Hands-on with Samsung Galaxy Z TriFold, a foldable built around tablet thinking

For nearly half a decade now, folding phones have existed in a state of comfortable predictability. They arrived with drama, were greeted with scepticism, and then settled into a kind of predictable adulthood.

Since Samsung ignited the category in 2019, the market has largely agreed on two basic ideas of what a foldable phone should be. One folds inward like a book, transforming a tall handset into a compact tablet. The other folds vertically, collapsing a full-length screen into something that snaps shut. Fold and Flip. That has been the vocabulary.

Foldables have improved — thinner frames, brighter displays, less visible creases — but the form itself has not fundamentally changed in the last few years.

Until now.

At the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, amid the predictable pageantry of screens growing ever larger and televisions growing ever thinner, Samsung showed something that felt different. Not merely iterative, not just another refinement of an existing idea, but a genuine attempt to widen the boundaries of what a phone might be. The device is called Galaxy Z TriFold, and in the flesh, it does something no Samsung phone has done before: It unfolds into a 10-inch tablet.

We spent a short but telling amount of time with the Galaxy Z TriFold — about half an hour, enough to leave a lingering impression — and the feeling it left behind was familiar in an unusual way. It recalled the early days of the original Galaxy Fold, when the product felt less like a finished consumer device and more like a question posed to the future. What if this shape mattered?

Even in those first minutes, the TriFold felt like a product expanding the scope of its category rather than merely competing within it. It felt, quite simply, like something new had been placed on the table.

A device that finally earns its promise

Foldable phones have long promised a phone-tablet hybrid, but the reality has, at times, fallen short. The inner displays of book-style foldables are useful, but we wanted something more.

The TriFold changes that equation. Unfolded, its 10-inch display crosses a psychological threshold. This is no longer a phone pretending to be a tablet; it feels like a tablet that happens to fold itself small enough to live in a pocket. Watching video on the TriFold finally feels like watching on a genuinely large screen, not merely a stretched one. Reading, browsing, and editing documents all benefit from the added space in ways that feel immediately intuitive.

Placed alongside last year’s Galaxy Z Fold7, the difference is striking. The Z Fold7 now looks almost modest by comparison. The TriFold operates in an entirely different league, and it is here that multitasking begins to make sense in a way foldables have always promised but rarely delivered.

As with Samsung’s other foldables, you can run up to three apps side by side. On previous devices, this felt impressive but occasionally impractical, a technical flex rather than a natural way to work. On the TriFold, it feels logical. Three windows no longer fight for attention; they coexist. Email, messaging, and a document can sit together without feeling like they are squeezed into submission.

There is also DeX. Samsung’s long-running attempt to turn phones into PCs has always hovered on the edges of usefulness, requiring an external display to feel truly functional. The TriFold does something quietly radical: it runs DeX locally. In effect, you are carrying a 10-inch workstation in your pocket, one that can behave like a simplified desktop computer whenever you ask it to.

The result is not a replacement for a laptop but it is closer to a computer-like workflow than any phone Samsung has made before. Windows can be dragged, resized, and arranged with a freedom that finally feels proportional to the screen itself.

Engineering confidence

There is no unnecessary flamboyance here, no attempt to disguise complexity with theatrical design. The front is protected by Corning’s Gorilla Glass Ceramic 2 that feels reassuringly solid.

The numbers tell an interesting story. The thinnest part of the device measures just 3.9 millimetres; the thickest reaches 4.2 millimetres, with the side housing the button coming in at an even 4 millimetres. Fold the TriFold completely, and it reaches 12.9 millimetres.

What matters more than the measurements is how it feels. Despite housing three panels stacked together, the TriFold is impressively tight. There are no awkward gaps, no sense of fragility when holding it. Unfolded, it sits naturally in the hands, balanced in a way that belies its complexity.

At 309 grams, it is slightly heavy (around thirty per cent heavier than the iPhone 17 Pro Max) but not burdensome. This is the sort of weight you notice once and then stop thinking about. It does not feel like a brick. It does not demand to be put down. It feels, in the most important sense, usable.

Learning the fold

Using the TriFold requires a brief period of re-education. The instinct, at first, is to fold the wrong panel. Samsung has anticipated this. Try to close it incorrectly, and the device responds with firm haptic feedback, a tactile warning designed to protect both phone and user from costly mistakes.

After a few hours, muscle memory adjusts. The choreography of folding becomes second nature, and the device stops feeling experimental.

Then there is the question everyone asks: The creases. With two folds come two creases, faint lines that run across the display. They are present, yes, but subdued. Less prominent than those on the Galaxy Z Fold7, and far less distracting than one might fear. When watching video or working within apps, they recede into the background. You notice them only when you go looking for them.

This is not yet the crease-less future manufacturers dream of, but it is a meaningful step towards it. For now, the compromises feel proportionate to the gains.

Power, without drama

Internally, the TriFold is reassuringly familiar. It runs on the Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy processor, the same chip powering the Galaxy Z Fold7. Performance is abundant and entirely sufficient for the multitasking ambitions the device encourages.

The camera system mirrors Samsung’s established approach. A 200-megapixel main camera is joined by a 12-megapixel ultra-wide and a 10-megapixel telephoto lens. There are also 10-megapixel selfie cameras on both the cover display and the inner screen. It is a competent, versatile setup rather than a radical one—appropriate for a device whose primary innovation lies elsewhere.

Battery capacity stands at 5,600 mAh, enough, in early impressions, to last a full day of mixed use. Charging support tops out at 45 watts. Long-term endurance will, of course, require more time to judge, but nothing here suggests a device struggling to keep up with its own ambitions.

A future that feels plausible

The TriFold is not available everywhere. At present, it is limited to select markets, and India is not among them. It is also not the world’s first foldable phone with two hinges—Huawei has already ventured into that territory. But firsts are not always the point. What matters is whether a product feels relevant. This one does.

Thirty minutes is not enough time to fully understand a device of this complexity. But first encounters matter, and the TriFold leaves the same impression the original Galaxy Z Fold once did: that of a prototype pointing towards a future that might, finally, arrive.

Over the past few years, the Samsung Fold has quietly become central to how many people work, read, and communicate. The TriFold has the potential to push that evolution further. It suggests a future in which the phone is not merely a companion to the computer, but, for many people, the computer itself.

A pocket PC no longer feels like a metaphor. It feels like a direction.

At a glance Device: Samsung Galaxy Z TriFold

Availability: No plans for India have been announced

High notes

• 10-inch display that genuinely works as a tablet
• Tablet-first multitasking finally feels natural
• DeX runs locally
• Creases are less distracting than expected
• Strong performance for heavy multitasking
• Versatile, reliable camera system
• Clear step forward for foldable design