As rumored, Samsung showed off a prototype of a folding display today. Folded, it’s a smartphone. Unfolded, it’s a tablet. Neat!
Less neat: The company sort of went out of its way to not really show very much. A prototype was onstage for about 45 seconds, and it was deliberately backlit to be intensely silhouetted. They “disguised the elements of the design” to keep secret whatever secret sauce they have.
Finding that clip of the prototype folding/unfolding means digging through Samsung’s two-hour developer keynote, so we went ahead and GIF’d it up for you.
Here’s what it looks like going from phone mode to tablet mode:
And from tablet mode back to a more pocket-friendly phone mode:
Disrupt 2026: The tech ecosystem, all in one room
Your next round. Your next hire. Your next breakout opportunity. Find it at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026, where 10,000+ founders, investors, and tech leaders gather for three days of 250+ tactical sessions, powerful introductions, and market-defining innovation. Register now to save up to $400.
Save up to $300 or 30% to TechCrunch Founder Summit
1,000+ founders and investors come together at TechCrunch Founder Summit 2026 for a full day focused on growth, execution, and real-world scaling. Learn from founders and investors who have shaped the industry. Connect with peers navigating similar growth stages. Walk away with tactics you can apply immediately
Offer ends March 13.
While this isn’t the first folding phone we’ve seen , it also won’t be the last. With Google officially adding support for folding displays into Android as of this morning, it sounds like they’ve got reason to think a number of manufacturers are dabbling with this concept — enough of them, at least, to make it worthwhile to wire these changes into the main Android codebase.
If you want to see the relevant bit of the Samsung keynote for yourself, it starts juuuust before the 1 hour and 25 minute mark in the stream embedded below:
