C. Scott Brown / Android Authority
The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 is official, and I have to admit: it looks phenomenal. I’ve dabbled with Samsung’s folding phones here and there as part of my job, but for one reason or another, I’ve never been compelled to buy one myself, either because of unwieldy designs, underwhelming cameras, or something else.
Looking at the Z Fold 7, however, Samsung has checked just about every box for what I want in a folding phone. The Galaxy Z Fold 7 is dramatically thinner and lighter than the Z Fold 6, meaning it should be much more comfortable in daily use. It also features a vastly improved 200MP primary camera, as well as a host of other specification upgrades, including the latest Snapdragon 8 Elite chip and larger displays.
The Galaxy Z Fold 7 has almost everything I’ve been wanting out of a Samsung foldable, and it’s one of the first I was seriously considering buying — until I saw the price tag.
Do you think $2,000 is too much money for the Galaxy Z Fold 7? 122 votes Yes 87 % No 13 %
An already expensive phone gets even pricier
C. Scott Brown / Android Authority
Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold handsets have always been expensive, and I was prepared for the Z Fold 7 to continue that trend. Leading up to the launch, I expected it to maintain the same starting price as the Fold 6, which is $1,900. But that’s not what happened.
Instead, the Galaxy Z Fold 7 has increased the price by $100, bringing it all the way up to $2,000 — making it one of the most expensive Z Fold releases to date.
Even with available trade-in deals and other promotions that Samsung often offers, the idea of a $1,900 smartphone still made me wary. And while another $100 on top of that may not be the end of the world, something about it has completely turned me off from wanting Samsung’s latest.
With the Z Fold 7's price now $2,000, it's more than I can stomach.
I’m sure part of this is psychological. The actual monetary difference between $1,900 and $2,000 isn’t that significant, but the idea of spending $2,000 on a phone instead of $1,900 still feels like a much bigger hurdle to overcome. Irrational? Probably. But it’s a feeling I can’t shake.
Simultaneously, another part of it does have to do with the money. $1,900 was already more than I wanted to spend on the Z Fold 7, but if the phone had all of the upgrades I was hoping for, I thought I might be able to justify it. However, with the price now $2,000 — and some specs like battery capacity and charge speeds annoyingly unchanged — it’s just more than I can stomach.
Samsung is moving in the wrong direction
C. Scott Brown / Android Authority
While it’s true that Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold lineup has never been cheap, Samsung was, at least for a few years, moving in the right direction to make its foldables more affordable.
When the first Galaxy Fold debuted at a staggering $1,980 in 2019, it was out of the question for most people, not just because of its high price, but also its first-gen wonkiness and dubious durability concerns. The Galaxy Z Fold 2 saw a slight price increase to $2,000, but significant display and design upgrades more than justified the extra $20.
Then, in 2021, Samsung did something we had been waiting for: it released its next Z Fold at a significantly lower price. While the $1,800 Galaxy Z Fold 3 certainly wasn’t cheap, it was a strong indicator that Samsung was heading in the right direction. It was widely believed that as components became cheaper and Samsung refined its manufacturing processes, the Fold would become more affordable. And it finally did!
Hadlee Simons / Android Authority
Samsung didn’t lower the price again after that, but it at least held the $1,800 starting price steady for the Z Fold 4 and Z Fold 5 over the next two years. But after that, things started going downhill.
Last year, the Galaxy Z Fold 6 saw a $100 price hike to $1,900. The Fold 6 was a bit lighter and thinner, but with most of the internal specs remaining unchanged, the price increase seemed hardly justified. And now, here we are a year later with another price increase — bringing us full circle back to the $2,000 price of the Fold 2.
The Galaxy Z Fold 7 is obviously a superior phone to the Fold 2 in every single way, but those two years of back-to-back price hikes mean the Galaxy Z Fold lineup is no more affordable than it was five years ago. Even with the design and camera upgrades in the Fold 7, Samsung should now be at a point where its folding phones are getting cheaper, not more expensive. But that’s clearly not happening.
I understand and appreciate that devices like the Fold 7 will always be more expensive than their Galaxy S25 counterparts, but after seven generations of the Fold series, we shouldn’t still be dealing with $2,000 price tags. And until Samsung starts lowering the Fold’s price again, it looks like I’ll keep on watching from the sidelines.
Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 Thinnest, lightest Z Fold to date • More durable design • 200MP primary camera • Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy MSRP: $1,999.99 Thin, light, high-powered, and it folds! The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 offers an 8-inch OLED screen, a 200MP camera, the Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy chipset, and a 4,400mAh battery. The Galaxy AI experience is baked in, offering tools across the camera, Circle to Search, and much more. Best of all, Samsung continues to evolve their fold folding hinge assembly, promising reduced visibility of the crease. See price at Amazon See price at Samsung See price at Amazon Save $420.00