Samsung Galaxy Z Fold Special Edition: slimmest, lightest of its kind

Samsung Electronics Co. said on Monday it is unveiling the Galaxy Z Fold Special Edition (SE) – the thinnest and lightest among the company’s foldable smartphone series – in a move seen to keep Chinese rivals such as Xiaomi Inc., which recently launched a smartphone slimming war, in check.

The South Korean tech giant said the Galaxy Z Fold SE will go on sale in Korea on Oct. 25.

Sources said the product is expected to launch in China by the end of November at the latest. The new foldable phone’s design, including color options, may be adjusted to cater to local preferences, they said.

Samsung’s latest smartphone is 10.6 millimeters thick and weighs 236 grams, making it 1.5 mm thinner and 3 grams lighter than the Galaxy Z Fold6 released in July.

The new smartphone, however, comes without the S Pen stylus, which was included in the previous Fold series.

When unfolded, the main screen features a 203.1 mm (8-inch) display with a 20:18 aspect ratio, the largest among the Z Fold series. The cover screen, when folded, is 164.8 mm (6.5 inches) with a 21:9 aspect ratio, offering functionality and grip similar to bar-type smartphones.

Samsung said the Galaxy Z Fold SE boasts a 200-megapixel wide-angle camera – the first to do so with a Galaxy Z Series – to enable even more vivid and clearer photo and video shooting,

With 16 gigabytes (GB) of memory, the smartphone enables optimized performance with the Samsung AI technology, it said.

The Galaxy Z Fold SE is powered by Qualcomm Inc.’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 mobile platform.

The special edition will come in one color option called Black Shadow.

The phone's exterior offers a blend of metal (armor aluminum) and Gorilla Glass Victus 2 and has a stripe pattern at the back.

Prospective buyers can get it through Samsung’s online shop as well as those operated by Korea’s three mobile carriers – SK Telecom Co., KT Corp. and LG Uplus Corp.

The new phone will retail at 2,789,600 won ($2,031).

Customers who purchase and activate the special edition on Samsung.com by the end of the year will receive discount coupons for other Samsung products such as the Galaxy Ring, Galaxy Watch Ultra, Galaxy Buds 3 Pro, and Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra, according to the company.

The three mobile carriers are also planning to offer discounts and promotional gifts.

SLIMMING WAR

When Samsung unveiled its latest iteration of foldable smartphones – the Galaxy Z Flip6 and the Z Fold6 – at the Unpacked 2024 event in July in Paris, TM Roh, president and head of Samsung’s Mobile eXperience (MX) division, said the focus of the next Galaxy foldable phones will be on slimness.

He asked Samsung engineers to develop an extra-slim foldable smartphone – similar to the bar-type Galaxy S24’s thickness of 7.7 millimeters when folded, according to industry sources.

Samsung has been trying to make foldable smartphones its mainstream products in the high-end segment to compete with its archrival Apple Inc.

Due to their size and weight, however, foldable phones launched by global smartphone makers accounted for a mere 1.6% of the entire smartphone market last year.

The war to make foldable smartphones slimmer is already underway among major smartphone makers.

China’s Xiaomi Inc. recently unveiled a 9.47 mm thick Mix Fold 4.

Honor Device Co., a spin-off of Huawei Technologies Co., promoted its 9.2 mm Magic V3 launched in July as the world’s slimmest foldable phone.

Huawei's Mate XT, which was released last month, features a thickness of 12 mm despite being a dual-fold device.

According to market research firm Counterpoint Research, Huawei topped the list of foldable smartphone makers with a 35% market share as of the first quarter, followed by Samsung with a 23% share.

Write to Jung-Soo Hwang at hjs@hankyung.com
In-Soo Nam edited this article.