One of the hottest topics from this year"s Mobile World Congress was the idea of foldable smartphones, of which both Samsung and Huawei had new entries. Samsung ran into some troubles though, going as far as to hand them out to reviewers, and then postponing the launch of the foldable handset just days in advance after review units started breaking.
Yesterday, Samsung finally announced that the Galaxy Fold has been fixed and will ship in September, citing the same fixes that were reported earlier this month. But whether carriers will sell a device that"s had so many issues is another story.
As it turns out, T-Mobile is opting out of selling the Galaxy Fold. In a statement to The Verge, a spokesperson for the Un-carrier said, "T-Mobile will not carry the Galaxy Fold because we already offer customers a wide range of the latest smartphones. Please reach out to Samsung for any further inquiries." AT&T, the only other U.S. carrier committed to selling the device, didn"t provide a response.
If you"re a T-Mobile customer that wanted the first foldable smartphone in the U.S., there is some good news. The Galaxy Fold will still work on T-Mobile"s network, just as is the case with any unlocked GSM phone.
It"s still a big deal though. Samsung is the largest smartphone manufacturer in the world, and typically, its selection of smartphones is ubiquitous. Perhaps it will have better luck with the second generation of the product. After all, Samsung launched the Galaxy Note7 to disastrous consequences (the phone caught fire) and still managed to regain trust in its brand.