Samsung's Cheaper Folding Phone Still Has an Affordability Problem

CNET

09-07-2025

Every young person today should get to experience the specific fun, flirty pleasure of having a quirky flip phone that is both a fashion accessory and a cutting-edge piece of tech. It's the noughties tech experience in a nutshell – or a clamshell, if you will.
Unfortunately, even though folding phones are now more sophisticated than ever thanks to advances in flexible screen technology, the devices on the market are usually extortionately expensive. Samsung's latest flagship phone, the Galaxy Z Fold 7, announced today at Galaxy Unpacked, starts at an eye-watering $2,000, for example. That's way beyond what most adults are willing to spend on a phone, never mind teens.
By contrast, Samsung has long targeted its marginally cheaper Galaxy Flip series at a Gen Z audience – enlisting Euphoria star Sydney Sweeney to endorse the phone and making its front-facing selfie camera a key part of the device's promotion strategy. But two years ago, at the launch of the Galaxy Flip 5, I pointed out that even though the phone was around half the price of the Fold, it was still too expensive – an observation that still applies to the latest iterations of the Fold and Flip.
I was thrilled, though, when Samsung announced it had at last added an even cheaper model to its foldables family in the form of the Galaxy Flip 7 FE. The FE has a slightly smaller screen and footprint than the Flip 7, along with a less sophisticated camera system, which has the Flip 7's wide-angle 50-megapixel lens, but not its 12-megapixel ultra-wide lens. "Samsung is now offering a broad portfolio catering for different segments and most importantly those price-conscious users," said PP Foresight analyst Paolo Pescatore.
At first glance, the Flip 7 FE looks like the flip phone Gen Z has been waiting for. That is, until you look at the price tag. Even though it's cheaper than the $1,100 Flip 7, it's only $200 cheaper at $900. That's still a flagship price for a non-flagship phone. It's not giving affordable, as the kids might say.
I'm not the only one to balk at the price of the Flip 7 FE, either. "Extending its foldable portfolio to include the more affordable Galaxy Z Flip 7 FE is a move in the right direction, but it is likely not priced affordably enough to have a significant impact on the market," sid Ben Wood, chief analyst at CCS Insight.
Foldable phones remain a tricky sell. Market researcher IDC notes that while the market is growing, companies are failing to shift as many devices as predicted. Pricing, it says, is often the No. 1 thing standing in the way of people buying these phones.
Demand for foldables remains "stubbornly low," said Wood. "Samsung will still need to overcome consumers' nervousness about foldables as an alternative to a traditional smartphone."
So will this be the year the teens get to discover the joy of flip phones? I suspect the hinged devices might still be out of their financial grasp for now. But if Samsung can find a way to make foldables genuinely affordable and not such a big risk, I believe there's hope yet for the flip phone to delight another generation, who deserve to the opportunity to melodramatically end a call by snapping shut their phone, before dropping it into their stupidly small clutch bag and heading to an indie sleaze club night to make some bad decisions.