I’m in the middle of writing post on all the foldable handhelds we are waiting for this year when Samsung unveiled the Flex Gaming concept at MWC 2025.
If you aren’t familiar with MWC it is the Mobile World Conference. This is where we see new Mobile Phones, Tablets, Laptops, Gaming peripherals and other devices made to be used on the go unveiled each year. The gaming space normally consists mostly of telescopic mobile controllers and mobile phone cooling solutions. Until this year…
We got a lot more than expected in 2025 at the MWC. Lots of mobile gaming solutions were unveiled this year showing the ever growing strength of the handheld gaming market. Though we learned recently that without the Nintendo Switch handheld gaming superiority is mostly perception, at least when playing modern titles. There is also an entire separate handheld market for Retro Gaming.
When it comes to X86 handhelds one of the biggest struggle has been size to performance. These handhelds are traditionally massive with active cooling and monster batteries. This is all needed to give life to their powerful mobile CPUs. Samsung seems to be trying to tackle this issue by creating a more pocketable Gaming Handheld with Flex Gaming.
The Flex seems to tackle the pocketability problems we see with Windows, Linux and high end Android handhelds. With popular devices such as the Steam Deck, ROG Ally / AllyX, the massive Lenovo Legion Go and Odin 2 or alike, you often get a special bag in order to carry them outside your house safely. I’m not sure the dimensions of the Flex Gaming handheld but in the images seen it might fit in the back pocket of some baggy jeans or more likely not take up the entirety of your favorite EDC bag.
Samsung pulls out all the stops with this foldable Flex Gaming handheld as well. The Flex Gaming is folding a Samsung 7” OLED display. In order to get the Flex Gaming handheld to close flat they have added holes for the Joysticks to snuggle into when the handheld is closed. This takes up a lot more room than insetting the joysticks but it also prevents you from losing full range of motion. It looks really weird but totally worth it when you understand the benefits.
Samsung Flex Gaming (credit: Future)
There is one specific thing they would need to address if Samsung put the Flex Gaming into production however. The holes for the joysticks are located where the face buttons and DPad should be. Unless they figure out a way to play with only joysticks this isn’t going to be very playable.
I love seeing innovation like this. If the exact design of the Flex Gaming is or isn’t used this innovation will likely spark some ideas that get implemented on future devices. Like I started there is a handful of folding handhelds we are waiting for right now so stay tuned for that post to come out shortly.
If you have been thinking about picking up a Gaming Handheld I have compiled some of my favorites over on Amazon you can checkout here.
Would you like to see a handheld like the Samsung Flex Gaming?
If I find out more I’ll share it here.
GameOn
CellPhish
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