Samsung has cut the price of its foldable flip phone, the Galaxy Z Flip 5G, by $ 250. It’s now $ 1,199.99, which at first glance looks like a pretty big drop from its original asking price of $ 1,449.99 in July 2020.
However, there are two things to consider with the price change. First off, this phone is about six months old and has the same design as the non-5G version released last February. Samsung phones are known for seeing early and aggressive deals; now that trend is also affecting foldable telephones. So while a price drop is nice to watch, it’s not exactly rare.
Second, $ 1,200 is still very expensive for a phone that has essentially the same specs and functionality as a Galaxy S20 FE 5G, which is available for $ 700 (or less if you can find a deal).
The news of the price drop comes after Samsung’s mobile president, TM Roh, pledged to make foldable phones “more accessible to everyone” by 2021. It also comes after Samsung’s latest announcement in which it said it would expand its portfolio of foldable products. – specifically stating plans to “expand the foldable category, including the Galaxy Z Fold and Galaxy Z Flip.”
We were expecting a new version of the Z Fold (coming out at the size of a small tablet) with stylus support sometime this year, but it’s unclear when Samsung will release that. As for the Z Flip, it’s unclear what this price drop means for the timing of the next.
But the biggest question around foldable phones isn’t when new ones will come; it’s about how much they’ll cost. While it’s absolutely true that $ 1,200 is $ 250 less than $ 1,450, there is still a very high price point for customers who want their phones to be able to fold into smaller packages.
The Z Flip is by far the best flip-style foldable phone on the market, but it’s a small market. The only other viable competitor is the Motorola Razr 5G, which at the time of writing is also discounted to $ 1,200 off its original $ 1,400 asking price.
Folding telephones are therefore still luxury products. These folding phones cost almost 50 percent more than comparable non-foldable phones. It’s good to see the Z Flip 5G becoming “more accessible,” but unless that price difference can narrow, foldable phones will remain curios rather than mass-market devices.