Samsung May Launch a Rollable Phone Among Five Foldables

Pull a phone from your pocket and imagine the screen unfurling instead of flipping. Quiet leaks suggest Samsung is preparing precisely that kind of surprise: five new foldable and rollable devices reportedly in development for next year, each tracked under cryptic codenames.

The names circulating in industry filings are B9, H9, Q9A, Q9B and Z9. Pattern-mapping from Samsung's past launches points the B9 tag at the Galaxy Z Flip 9 and H9 at the Z Fold 9. Short story: rumors that a new Flip was canceled look shaky. Shorter story: Samsung appears committed to both clamshell and book-style foldables.

Then there are Q9A and Q9B. Developers reading the tea leaves think those two are variants of a single platform — likely a higher-end Fold 9 Ultra and a more experimental three-panel Galaxy Z Tri-fold 2. Ambitious. Bold. A little wild. But also logical if Samsung wants to cover the market from compact to expansive.

And that leaves Z9. Industry watchers have paused on this one. Why? Because Z9 could be the first Samsung phone with a rollable display — a device where the screen extends laterally like a taped map rather than folding down a seam. If it arrives, Z9 would mark Samsung's first commercial rollable smartphone.

It's not fantasy. Samsung Display has already produced large rollable panels for laptops made by Lenovo, proving the company can build the hardware. What remains unclear is how quickly Samsung can shrink, ruggedize and cost-optimize that technology for a pocketable handset.

Are these filings a roadmap or just options on a design table? Hard to say. Leaks are, by nature, tentative. Manufacturing, yield rates and market timing all decide the final product lineup. Still, the breadth of codenames suggests Samsung is hedging — not abandoning — ambitious form factors.

This matters beyond gadget lust. A rollable phone would change app design, multitasking and the idea of device continuity. It would also force competitors to respond. Samsung is playing multiple hands: more Flip models, premium Fold variants, a tri-fold experiment and potentially the first rollable mainstream phone. Expect a busy year for foldable innovation; the question is how many of these concepts will actually make it to store shelves.