7 moments from Samsung history that shaped the Galaxy Z Fold 7

Digital Trends

3 days ago

The new Galaxy Z Fold 7 is the best foldable for most people — especially in the US — but it costs $2,000. Despite the high price, Samsung has recorded record-breaking sales for the Galaxy Z Fold 7 and Galaxy Z Flip 7, a fact made even more surprising considering Samsung's current market dominance is less than two decades old.
Millions of Samsung foldables have been sold, but I recall a time when selling a Samsung phone priced under $100 was a challenge. I worked across all the carrier stores in the UK, and at this time, Samsung had such a poor reputation that it was a struggle to sell Samsung phones before the launch of Android and the subsequent Galaxy S lineup.
Yet, within a few short years, Samsung became the dominant force in Android, playing a crucial role in halting the runaway success of the early iPhones. Samsung was everywhere and fast becoming the go-to alternative to those who wanted a credible alternative to the iPhone.
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How did Samsung turn it around? Having used and reviewed Samsung phones before the first Galaxy S, I've experienced all the ups and downs as Samsung has established its dominance. Here are five key moments in Samsung's history that helped shape the new Galaxy Z Fold 7.
May 2011: Galaxy S II — The Samsung Name
Did you know that before the Galaxy S II, many Samsung phones didn't bear the company's name? Instead, they would often be released by carriers under custom names, running software that was preloaded with far too many useless apps, and handing software updates over to carriers to dictate the release schedule.
The Galaxy S II changed this and is pivotal to Samsung's history. It was released on three of the four major carriers under the actual name, the only holdout being Sprint, which branded it the Samsung Epic 4G Touch. As a byproduct of the marketing around the product, Samsung began cementing its place in consumers' minds.
Had Samsung continued custom names like it did with the original Galaxy S — T-Mobile had the Samsung Vibrant, AT&T had the Samsung Captivate, Verizon offered the Samsung Fascinate, and Sprint branded it as the Samsung Epic 4G — it would have been much harder for Samsung to build customer trust. In hindsight, this would be key over the following year.
Sep 2011: Galaxy Note — The Big Phone Era
Just months after the Galaxy S II, Samsung made one of its biggest contributions to smartphones with the launch of the Galaxy Note. Fourteen years later, it's clear that Samsung single-handedly launched the big-screen era that every phone has followed since.
The original Galaxy Note was criticized for being too large with its 5.3-inch screen, but in hindsight, this would now be considered a mini phone by current smartphone expectations.
Instead, the obsession with fitting as large a screen as possible in your pocket while keeping it portable has led companies to the best folding phones. However, even a great phone needs something else, and these two phones set up Samsung to cement its place in history just a year later.
May 2012: Galaxy S III — The Olympics
On 29 May 2012, Samsung launched the Galaxy S III. Two days later, it was launched in the UK, just two months before the Olympics came to London. All of this was synchronized, and for good reason: Samsung's sponsorship of the London Olympics directly contributed to its current success.
Samsung's sponsorship revolved around making the Galaxy S III synonymous with the Olympics, and it worked extremely well. This sponsorship enabled Samsung to reach hundreds of millions of potential customers, and the Galaxy S3 London 2012 Olympic Edition marked the beginning of a tradition where Samsung creates custom Olympic-branded smartphones for each athlete at every Olympic Games.
I remember working in retail on Oxford Street during the Olympics and in the months that followed. It should come as no surprise that just weeks later, when Apple launched the iPhone 5, Samsung's positioning and marketing strategy paid off even further. For the first time, customers who sought stock of the new iPhone 5 (to no avail) would then enquire about the Galaxy S III instead.
Aug 2012: Galaxy Note II — The Multitasking Maestro
A few short months after the Galaxy S III came another phone, and one that has directly impacted every Samsung phone made since. If you've used a Samsung flagship phone in the past decade, you'll know that it features an excellent multitasking feature.
You may not know, however, that this feature first launched on the Galaxy Note II. Since then, every Samsung flagship has had multitasking features, and coupled with the S-Pen — a staple of the Galaxy Note — it introduced the concept of true multitasking on mobile devices.
Over a decade later, Samsung remains the only company to invest in this, yet it is core to taking full advantage of the larger 8-inch main display on Samsung's new folding phones.
Feb 2019: Galaxy S10 — Bye TouchWiz, hello One UI
Between 2012 and 2019, Samsung grew to complete dominance in smartphones, having fought off the competition to capture the number one spot in global smartphone market share following the launch of the Galaxy S III.
Each Samsung phone that launched in the years that followed continued to press the company's advantage, but in hindsight, many of these weren't as important as they seemed at the time. As we'll cover at the end, one particular moment continues to have an impact today.
In February 2019, Samsung launched the Galaxy S10 and with it, One UI. A complete redesign of the software interface was the result of Samsung shedding its legacy software interface in favor of a new, more streamlined software experience.
Aug 2022: Galaxy Z Fold 4 — Peak Folding Phone
Before the Galaxy Z Fold 7, the Galaxy Z Fold 4 was the best Samsung folding phone, mostly as the Galaxy Z Fold 5 and Galaxy Z Fold 6 were notably iterative upgrades over previous generations.
The Galaxy Z Fold 4 reduced the size of the hinge and the bezels around the display, while tweaking the screen's aspect ratios and implementing a new camera system from the Galaxy S22 line. The latter remains to this day: the Galaxy Z Fold 7 has the same 200MP camera as the Galaxy S25 Ultra — at least on paper — and previous versions since the Fold 4 have shared camera features with the flagship Galaxy S lineup.
This was before the launch of thinner folding phones like the OnePlus Open (2023), Honor Magic V3 (2024), and Oppo Find N5 (2025), all of which are considerably thinner than Samsung's previous best. The Galaxy Z Fold 7 changes this considerably and continues a trend of Samsung making its phones thinner and lighter.
Jan 2025: Galaxy S25 Ultra — The 200MP beast
It would be remiss to think about all the Galaxy Z Fold 7 features without mentioning the Galaxy S25 Ultra, and specifically the 200MP main camera. Although the Galaxy Z Fold 7 also has a 200MP main camera, it's 18% smaller than the Galaxy S25 Ultra, yet as my testing showed, the Galaxy Z Fold 7 camera is just as capable as Samsung's imaging powerhouse.
The Galaxy S25 Ultra isn't the first Samsung phone to use a 200MP camera, but several years of Samsung's marketing around this feature have piqued customer interest in the camera and the rest of the lineup. The fifth-generation Ultra delivers the best Samsung Ultra experience, and it's a key part of the marketing positioning for the Galaxy Z Fold 7.
The Galaxy S25 Edge shows that Samsung is ready to bring better camera features to its flagship foldable, and the 200MP main camera solves a key complaint about previous versions.
Plenty of other twists and turns
These are just seven of the phones from Samsung's history that have shaped the Galaxy Z Fold 7. There's that phone, which explains why Samsung is cautious about its batteries, but as a result, the company's battery optimization is second-to-none. Samsung also deserves a lot of praise for how it handled that incident, and in my opinion, it's still a benchmark for other phone makers to meet.
Then there's every foldable so far, with Samsung iterating and slimming the design and thickness of each version. The Galaxy Z Fold 7 bucks the trend of iterative changes, and instead, it delivers the biggest change to Samsung's foldable lineup so far.
Hindsight is wonderful, but I have little doubt that fifteen years from now, the Galaxy Z Fold 7 will be one of the most impactful Samsung phones during this time. Having used every Samsung Galaxy flagship phone to date, I already know the Galaxy Z Fold 7 will be a phone I'll remember for a long time.