AT&T cancels its Samsung Galaxy Fold pre-orders; customers involved get a $100 promo card

While the world waits for Samsung to announce a new launch date for the Galaxy Fold, actions speak louder than words. Especially when those actions consist of Best Buy canceling pre-orders collected for the device last month followed up by today's news related to AT&T. The carrier, according to Tom's Guide, has sent out emails to its customers who pre-ordered the foldable device. The email says that because Samsung delayed the release of the phone, the carrier is canceling its pre-orders. The message invites customers to pre-order through AT&T again once Samsung announces a new release date.

To make up for the inconvenience, AT&T is also giving each customer who had a Galaxy Fold pre-order canceled a $100 AT&T Promotion Card. The card will arrive within 60 days. Any funds that were held to cover the pre-order have been released, and those who were actually charged the $1,980 for the phone will promptly receive a refund. Back in April, days after Samsung announced the delay of the Galaxy Fold, AT&T said that the device would be shipped on June 13th. In this day and age, that would be known as "fake news."

The first foldable from a major manufacturer, the Samsung Galaxy Fold was supposed to launch on April 26th but the release was halted on April 22nd. Despite warning labels from Samsung, several influencers peeled what looked like a plastic protective film off of the interior display of their display units; this caused the device to break. Another problem occurred when debris entered the top or bottom of the phone's hinge leading to an ungainly bulge on the screen. And others saw the screen on their Galaxy Fold just stop working. So Samsung reportedly tucked the plastic film into the screen so it can't be peeled off, closed the gap on the top and bottom of the hinge to prevent debris from entering, and made some other changes to the phone. Now all that is needed is a new release date.

The Galaxy Note has an exterior screen that weighs in at 4.6-inches. When opened, a 7.3-inch Dynamic AMOLED screen is revealed with a resolution of 1536 x 2152. The phone is powered by the Snapdragon 855 Mobile Platform and includes 12GB of memory and 512GB of storage. There is a triple camera setup featuring a 12MP primary camera with a variable aperture, a 12MP telephoto camera with a 2x optical zoom, and a 16MP Ultra-wide camera. A 4380mAh battery keeps the lights on, and Android 9 Pie is pre-installed along with the One UI interface. The latter puts actionable elements on the bottom of the screen allowing users to easily reach them without having to dislocate a finger reaching for the top of the large display.

Back in May, Samsung Mobile chief DJ Koh said that all the problems had been fixed and a new release date would be announced in weeks. That comment was repeated this past week when a Samsung spokesman told CNET that a new launch date was just weeks away from being revealed. However, AT&T's actions would suggest that this is not exactly the case. Samsung itself announced last month that if the phone didn't ship by May 31st, it would cancel all pre-orders unless directed not to do so by its customers. Obviously, that deadline came and went without Samsung delivering the device. When Samsung's Koh spoke in May, he said that the Galaxy Fold "will not be too late." If he was talking about anything but the upcoming holiday shopping season, he might be proved wrong.

AT&T started taking pre-orders for the Galaxy Fold on April 15th. The other U.S. carrier to get the device, T-Mobile, lucked out. It was planning on putting the phone up for sale on April 25th, the day before it would become available in its retail stores. Because of this fortuitous timing, it didn't start taking pre-orders for the Galaxy Fold and merely delayed offering the phone once Samsung announced the delay.