Samsung's new tri-fold phone doubles as a nifty tablet – and is the brand's thinnest model yet

Samsung Galaxy Z TriFold teaser image
(Image credit: Samsung)

Samsung has announced the newest addition to its smartphone range - the Galaxy Z TriFold. You might already have guessed from the name, though, that this is not your ordinary phone.

That’s right, the Galaxy Z is a tri-foldable phone-cum-tablet, which Samsung claims is employing “its most advanced foldable technologies optimised for the unique demands of a multi-folding design.”

It’s made up of three sections held together by two titanium hinges, and is set into a frame made of an Advanced Armor Aluminum alloy. And, while it might seem like a lot of screen to carry around, the use of ceramic-glass and a fibre-reinforced polymer on the back panel of the phone appears to have kept the weight relatively low at 309g.

Samsung says there is an “auto-alarm” to alert the user of incorrect folding “through a series of on-screen alerts and vibrations.”

The Samsung Galaxy Z Trifold on a white background.

(Image credit: Samsung)

It boasts a brightness of up to 2600 nits on the cover display and 1600 nits on the main screen. Both of the displays use Samsung’s AMOLED panels, each with a refresh rate of up to 120Hz. Samsung claims that this results in "a perfect canvas for high-quality viewing of photo and video content."

On the left side of the phone, there's a tri-camera bump featuring a 200MP wide-angle, 12MP ultra-wide, and a 10MP 3X optical zoom. There's also a 10MP selfie camera on the cover screen and on the 10-inch display.

There's plenty of Galaxy AI smarts built into Samsung's latest release, too. That includes the use of Gemini, Google's AI assistant, so you can get information without switching between apps.

The company is also promising “the biggest battery Samsung has ever had in a foldable phone” at 5,600mAh. That's quite a jump from the Galaxy Z Fold 7's 4,272 mAh and the Galaxy Z Flip 7's 4300 mAh battery capability.

The Galaxy Z TriFold will first be available in Korea on 12 December, with prices starting from 3,594,000 Won (around £1855 / $2450 / AU$3730).

Samsung says it will be available in the US in early 2026, but has not yet announced whether it will be sold in the UK or Australia.

While this is certainly looks like an impressive piece of kit, Samsung is not the first brand to produce a tri-fold model; Huawei took the first plunge with its Mate XT Ultimate.

And, while we have not had the chance to get this model in for testing, we did manage to get up close and personal with the brand's latest foldable phone – the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7.

In our hands-on session, we were impressed by its contrast and detail levels. We noted that it "appears to deliver a crisp, rich image with impressively balanced yet eye-catching colours." That was all from one brief session with the phone; however, we can't give a comprehensive review just yet.

If the Galaxy Z TriFold offers picture quality similar to the Fold 7, then this bodes well for the performance of Samsung's latest offering. And with its nifty foldable design with plenty of AI smarts, this could be one to watch.

We'll be keeping our eyes peeled to see if it will be available to a global audience, so stay tuned.

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Check out our Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 review

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Robyn Quick

Robyn Quick is a Staff Writer for What Hi Fi?. After graduating from Cardiff University with a postgraduate degree in magazine journalism, they have worked for a variety of film and culture publications. In their spare time, Robyn can be found playing board games too competitively, going on cinema trips and learning muay thai.

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