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Samsung W2017 flip phone is official in China

Posted on November 4, 2016 by Jules Wang

While the US gets to see its first Android-powered flip phone in forever, Samsung has just made official another high-end clapper in China with a very uninspiring name. But it’s not about what it’s called — this is about what it can do.

Meet the Samsung W2017. Yes, that phone from months ago in the rumor pile. Yes, there was a W2016.

It has a BIG.little quad-core processor (maximum clock of 2.15GHz or 1.6GHz) to power Android Marshmallow on a 4.2-inch full HD Super AMOLED display. If you’re keeping track, that’s 525 pixels per inch. Did we mention that there are two such displays on the same lip of the phone? The front one can be left Always On.

The other lip’s inset side houses a typical T9 setup with all the proper buttons for a regular phone. The selfie-camera is a 5-megapixel unit with f/1.9 aperture and flash. The rear camera can record 4K footage with its 12-megapixel sensor with pixel size of 1.4µm (lay man’s speak: fairly large), Dual Pixel focusing and f/1.7 aperture.

samsung-w2017-smartpay

There’s a fingerprint sensor, NFC and MST technology, — why the hell not have Samsung Pay on this thing, why? — wireless charging, 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage with a dual-SIM hybrid configuration that supports a microSD up to 256GB in capacity. Again, why the hell not? For rude word’s sake, there’s even Wi-Fi ac here!

One sacrifice you’ll have to make, though, is the lack of a headphone jack. Worse yet, the Micro-B standard will take its place — so no USB-C headphones, here. There is Bluetooth 4.1, if that’s any solace.

All of this to say that with a boar of a phone in a nostalgic form factor of dark blue or champagne gold, we’re talking maxed out dimensions: 127.8 x 61.4 x 15.8mm and 208 grams. A lot of that is supposed to accommodate the 2,300mAh battery inside.

No word on pricing or availability just yet, but we tend to follow along with SamMobile‘s expectations that this device will be in limited quantities and around $3,000. Suits us right.

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ZTE Cymbal-T is the first major Android flip phone for the West

Posted on November 2, 2016 by Jules Wang

It's only fair to share...

The ZTE Cymbal-T might or might not sound like a better name than the Samsung Galaxy Folder or the LG Wine and Ice Cream, but it’s what we’ve got to go on in the US.

You might be wondering why an Android Lollipop phone — we’re serious — has any business coming here in 2016. It’s because that it’s on prepaid carrier TracFone and is meant to transition candybar toters onto something with a little more modern operating system, but in a familiar flip phone form factor.

Do not make fun of candybar toters.

There’s a 3.5-inch touchscreen, 8GB of storage (expandable by microSD card up to 32GB), 1GB of RAM with a 5-megapixel camera at back and a 2-megapixel front-facer. A Snapdragon 210 runs the show here and provides for LTE, CDMA and Wi-Fi b/g/n.

The phone is being sold through Home Shopping Network and is being bundled with a car charger, a case, a voucher for complimentary software services and a TracFone plan with 1,200 minutes, 1,200 texts and 1.2GB of data for a whole year for $99.99.

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Another Galaxy Folder seemingly in the works

Posted on August 30, 2016 by Jules Wang

If you thought the Samsung Z2 looked quite dated, you should probably remind yourself of the Galaxy Folder. Folder — man, that was amazing time.While LG may be letting loose on its Android-based flip phones, Samsung has another Galaxy Folder in the works — model name SM-G1600.A palette ...

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Samsung SM-W2017 flip phone gains 4GB RAM, Snapdragon 820, Marshmallow confirmation

Posted on August 23, 2016 by Adrian Diaconescu

Didn’t believe us the first time we covered Samsung’s next big clamshell smartphone, codenamed Veyron (after the sports car), likely to be dubbed Galaxy Golden 4 (after its three predecessors), and carrying the futuristic SM-W2017 model number (following in the footsteps of last year’s SM-W2016)?Well, now the unreleased Samsung SM-W2017 is benchmarked with pretty crazy high-end specs in tow, making the Korean OEM’s enduring commitment to a largely archaic handheld form factor hard to doubt.You can probably ...

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Rumored Galaxy Golden 4 to be next big Samsung flip phone

Posted on June 12, 2016June 12, 2016 by Jules Wang

Samsung still seems to hold the flip phone in very high esteem. So much so that it’s been said the chaebol will pack in an Exynos 8890 chipset, a pair of AMOLED screens and what sounds to be standard S7-caliber cameras into the fourth iteration of its Galaxy Golden series.In a bit of hubris, the internal name for this “SM-W2017” is internally called Veyron. Yep, it’s a Bugatti model.SamMobile details the screens as 3.9-inchers with HD resolution, the cameras with 12 megapixels on ...

