Samsung Has No Plans for an Affordable Foldable, but Will Offer Variety Instead: Report

After months of rumours, Samsung finally launched its Galaxy Z Fold Special Edition. It has a bigger display, slimmer design, is lighter by a few milligrams, but it lacks S Pen support. For now, Samsung claims that it’s only for the South Korean market with no plans to take it global. With a second model of the same foldable now out in the same year, all eyes were on another long-rumoured affordable Galaxy Z Fold 6 model, which Samsung now reportedly says it has no plans to release.

A report by SamMobile quotes a Samsung Electronics official who states that the brand has no plans to launch an affordable book-style foldable. The official reportedly said that the consumer should not consider the Galaxy Z Fold Special Edition to be a premium product but perceive it as a “product released to expand your options”. Consumer perception aside, it is one and the same thing. The new model will obviously expand Samsung’s foldable lineup, at least for buyers in South Korea.

Samsung believes that users will now get more options to choose from. For example, those who do not need the S Pen functionality can now choose the bigger and slimmer Galaxy Z Fold Special Edition (again in South Korea).

The same unnamed executive also reportedly stated that the company “as of now” has “no plans” to release another product at a lower price point. A recent report about the affordable foldable (last tagged as the Galaxy Z Fold 6 FE) pointed out that Samsung could delay the launch of this affordable model to the coming year. Therefore, at this point it appears to be clear that the affordable Galaxy Z Fold 6 will not arrive this year, but there’s still a small possibility that it could be launched next year. However, this is not the first time Samsung has denied the existence of an affordable foldable.

Samsung Galaxy Z Fold Special Edition, which launched in South Korea, is priced at KRW 2,789,600 (roughly Rs. 1,70,000). The foldable will be available with 16GB RAM + 512GB stoarge and in a special Black Shadow colourway. The device has a 21:9 aspect ratio cover display that measures 6.5-inches across and an 8-inch main folding display both of which are bigger than the Galaxy Z Fold 6 which is currently on sale globally including India.

The Special Edition is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 SoC and is 1.5mm thinner and 3 grams lighter than the Galaxy Z Fold 6. It also has a 200-megapixel primary rear camera, which seems like a big upgrade over the existing 50-megapixel primary camera on the Galaxy Z Fold 6. The thinner form factor comes at the cost of Samsung’s S Pen, which is not supported on the new foldable. Hopefully, we get to see some of these upgrades in the next version of the Galaxy Z Fold in the coming year.