then flip the inner layer to the left and you have a sprawling 10-inch screen to work with. Keep in mind that Galaxy Z Fold7 gives you an 8-inch screen, but that looks like child’s play next to the TriFold. It instantly feels more like a Android tablet than any other foldable Samsung has made before.
This is important because that tablet experience is the promise that “book-like” foldable phones have made for years, but the slight increase in screen real estate has never given the same experience as a standard tablet. The TriFold changes that: the screen here is larger than a iPadMini! This sounds like the true definition of a phablet.
You can run three apps side by side, two apps at once, or a single large app across the entire screen.
PHOTOGRAPHY: Julian Chokkattu
There are two titanium hinges and they open three panels. You can place a full-size app on each of the three panes, use a larger version of split-screen, or expand an app on the vast screen. It was easy to set up these configurations and I can definitely see myself enjoying having three apps open at once. It’s still a bit heavy to hold, but that’s not unusual for a 10-inch tablet. The TriFold is very thin when unfolded, which helps.
Fold it and you get a thickness of 12.9 millimeters, which is just a bit bigger than the Galaxy Z Fold6 (12.1mm). The fact that it’s about the same thickness as a previous generation fold, but with a considerably larger screen, is impressive. This makes most of it a little more palatable. There is a correct way to fold it and an incorrect way. Luckily, if you start folding it the wrong way with the correct screen first, the phone will vibrate violently and you’ll see an alert on the screen asking you to fold the other screen first. However, I can still imagine someone ignoring this and continuing to live.
The hardware is exquisite and the specs are top-notch, closer to Samsung’s Galaxy S25 Ultra; there is a 200-megapixel primary camera on the back and the phone is powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite. The screens are protected by ceramic glass and there is even a IP48 dust and water resistance rating.
But like as exciting as it isthe TriFold remains a niche phone. Despite nearly a decade of foldable phones, prices for these handsets remain high, with Samsung even increasing the MSRP of its foldable devices in 2025. It’s much cheaper to buy a decent tablet. And a flagship phone. In a time of economic crisis, the TriFold seems frivolous.
But it’s hard not to be impressed by this engineering marvel. It’s just a shame that only a handful of people can truly take advantage of the capabilities of this phablet.
