After many weeks of rumors and speculation, Samsung has officially unveiled the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold Special Edition. This brand new foldable that promises to be thinner and lighter than the original Galaxy Z Fold 6, while also offering a much larger screen. Unfortunately you’re probably not going to be able to buy one for yourself.
As rumored, the Z Fold SE is only available in South Korea, though a Chinese release seems to be on the cards as well. The phone is also priced at 2,789,600 Won, which is roughly $2,025, and means this is the most expensive foldable Samsung has produced so far. And you thought the $1,800 Galaxy Z Fold 6 was pricey.
So what would you actually get for your money if you did manage to buy a Z Fold SE? This phone is now 10.6mm/0.41 inches thick, making it 1.5mm/0.05 inches thinner than the Galaxy Z Fold 6. It’s also 0.1 ounces lighter, with a total weight of 8.32 ounces. Though you’d be forgiven for wondering just how much of a difference those specs will actually make, because it doesn’t seem like a great deal of difference.
There’s also no S Pen support, which is one of the most prominent rumors we heard about. So it sounds like Samsung may well have simply removed the digitizer display layer that power stylus support to shave off a little bit of thickness. Which seems like a waste, considering this phone isn’t that much thinner than its predecessor.
There is some good news, though, thanks to all the other upgrades. For starters the SE’s main camera has been boosted from 50MP to 200MP, which is on par with the Galaxy S24 Ultra. On top of that the displays are larger, with an 8-inch inner folding display and a 6.5-inch cover display. Naturally this makes the phone taller and wider with aspect ratios of 20:18 and 21:9.
We’re also looking at 16GB of RAM, plus Wi-Fi 7 support for faster download speeds. Sadly the battery is the same 4,272 mAh as the Galaxy Z Fold 6, and combined with the larger screen could mean that the battery life is a little lower. Though we won’t know for sure until the battery can be properly tested.
Thankfully the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 for Galaxy is still powering the phone, which should mean all the same top-tier performance and energy efficiency as other recent Samsung flagships. Samsung also confirmed that the phone will be getting 7 years of software updates, though it has launched with OneUI 6.1.1 which is based on Android 14. There’s no word on when Samsung will release the Android 15-based OneUI 7 right now.
The Galaxy Z Fold SE will be available to purchase from October 25 in South Korea, for the aforementioned 2,789,600 won price tag. There’s no word on any kind of international launch, beyond rumors the phone may head to China, so your chances of getting one of these phones for yourself is pretty slim.
