Samsung’s new phone looks straight out of science fiction. I got to try it

Samsung's Galaxy Z TriFold. Lisa Eadicicco/CNN via CNN Newsource

For years, sci-fi shows have depicted futuristic computers with shapeshifting screens that can fold or expand depending on the situation. Now, Samsung is banking on that concept to try to steer the future of smartphones.

The new Samsung Galaxy Z Trifold folds in two places — almost like a brochure — to cram an iPad-sized screen into your pocket.

Samsung showed it to the press Sunday at the CES tech conference in Las Vegas ahead of its upcoming U.S. release, and after launching it in limited quantities in its home market of South Korea. The idea is promising although not without compromises, as is typical of new devices like these.

The phone is impressively slim as a tablet, but clunky as a phone. And it’ll almost certainly be too expensive to woo many early adopters, let alone the average smartphone shopper. (Samsung hasn’t announced pricing yet, but its Galaxy Z Fold 7, which has a smaller screen that folds in half instead of folding into thirds, starts at US$2,000.)

Whether the phone catches on broadly may not matter. It’s an effort by the world’s largest smartphone maker to prove that the rectangular devices carried by billions haven’t peaked and still have a long runway to evolve. Liz Lee, associate director at Counterpoint Research, said in an email to CNN that the phone is likely a “strategic pilot” to test how new technology lands with consumers.

And given that Samsung is the world’s top phone maker and nearly every Android phone brand has followed in its footsteps with book-shaped foldable phones, even relatively rare products like these can carry weight.

A giant screen in your pocket

Samsung’s goal with the Galaxy Z TriFold is to provide a screen that gets bigger when you need it to and smaller when you want to carry it with you, building on its moderately successful Galaxy Z Fold series.

The TriFold has a 10-inch screen that folds in two places like a pamphlet, compared to the Galaxy Z Fold 7’s 8-inch screen that folds in half.

Samsung says the new phone is aimed at those who use their device primarily for work and productivity, and it’s easy to see why.

In addition to running apps in split-screen mode, the Galaxy Z TriFold’s display can also behave more like a PC’s — making it possible to run apps more like desktop windows that can be resized and dragged around the screen as needed. Pairing the phone with a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse could make it a viable mini-laptop alternative for some.

Google’s Gemini assistant can also answer questions about multiple apps being used on screen, Samsung says, potentially making it easier to juggle apps with fewer taps and swipes.

More flash than function for now

But keep your expectations in check. While the device feels almost paper-thin when opened, when it’s closed it’s like holding two phones stacked on top of one another.

Still, Samsung in some ways is off to a stronger start with the Galaxy Z TriFold than the earliest folding smartphones. The first few generations of those devices had subpar cameras compared to standard, non-folding phones and a visible crease running down the middle, among other shortcomings.

The TriFold’s cameras are similar to those on Samsung’s top-of-the-line Galaxy S25 Ultra phones, meaning shoppers won’t have to sacrifice much camera quality for a giant screen. And while the two creases running down the screen are visible, I didn’t find them too noticeable.

Yet Samsung doesn’t lay out a very compelling argument for why consumers need to carry around larger screens. Aside from viewing more apps at once and having a larger surface for reading and watching videos — tasks the Galaxy Z Fold 7 can already do — the TriFold doesn’t offer much that’s unique compared to a standard smartphone.

Foldable phones have already faced an uphill battle in the market. Samsung’s other smaller foldable phones only recently started to gain momentum after first going on sale roughly seven years ago, and foldables still only account for a sliver of the broader smartphone market.

Foldable phones like the Galaxy Z Fold 7 and Google’s Pixel 10 Pro Fold are already more expensive than the average smartphone. And most U.S. shoppers only buy new phones when their current one needs replacing, according to Consumer Intelligence Research Partners, a firm that tracks Americans’ tech spending habits.

But whether consumers want them or not, the foldable phone trend is seemingly here to stay. Nearly every major Android phone maker now offers one, and Apple is expected to release its first later this year.

And it’s all part of Samsung’s broader strategy to sell phones in all sorts of forms and see what catches on.

“I think the exciting part is getting it out into the wild and then ultimately seeing what different users are attracted to different form factors,” Drew Blackard, senior vice president of mobile product management at Samsung Electronics America, told CNN in September ahead of the phone’s introduction. “So I think you’ll only see an evolution from here of what we can do.”

By Lisa Eadicicco, CNN