After months of rumors, Samsung has officially confirmed that the Samsung Galaxy Z Trifold, its first tri-fold phone, is on the way to a handful of markets including the US.
Naturally, much of the discussion around the Galaxy Z Trifold has concerned its shiny new hardware – the phone comes with a 6.5-inch cover screen and a 10-inch inner folding display supported by two hinges. Within its svelte 3.9mm-thick chassis sits the Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy chipset and 16GB of RAM – in short, it’s due to be an absolute powerhouse.
But although I was preoccupied with the new hardware in the days after announcement – specifically the phone’s cool new hinge mechanism – as time goes on I find myself thinking more about the software possibilities Samsung’s new foldable presents.
It’s true that I have my issues with Samsung’s Android wrapper One UI, but the Korean tech giant does offer some superb features. nd there’s one in particular that I think could make the Samsung Galaxy Z Trifold the leader in an absolute revolution for mobile productivity.
I’m talking about Samsung DeX, the desktop-style experience Samsung offers for its tablets. Though Apple made headlines this year with iPadOS 26’s new desktop-style features, Samsung has been leading the way in this field for years with its DeX software environment, which transforms its mobile devices into serious multitasking machines. For me, it’s a big part of why Samsung Galaxy Tab devices rank amongst the best Android tablets.
Samsung also enables tablets and select smartphones to use DeX when connected to an external monitor, meaning you can effectively carry a desktop computer in your pocket (so long as you have the right adapters). But this still demands a choice between the portability of a smartphone and the large display of a tablet.
Enter the Samsung Galaxy Z Trifold – Samsung has confirmed that its upcoming 10-inch foldable will be the first Samsung phone to support DeX in the standalone mode native to Galaxy tablets. Users of the Samsung Galaxy Z Trifold will be able to access DeX with up to four workspaces of five windowed apps each. That’s 20 apps open at the same time, without even needing an external monitor.
If you do have a second display to use, the Galaxy Z Trifold will allow users to use both the 10-inch inner display and an external monitor simultaneously – and as you’d expect, the phone also supports Bluetooth mice and keyboards.
Now, we’re still waiting to get our hands on the Samsung Galaxy Z Trifold, but from afar this all sounds incredibly exciting – the prospect of having desktop-style power that folds up into a pocketable (if hefty) smartphone is something that would’ve seemed like an impossible fiction even ten years ago.
My mind goes straight to the productivity possibilities. For people who spend most of their working day writing, searching the web, messaging and emailing, and moving files around (this writer included), the average flagship smartphone packs more than enough power to handle a day’s work. The limiting factor is the small display, not the internal power, and the Samsung Galaxy Z Trifold seemingly solves the problem outright.
I envision the Galaxy Z Trifold’s 10-inch display as a great home for a notes app or group chat while other windows are sent to the external display – and I can already imagine how satisfying it would be to unplug, fold up, and pocket the Galaxy Z Trifold at the end of a long day – goodbye, bulky laptop.
And though the idea of setting up meetings on a large folding screen is surely exhilarating enough, there are also plenty of other possibilities here. For example, if apps like the Adobe Photoshop beta and LumaFusion support the Samsung Galaxy Z Trifold it could be a powerhouse for social media and mobile creativity thanks to the on-screen organisation and multitasking power of DeX.
That’s not to say the Galaxy Z Trifold will be able to do everything. I wouldn’t expect to be editing hour-long 4K videos on a mobile chipset, and a 10-inch display isn’t exactly huge compared to even compact laptops. Additionally, Apple still has the upper hand when it comes to software support from third-party developers.
But I’ve spent plenty of time using Samsung tablets – I reviewed the Samsung Galaxy Tab S10 Plus FE and went hands on with the Galaxy Tab S11 earlier this year – and DeX has always been strikingly effective for multitasking and getting things done on the go. The prospect of having all that power in my pocket is unbelievably exciting, and even with the Galaxy Z Trifold sporting an all-new design, I seriously think DeX could end up being its best feature.
Still, we won’t know whether the Galaxy Z Trifold lives up to its potential until we get it in for testing, and there’s no specific US release date on the horizon yet (we only know that it’s coming in “Q1 2026”). With that said, the phone has hit shelves in Korea, and a demo unit of the new handset recently appeared in a Dubai shopping mall (via Android Central), so hopefully an American release isn’t too far away.
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jamie.richards@futurenet.com (Jamie Richards)
