Let's stipulate something up front — we need to have more inexpensive foldable phones for people to choose from when they're deciding which device to upgrade to. A foldable handset gives us the luxury of a bigger screen that's easier to tote around. And if the prices of those devices drop, it widens the potential audience for foldables.
Right now, that's not happening. If you want to buy a foldable phone for less than $1,000, you're pretty much stuck with one style of device — the foldable flip phone — from one phone maker. That's no knock on either the $999 Motorola Razr Plus (2024) or the $699 Motorola Razr (2024), which both rank among the best foldable phones available. But they could use some comparatively priced competition, and shoppers could use more choices.
Which brings us to Samsung, a long time leader when it comes to developing foldable phones. Samsung offers two different foldables, which have both been around long enough to see multiple iterations. But the latest versions — the Galaxy Z Fold 6 and Galaxy Z Flip 6 — actually went up in price over their predecessors. That's the opposite direction of what we want here.
A new rumor suggests that Samsung's about to change its tune, with a cheaper version of one its foldables in the works. At the risk of sounding overly dismissive, I'll believe that when I'm seated at a Samsung Galaxy Unpacked event, and a beaming Samsung executive is triumphantly holding such a device up on stage.
A cheaper Samsung foldable in the works? I'm not so sure
But before we bat that rumor away, let's at least give it a full hearing. A user on South Korea's Naver online platform posted a claim that Samsung aims to release a lower-cost Galaxy Z Flip FE at some point in 2025. That claim echoes a similar rumor that surfaced last month declaring that a Galaxy Z Flip FE would launch alongside a Galaxy S25 Slim at some point in April 2025.
On the surface, those rumors are as slim as that reported S25 model is supposed to be. (Supposedly, the Galaxy S25 Slim is launching separately from the other Galaxy S25 models that we're expecting to see a few months earlier in January.) There are no specs or renders or anything else to hang your hat on — just the vague promise of a more affordable flip phone coming out of Samsung.
I'm pretty sure Samsung would like to make a more affordable foldable, as it hinted as much in the past when talking about expanding the market for foldables. However, a report from Trendforce earlier this year showed Samsung's share of the foldable phone market dropping from around 80% two years ago to 50% these days, as competitors like Motorola, OnePlus, Google and a number of Chinese phone makers step up their own foldable products. There's incentive here for Samsung to release foldables that appeal to more people — that is, more affordable — and to date, Samsung just hasn't done it.
Think back to the start of the year when Samsung was rumored to be working on a Galaxy Z Fold 6 FE, a lower-cost version of it foldable that opens like a book. In May, reports circulated that Samsung had dropped the project after it found itself unable to get enough differentiation between the FE and the full-blown Z Fold.
It doesn't sound like Samsung has changed its mind in the ensuing months. When launching a limited edition Galaxy Z Fold in Korea with a bigger screen, more memory and a higher price tag than the standard Galaxy Z Fold 6 — again, that price is moving in the wrong direction, guys — the company explicitly said it had no plans to release a separate product with a lower price, according to a 9to5Google report.
Then again, a few days later on an earnings call, Samsung executives reportedly said that they were "considering ways to lower entry barriers so that more customers can actually experience foldable products." So who knows what's going on.
Cheaper foldables are possible
The thing is, we know that people can make less expensive foldable phones that sill happen to be good. The standard edition of the Motorola Razr is proof of this. I haven't had a chance to use the 2024 edition yet, but my colleague John Velasco tested it, and he likes the bright main display and long battery life. It's his top-rated flip phone foldable, ahead of both the Razr Plus and the Galaxy Z Flip 6, and that sub-$700 price is a big reason why.
I did get a chance to test out the 2023 edition of the Motorola Razr, even putting it up against the Galaxy Z Flip 5 in a flip phone face-off. Samsung's device won the Galaxy Z Flip 5 vs. Motorola Razr (2023) showdown, but only barely. I certainly didn't notice the $300 worth of difference between the two phones that their respective prices would suggest.
You make some compromises for a cheaper phone. The new Razr Plus has a bigger cover display and runs on a more capable system-on-chip. But you don't get a telephoto lens on the less expensive Razr. Instead, Motorola went for "good enough" specs on the $699 Razr, but I'm sure people using the less expensive phone really don't notice or care.
Samsung could do the same thing with its flip phone foldable. The question is, does it want to? With rumors now claiming a Galaxy Z Flip FE is on the table, I guess we'll find out at some point in the coming year.
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