TENAA leak suggests Samsung is about to release Galaxy S6-like flip-phone

Samsung has vastly changed its design ethos over the course of 2015, and we think that’s a good thing. Swapping out the flimsy, cheap plastic chassis in favor of a much more premium glass and metal combo is exactly what the manufacturer needed to breathe life back in to its flagship smartphone ranges. The look was first adopted by the Galaxy S6, and looks set to be used in yet another phone soon, albeit one with a slightly different form factor…

A TENAA page shows off Samsung’s next flip-phone in some detail, and seems to show a device featuring curved glass on the back, similar to the Galaxy Note 5 (or the front of the S6 Edge). It features a similar curve on the bottom edge of the outer display, near the phone’s chin. It even has similar antenna bands breaking up the metallic surface of the phone’s outer edges.

Inside, the phone looks like just about every other flip-phone Samsung has pushed to market in recent years. The screen and keyboard surfaces are virtually flat, with a t9-style physical keyboard, square directional pad and various other function keys for going home, back, hitting the multi-tasking window and copying links/text.

As specs go, the new flip-phone (model number SM-W2016) doesn’t sound too bad. It has two 3.9-inch Super AMOLED 1280 x 768 displays. It also packs in a 16MP main camera on the back, a 5MP camera on the front and measures in at 15.1mm thick. Other important specifications include an octa-core 64-bit Exynos processor paired with 3GB RAM, as well as a generous 64GB internal storage. The smartphone will run Android 5.1.1 out of the box, but we’re assuming that it’ll eventually be upgraded to Marshmallow.

While the TENAA posts pretty much confirms that the Samsung clamshell will be released in China, there’s no word on whether or not the phone will eventually make an appearance in other markets globally. Flip-phones are normally reserved for Asian markets, but LG broke with that tradition earlier this year when it launched the Wine Smart. Samsung could follow suit, if it thinks the markets in the US and Europe want an Android-powered clamshell.