Samsung to launch Galaxy S10 and foldable phone at February event, report claims

Just days after a Samsung exec confirmed the company's foldable phone is coming in the first half of 2019 comes a report that claims it'll actually happen very early within that time frame.

According to the Wall Street Journal, which quotes people familiar with the matter, Samsung plans to launch its Galaxy S10 flagship together with the foldable phone (possibly called the Galaxy F or Galaxy Fold), during a February 20 event in San Francisco and London.

The timeline makes sense -- sort of. Samsung typically launches a flagship Galaxy S device at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, which kicks off Feb. 25 this year. Launching a new flagship just 5 days ahead of MWC is sort of odd (why not just add a Barcelona event as well?), but Samsung historically did something similar before; for example, Samsung Galaxy S8 was launched a month after MWC 2017.

As for the Galaxy F, the company showed off a prototype in November last year and committed to launching it in the first half of 2019, which makes the February date a pleasant, early surprise. That's just the launch date, though. The WSJ claims that the phone could actually be released in April, but points out that no final decision on the release date has been made.

No other details about the device were revealed in the report.

If the report is accurate, this would make the February event one of Samsung's biggest phone launch events ever. The company is expected to launch three variants of the Galaxy S10 (with a fourth, 5G-equipped one coming later in the year).

And these aren't just iterative upgrades of last year's S9. The new Galaxy S10 is rumored to have a total of six cameras (two on the front, four on the rear), an in-display fingerprint sensor, a "punch hole" screen and reverse wireless charging. And that's on top of near-certain "regular" upgrades which include a faster processor and options with more storage (up to 1TB).

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On top of all that, there's the Galaxy F, which will usher in a completely new form factor for smartphones. Specs-wise, Galaxy F is more of a riddle. We know that Samsung has partnered with Google, which will launch a special version of Android that works well with foldable phones. We've also seen a tiny glimpse of the phone's prototype. But exact specifications and pricing (which is rumored to be exorbitantly high) are almost complete unknowns at this point.

Samsung's onslaught of phones will surely be a good test of whether somewhat waning interest for smartphones (judging by Apple's and Samsung's recent quarterly earnings figures) is just temporary, or a longer-lasting trend. In any case, we'll be there to cover Samsung's event, whichever news it may bring.