What you need to know
- An interview with Drew Blackard, vice president of mobile product marketing at Samsung, revealed future plans to make future Samsung foldables cheaper.
- Samsung fans could see a cheaper Galaxy Z Fold FE and Galaxy Z Flip FE over the next few years.
- Blackard says that Samsung wants to "perfect" the experience first before offering more mainstream-priced models.
Samsung makes the best foldable phones in both major categories of the product, and it's any wonder. They were among those to pioneer the concept of folding a slab of metal and glass in half, and most people who think about foldable phones think of Samsung first.
That mindshare led Tom's Guide to ask Drew Blackard, vice president of mobile product marketing at Samsung, what the company thinks of offering a cheaper FE-branded model in the future. The answer was certainly positive, although it means we're certainly not seeing this happen any time soon.
Blackard told Tom's Guide that we'd start seeing cheaper foldables from Samsung once the company feels it has "perfected" the experience. While he wasn't specific, we imagine that he's referring to both the software experience — which is good but could still use a bit of work to make it more user-friendly — as well as long-term durability, as our own Andrew Myrick found out with his Z Fold 4.
"Foldables eventually will come down in price. This year, we really focused on resolving the pain points that we saw for our current foldable user base, Blackard told Tom's Guide.
"Of course, over time, as the technology evolves, we'll continue to see innovation and hopefully bring it down in price point at a future time."
Samsung's "FE" line — short for Fan Edition — has been the go-to for folks wanting a more premium experience than the Galaxy A line offers without the higher price tags of the mainline Galaxy S series. As such, we would expect a Galaxy Z Fold FE or Z Flip FE to be a few hundred less than the price of the "normal" model.
The first iterations of Samsung's foldable phones were all quite a bit more expensive, with the Galaxy Z Fold 5G costing an eye-watering $2,500. By comparison, the Galaxy Z Fold 5, which launches this month, costs just $1,800. Likewise, we saw the Galaxy Z Flip drop from $1,400 to $1,000 over the years, showing that this technology is becoming cheaper as it becomes more popular.
Expect great deals with you preorder a Galaxy Z Fold 5, especially if you have a phone to trade in. It's the best foldable experience available, and and it's almost here.
