Does a video on TikTok show Samsung's new transparent phone that looks like glass? No, that's not true: There is no evidence that Samsung has already launched a transparent phone.
The claim originated from a video (archived here) published on TikTok by @usera25dy6tjjn on June 7, 2023. The caption in Korean, translated by Lead Stories staff, says:
Samsung made a transparent phone that looks like glass.
It's only 5 mm thick and very durable. It's a single-sided touch, and the display can be used on both sides.
There is no charging port, so the phone uses wireless charging.
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Tue Dec 19 16:33:08 2023 UTC)
The footage went viral on TikTok with a specific video (archived here) posted on February 10, 2020, by @luckky.111 reaching more than 20 million views at the time of writing. Another TikTok video (archived here) published by @factsddragon on June 22, 2023, had reached over 7.6 million views at the time of writing. The caption of this video claims that the Samsung Galaxy Transparent 6G is expected to be launched in 2027. Other videos with the same footage claimed that the see-through phone is the new Samsung S25 Ultra model, for example here (archived here).
According to the official Samsung website, the latest Samsung Galaxy S series up to this point is the Samsung Galaxy S23, which was released on February 17, 2023. Forbes published an article (archived here) on December 9, 2023, stating that the next Samsung Galaxy S series will be launched in 2024 with the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra.
However, Samsung filed a patent in the United States (archived here) in August 2020 that describes the technology for manufacturing a transparent smartphone. The technical websites Concept Phones (archived here) and Phone Arena (archived here) have published articles about it.
Lead Stories performed a reverse Google image search (archived here) using key frames from the TikTok video, which led to the link Adobe After Effect's Tips and Tricks website (archived here) posted on February 23, 2021. The Adobe video was originally published on YouTube (archived here) by @VFXStudioKoliba on April 21, 2019, with the title "how to create transparent phone | after effects VFX tutorial." It shows how to use the Adobe app after effects to create the effect of a transparent display, which does not mean that the smartphone is a completely transparent phone.
Wired published an article on February 19, 2013, (archived here) about a transparent smartphone prototype without any software by Taiwanese company Polytron Technologies that the YouTube account @basicthinkingtv reviewed (archived here).
Lead Stories did a search on the Korean search platform Naver (archived here) with the words "삼성 갤럭시 S25 울트라" (Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra). No result supported the claim that a new transparent Galaxy S25 was released.
