Samsung’s foldable phone could cost $2500, but will you buy one?

A report from Gizmodo UK claims that Samsung's unnamed foldable phone, recently teased at the company's event, will cost between £1,500 (or Rs 1,35,896) and £2,000 (Rs 1,81,195).

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Samsung’s Justin Denison shows off the foldable smartphone at the company’s annual developer conference in San Francisco.

Samsung’s foldable phone is touted as the next big thing in the tech industry, a device that’s essentially a tablet that fits in your pocket. Unfortunately, don’t expect the foldable phone to be a mainstream device like the Galaxy S9 or Note 9. The reason: an astronomically high price of Samsung’s foldable smartphone.

A report from Gizmodo UK claims that Samsung’s unnamed foldable phone, recently teased at the company’s event, will cost between £1,500 (or Rs 1,35,896) and £2,000 (Rs 1,81,195). That price is way higher than the top-end model of the iPhone XS Max, which costs $1,449 (or approx Rs 1,02,379). The report claims the foldable phone will come in multiple variants, and the top-end model will exceed the £2,000 mark. That’s surely not a price for a “mainstream phone”.

Whenever Samsung plans to launch a foldable smartphone next year, it will come at a jaw-dropping price. All this leads to one big question: should you be concerned about the foldable phone? Not really, even if you are an early adopter.

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Smartphones with bendable displays have long been envisioned as a replacement to the regular phones, but they are inherently flawed. Longevity, for instance, is a major concern. Yes, you can bend a screen, but we do not know whether it will work exactly the way it has been advertised. We are also concerned about the bulkiness of a foldable phone. When Samsung showed off its foldable phone concent earlier this month at its developer conference, it appeared to be bulkier than the standard phone we use on a daily basis. Battery life is another issue, given these devices use power-hungry screens.

Also read : 5 big questions Samsung need to answer about its foldable phone

Smartphone sales have been sluggish in many matured markets, and Samsung and others brands have become fully aware that they need to offer some different device to consumers to gain transaction. And that device could be a foldable phone which promises to offer a tablet in a pocket-sized form factor. The biggest issue, though, is this: do people really want or need a foldable phone? As of now, neither Samsung nor Google are ready to offer any explanation of the relevance of a foldable phone. It remains to be seen if the foldable phones are merely a glorified concept or if Samsung can build unique use cases around the new form factor.

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