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FREETEL US pre-orders begin with Kiwami and Priori 3

Posted on May 23, 2016 by Jules Wang

Japanese manufacturer that is not Sony, FREETEL, has taken its baby steps to launching its unlocked phones in the US market. We saw the new company back at the major trade shows earlier this year, now it’s time to get pre-orders started for a couple of phones.The Priori 3 is a barebones entry-level phone with Android 5.1, a quad-core MediaTek MTK6735P, a 4.5-inch FWVGA (480p) display, 1GB of RAM and 8GB of storage. The phone is available for pre-order for $89, 10 percent off its list price, and will ...

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Gionee gets in on the flip phone nostalgia with dual-screen, high-end Android

Posted on March 30, 2016 by Adrian Diaconescu

Who said clamshell handhelds are dead? Actually, industry analysts just a couple of weeks back, but it looks like they may have been wrong.Okay, so we probably won’t be seeing flip phones return to Motorola Razr V3 best-selling form anytime soon. Or ever. Yet in certain Asian markets, there must still be a hint of lingering interest in the predominantly outdated form factor.Otherwise, why would manufacturers specialized in touchscreen-only designs bother with trying to revive and modernize foldable ...

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Industry analysts say flip phones out, curved screens in

Posted on March 14, 2016 by Jules Wang

Hold onto your nostalgia. It may be all we’ll ever get in place of real flip phones in the future. This warning comes as Samsung gets a major take-up in curved display orders from Chinese manufacturers — in fact, those displays can be seen on a big talker of a device, the Vivo Xplay 5. Industry sources say several manufacturers will fill ...

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Japanese upstart makes US move with the FREETEL Kiwami

Posted on January 6, 2016 by Jules Wang

If you haven’t been thinking of Japanese smartphone manufacturers lately, — Sony included — well, we don’t blame you. But while all the new sprouts have been in China, Europe and even in the US, FREETEL has now given North America two reasons to look at it: a potential OnePlus 2 killer and what might become the continent’s first Android flip phone.In addition to two lower-end Android devices, FREETEL will bring its latest flagship, dubbed the Kiwami. It has a ...

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What would the Galaxy S6 look like as a flip phone? Wonder no more

Posted on November 16, 2015 by Stephen Schenck

BlackBerry’s getting a lot of attention for the Priv not just because it signals the manufacturer’s first experimentation with an Android-powered handset, but also because it represents a form factor that’s become an outright rarity in the smartphone world: the keyboard-equipped slider. That design’s not alone on the critically endangered list, though, and it’s joined by models that similarly trace their roots back to the early days of cell phones, like the flip phone. ...

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Off-beat: Taiwanese artist turns trashed mobile phones into a car sculpture

Posted on November 3, 2015 by Jules Wang

When we talk about recycling our smartphones or thinking about the environment once we’re done with our devices, we often see dreaded fields of waste or look to companies thinking up solutions like Fairphone. OnePlus makes a token gesture every once in a while to help doctors out. Some people just ...

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The flip phone refuses to die: LG launches new Wine Smart Android

Posted on September 22, 2014 by Stephen Schenck

As time goes on, the mobile device landscape changes: phones are getting bigger, and once-popular form factors like QWERTY sliders are fading into obscurity. But even as your shopping options homogenize into an unremarkable sea of cookie-cutter slates, there’s still the odd phone doing what it can to stand out, and today we check out one handset that’s trying to keep an old design alive, as LG launches its Wine Smart flip-phone Android.Unlike some of those Android flip phones

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Would you rock a high-end Android flip phone?

Posted on May 26, 2014 by Taylor Martin

Save for the standard wafer style smartphone, practically all other form factors are dead. Last year around this time, I revisited all the old form factors that, for all intents and purposes, are no more: vertical QWERTY, horizontal slider, vertical slider, dual-slider and dual-flip phones, some experimental form factors, and the age-old clamshell style. Instead of various form factors, style differentiation can now only be found in color, size and weight, display size, and shape. To be fair, the candy ...

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Samsung Hennessy W789 dual-screen flip-phone becomes official

Posted on August 14, 2013 by Anton D. Nagy

If you are a fan of flip-phones (nostalgia, anyone?), combined with a sympathy for Android, the Samsung Hennessy is a phone you’ll appreciate. It’s not for everyone though, as it apparently has been launched on Samsung’s Chinese website. Aficionados will probably import it anyways. Codenamed Hennessy and with model number W789, it packs two 3.3-inch screens with 320×480 resolution, 1.2GHz quad-core processor, 1,500mAh battery, microSD card slot, five-megapixel camera, dual SIM support for CDMA and GSM frequencies, GPS, Bluetooth, WiFi, and Android 4.1 on-board. ...

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