We’ve seen the prototype
The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5 could have included an S Pen. No, not the one currently offered on the optional case, but inside the body of Samsung’s largest and most productive foldable. This isn’t guesswork, Samsung’s design team considered it, going so far as to create an aluminum mockup with the integrated S Pen. I saw it, touched it, and even popped the S Pen out.
Samsung however, chose a different path. In fact, the road to the current Z Fold 5 and Galaxy Z Flip 5 was full of such design considerations, something I learned when I (along with an invited collection of international journalists) sat down during Samsung UnPacked last week with the company’s mobile design team at Samsung Headquarters in Suwan, South Korea.
The full expression of Samsung’s foldable line was developed and influenced not just by last year’s model or even the most recent Samsung Galaxy S23 line.
According to the man who worked on every Samsung smartphone since 2000, Samsung Head of Foldable Smartphone Design Tae-joong Kim (also known as “The Master” by his colleagues), the new foldables are influenced by everything from the company’s first dual-screen folding phone to the thin Ultra Edition 5.9 and Armani Phone, both launched in 2007. The latter was the first collaboration with a third-party design company.
