Samsung is packing flagship level hardware into a flip phone

With the kind of specs that Samsung’s new 4.6-inch smartphone has, you would think that it’s a smaller version of the company’s 5.1-inch Galaxy S6. Packing a 16-megapixel rear camera, 2GB of RAM, and a Snapdragon 808 puts the device up against even some of the big flagship smartphones out there, but it’s not going to be part of the company’s Galaxy line. In fact, the device doesn’t really fit into any product line that Samsung has, because it’s something that Samsung hasn’t made in quite some time: a flip phone. 

It’s been a while since Samsung announced a flip phone, but the company may be gearing up to release a pretty impressive new model. A report from GalaxyClub claims Samsung is testing an Android flip phone with powerful hardware under the hood. The device, which is listed by its model number SM-G9198 could pack near-flagship level specs. The device will reportedly ship with two screens, including one 4.6-inch display and, presumably, a smaller outer display. A Snapdragon 808 processor is also rumored, in addition to a 16-megapixel rear camera, a 5-megapixel front-facing shooter, 2GB of RAM, 16GB of storage and a modified version of Android 5.1.1 Lollipop. We’re not sure why a flip phone would need so much power, though with a 4.6-inch display and a modern processor it should be able to run pretty much any app you want. Unfortunately, it looks like this device could be limited to China, where Samsung has actually released new clamshell phones pretty regularly over the past few years. That’s all we know for now, though we may get a look at the new device before too long. We’re pretty curious to see how a beefed up flip phone like this will turn out, even if we won’t be getting our hands on one any time soon.