The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip just got a permanent $250 discount, which means you can now get a foldable phone for the same price as a Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra.
As can be seen on Samsung’s store page, the Galaxy Z Flip 5G now costs $1,199, down from $1,449. Smartphone shoppers who had put that much money aside for a Galaxy S21 Ultra may now find the idea of a foldable phone more tempting.
This model is the revised version of the Z Flip, which launched in fall 2020 with a Snapdragon 865 Plus chipset and 5G compatibility. The original from spring 2020 used a less powerful Snapdragon 855 Plus chip and offered only 4G support.
The $1,449 Z Flip was already one of the cheapest foldables around. The only comparable phone is the $1,500 Moto Razr, but the Samsung’s handset is a better-made product. Now at the new lower price, there’s essentially no meaningful rival for the Z Flip available.
The Galaxy S21 Ultra and Z Flip are two very different phones, even if they now cost the same. The S21 Ultra offers superior performance with twice as many cameras on the back, a much larger total display size and more processing power thanks to a newer Snapdragon 888 chipset and more RAM.
However the Galaxy Z Flip is much more portable thanks to its folding display, plus the fact it folds is still a futuristic novelty. Thinks of it as a modernized flip phone.
We’re expecting two more foldables to arrive later this year: the Galaxy Z Flip 3 and the Galaxy Z Fold 3. However, we keep hearing rumors of a Samsung Galaxy Z Fold Lite too, which will in theory make the larger book-fold form factor more affordable like the Z Flip 5G.
The Galaxy Z Flip 5G was already in second place on our list of the best foldable phones. But if Samsung continues to lower the price as it has done, then perhaps we’ll see our first flexible entry on the overall best phones rankings.