The world loves retro styling. Type the word retro into Google and
you get a ton of autotype options as the search engine tries to guess what you
were going to type next – clothes, games, furniture, and even sweets. Our
desire to buy new old products even extends into consumer electronics, with
amps, radios, and decidedly not-very-old CD players all coming with styling by
your great-grandfather. Smartphones almost escaped the retro styling craze. For
years, hipsters were forced buy actual old phones with a tenth of the
functionality of a modern device, just so it matches their vintage shirt and
Wayfarer sunglasses. However, a new leak hints that Samsung may be about to
change all this. It shows a device called the Samsung Galaxy Folder, and it’s a flip phone. The image
shows a phone with a 50/50 split, with the top half taken up by a screen and
the lower half with a numerical keyboard and a massive D-pad. Android is displayed on the screen, complete
with the Galaxy S3-era TouchWiz user interface. The world loves retro styling. Type the word retro into
Google and you get a ton of autotype options as the search engine tries to
guess what you were going to type next – clothes, games, furniture, and even
sweets. Our desire to buy new old products even extends into consumer
electronics, with amps, radios, and decidedly not-very-old CD players all
coming with styling by your great-grandfather. Smartphones almost escaped the
retro styling craze. For years, hipsters were forced buy actual old phones with
a tenth of the functionality of a modern device, just so it matches their
vintage shirt and Wayfarer sunglasses. However, a new leak hints that Samsung
may be about to change all this. It shows a device called the Samsung
Galaxy Folder,
and it’s a flip phone. The image shows a phone with a 50/50 split, with the top
half taken up by a screen and the lower half with a numerical keyboard and a
massive D-pad. Android is displayed on the screen, complete with the Galaxy S3-era
TouchWiz user interface. Apparently, the phone will be powered by a dual-core
Snapdragon processor, Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean, and the screen will have a 480
x 800 pixel resolution. At first, we dismissed it as an obvious joke. Why would
anyone still want a smart flip phone? Think about it, when was the last time
you dialed a telephone number? Maybe it was to add in a new contact, but at the
time, did you think, “My, this touchscreen QWERTY keyboard is far too awkward –
if only I was typing to my friends using T9 on a numerical keypad?” How about
when you were playing Angry Birds? Was the big, spacious widescreen
screen just too convenient? When Apple built the iPod, it didn’t add in a
cassette player for fun, because the iPod replaces the CD player. In 1966,
James T. Kirk would contact the Enterprise using a flip-up communicator.
Twenty-five years later, Jean-Luc Picard only had to tap his Starfleet insignia
to get in touch. When it comes to technology, old crap is fun to look at and
remember, but it’s often insanely impractical. Do you really want to use rotary
phone service when you have touchtone? Imagine typing a number in on your
iPhone and having to wait several seconds between numbers? Yeah, no. If retro
lovers want to live in the past, then they should put up with the
inconvenience. The Galaxy Folder’s
physical flip down keyboard is Samsung’s version of the live rear axle fitted
to the 2012 Ford Mustang. Live rear axles are what we used in the horse and
carriage days. It’s a feature nobody asked for, and one which was,
technologically speaking, sent to the scrap heap many years ago. The
touchscreen has replaced the physical keyboard on our phones because it’s better,
and no-one needs to buy a phone with a 10-year old design to realize this.
Should it be called the Galaxy Folder? No, it’s the Samsung Galaxy Anachronism.
It’s a gadget that makes no sense in the world of today. It should be in an
episode of Doctor Who. Samsung is rumored to be working on a clamshell Android powered phone,
which is designed exclusively for those who long for the good old days. The
Android powered smartphone does not feature the conventional bar form factor
but instead has a clamshell form. Now
there's a good reason why the folder form factor are almost extinct now (it
wastes too much space for a world obsessed with thin and compact), but
obviously Samsung feels it's worth another chance. Samsung Galaxy Folder will
be an Android powered flip-phone with a classic alphanumeric keyboard and a
touch screen. The upcoming device is rumored to feature a display with a
resolution of 800 x 480 pixels and the phone is expected to feature a dual-core
Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 processor. The Galaxy Folder will run on Android 4.2.2
Jelly Bean and will be equipped with LTE radio. Unfortunately, there is no word
on the launch date and the pricing of the flip-phone at the moment. Despite being a just another Android
smartphone, the Samsung Galaxy Folder will be a boon for those who prefer
physical keypads over touchscreen but will offer the best of both with a
hardware keypad and a touchscreen. As reports suggest , the Samsung Galaxy Folder will be released first
in South Korea in the month of August this year and considering it will be a
low end device, the price is likely to hover around the same price point as the
Samsung Galaxy Chat. The Motorola Razr was the device that changed
the game for flip phones back in the day and Samsung is looking to revive the
form factor in the era of phablets. As we know Samsung enjoys a
good position in the smartphone arena globally, it will take the device to as
many countries as possible as the smartphone is bound to get takers around the
world. In the era of touchscreen candy bar devices, a flip phone will find it a
bit difficult to get itself a strong footing, but it will be that device which
will be fresh, new and well, would not look like the rest.
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