The unorthodox decision to announce a third handset with a bendy display this year comes hot on the heels of its market share loss predicated by the Chinese juggernauts that are increasingly coming with better, cheaper foldable phones.
Why is Samsung releasing a Special Edition of the Z Fold?
To counter that trend, Samsung reportedly decided to reimagine its foldable phone concept with a prototype that is just as thin yet more durable than what companies like Honor, Huawei, Oppo, Vivo, Xiaomi, and others are now offering.
Unfortunately, it turned out near impossible for Samsung to add the unique value it wanted to craft, namely a foldable phone as thin as the models coming left and right from the Chinese juggernauts, and at the same time one that is tougher. When Samsung added the required drop, ingress, and water-resistance protection, the phone became way thicker than the competition again, and not the winning proposition it was set out to be.
Z Fold SE still clocks in at more than 10mm thickness. | Image credit – @evleaks
The thinnest foldable Magic V3 vs Z Fold 6. | Image credit – PhoneArena
It intended to release the thinnest foldable phone it managed to craft in August together with the Z Fold 6 and Z Flip 6, but since it was still clocking in above the 10mm mark that Chinese phones passed last year on the way down, Samsung allegedly shelved those plans for a brief while.
Oh, the irony
The Galaxy Z Fold Special Edition still wouldn’t stand a chance against the Chinese foldable phone models, though, which will still be way thinner, cheaper, and with much better specs, introducing periscope zoom cameras, larger batteries, faster charging, and even tri-folding devices like the Mate XT which is under 4mm thin when unfurled.
Fastprint can make paper thin circuit boards. | Image credit – Fastpint
In short, the moral of the story is that even with the Galaxy Z Fold Special Edition, Samsung would still need Chinese components to fight the onslaught of more elegant and powerful Chinese foldable phones.
If that sounds ironic, that’s because it is very much a wacky situation, yet the success of the Special Edition of the Z Fold line will likely still hinge on its pricing, rather than the durability of its actual hinge.
