Samsung's special Z Fold edition is not so special in China
Samsung recently launched an unprecedented third foldable handset in its 2024 bendy phone roster under the title of Galaxy Z Fold Special Edition. Priced $500 higher than the regular Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6, the Special Edition phone has elegance going for it, as it is the thinnest Samsung foldable released to date.
Still, Samsung isn't beating the drum when it comes to the Galaxy Z Fold Special Edition release, and only launched it on the hush-hush in its home turf in Korea. The reasoning behind that limited release might be the competition of the mighty Chinese foldable phone juggernauts, whose wares are thinner, cheaper, and with better specs than the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold Special Edition.
Well, that has been the premise all along, as Samsung apparently isn't all that afraid of taking the fight to the competition directly, as it just released the special Galaxy Z Fold edition in China.
Rather than calling it special, though, Samsung is launching it in its tried and true tradition of renaming its foldable forms as the W series in China. The Galaxy Z Fold Special Edition has become just the W25 for the Chinese market and is a company by the W25 Flip that is simply a take on the Galaxy Z Flip 6 but dressed in gold finish.
For the Chinese market, however, Samsung has made the W25 a tad heavier thanks to the use of a premium ceramic back, and has painted it in the typical golden color that it uses for the W series phones in China, adapting their looks to the local tastes that love gold and red.
Still, it is the same exclusive Z Fold handset with a 200 megapixel rear camera, a Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processor, and up to one terabyte of storage. The Samsung W25 price in China is still unknown at this point, but if the Korean launch is any indication, it might hit the $2,400 equivalent mark, with the Samsung W25 Flip costing a grand less.
While the ceramic back and golden finishes are a nice touch, Samsung will have a steep hill to climb with those W25 series prices as it faces a formidable and, above all, much cheaper competition in the lion's den of foldable phones that China has become.
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