Samsung’s faith in its foldable iPhone rival Galaxy Z “Wide Fold” seems misplaced

*Image credit — Ice Universe

Years of waiting for news about an Apple foldable were turned upside down, at least for me, when we found out about the unorthodox design of the foldable iPhone. At last, a foldable iPhone is coming this year alongside the iPhone 18, but it doesn’t look like the usual foldable flagships that we’re used to.

Take, for example, the excellent Galaxy Z Fold 7. A phone so spectacular that it allowed Samsung to begin increasing sales expectations for its foldable phones again. When folded, it looks like a normal smartphone, and it becomes a giant square of beautiful colors when unfolded.

The foldable iPhone, on the other hand, will look like a stubby little thing when folded and resemble a small tablet when unfolded. But soon after news about the foldable iPhone leaked, Samsung began working on a similar foldable phone, tentatively named the Galaxy Z Wide Fold by industry insiders.

This new Galaxy foldable will apparently launch later this year, likely alongside the Galaxy Z Fold 8 and before the foldable iPhone, and Samsung is very confident in how it will perform. However, I think that the company’s faith in its new foldable might just be a little bit misplaced.

There was no reason to make this phone

This is personal opinion, of course, but I seriously think that there was no reason for Samsung to begin work on this Galaxy Z Wide Fold. In fact, this entire scenario strongly reminds me of the Galaxy S25 Edge, a phone that Samsung seemingly began working on after the iPhone Air leaked. The Edge, just like the Air, didn’t sell well, and Samsung immediately put the idea of a successor on the back burner.

Samsung knocked it out of the park with the Galaxy Z Fold 7, and the market responded by clearing shelves and beating all sales expectations. The company really should have just stuck with the Galaxy Z Flip 8 and the Galaxy Z Fold 8 for now and let its foldable offerings mature a little in their newly-found popularity.

But I get it: Samsung wants to make sure that it has an alternative to the foldable iPhone, down to the unorthodox aspect ratio. There’s just one problem, however.

A foldable iPhone would have sold regardless

Apple fans have been waiting for years for a foldable iPhone to hit the market. As such, any first-generation Apple foldable was always going to sell like crazy, no matter the price or the design. Samsung doesn’t have that because it has been releasing different types of foldable phones for twice as long as Apple fans have been wishing for one.

As I’ve mentioned before, the foldable iPhone is adopting an uncommon design. However, it remains to be seen whether this design will actually take off beyond the diehard Apple users. Apple can always just change the aspect ratio with a successor if this design doesn’t get received well, but Samsung would have to cancel an entire product line. Again.



As it stands, I see three possibilities this year. Either the foldable iPhone is a hit, and so is the Galaxy Z Wide Fold, because consumers really love the design. Or the foldable iPhone sells reasonably well due to what it is, but Samsung’s phone doesn’t. Meanwhile, the last possibility is that both phones flop, like the iPhone Air and the S25 Edge, and Apple just changes the design while Samsung cancels the entire thing altogether.

Like the Galaxy Z TriFold and the Galaxy XR headset, I think that Samsung should have tried this new foldable as an experiment at first, rather than jumping right in with a million units. The foldable iPhone was always going to sell well, but Samsung is taking a risky gamble and betting heavily on consumers liking this form factor enough to give it a chance.

And that gamble might not pay off if people don’t accept this design, which they very well might not. I know I’m not a fan.