Galaxy Z Flip 7 FE: Does Samsung's stab at a low-cost foldable phone miss the mark?

For a while now, I've wanted a cheaper edition of one of Samsung's foldable phones in the worst way. And looking at the Galaxy Z Flip 7 FE, that seems to be exactly what Samsung's delivered.

All right, that's a little harsh on the newly announced budget version of Samsung's foldable flip phone, which certainly isn't a bad device on paper. The fact that you can now get a foldable phone from Samsung that costs less than $1,000 — the first time we've been able to say that since the Galaxy Z Flip 5 two years ago — is a welcome move for anyone watching their bottom line.

And it would be unreasonable to expect that the Galaxy Z Flip 7 FE to match the more impressive Galaxy Z Flip 7 feature for feature. The entire point of Samsung's whole FE approach is to scale back some features for the sake of offering a more affordable model.

The problem emerges when you compare the Galaxy Z Flip 7 FE to another one of Samsung's phones, the Galaxy Z Flip 6 that's been out for more than a year. Because when you do, you won't spot a lot of distance between the two devices.

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Galaxy Z Flip 7 FE vs. Galaxy Z Flip 6

Look at that chart, and I defy you to find more than a dime's bit of difference between the Galaxy Z Flip 7 FE, ostensibly a new phone, and the Galaxy Z Flip 6. The dimensions are the same. The camera specs are the same. The battery is unchanged. The standard Galaxy Z Flip 7 may be getting bigger screens, but on the FE, they're not any different from what the Galaxy Z Flip 6 offered.

That said, a few specs are different from last year's Flip, though the differences aren't always to the Z Flip 7 FE's credit. You get less RAM and storage in the base model of the Galaxy Z Flip FE, though, to be fair to Samsung, if you pre-order the FE, you can upgrade to the 256GB model without any price increase. That means you'll have the same amount of storage as a base model Galaxy Z Flip 6 without having to pay extra.

The chipset is also different between the two phones, with the Galaxy Z Flip 7 FE turning to an Exynos 2400 as opposed to the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset that Samsung used last year. These are both older chipsets, so that's not a big difference in theory, even though Snapdragons tend to perform a little better than their Exynos counterparts.

Samsung would protest that the above specs comparison doesn't capture a crucial difference between the two phones — the Galaxy Z Flip FE enjoys all the latest Galaxy AI features, such as the Now Brief feature on the outer Flex Window to alert you to your daily schedule, the weather and other matters of interest. And that's a fair point — Galaxy AI is a big part of the case for getting a Samsung phone, and the Galaxy Z Flip 7 FE's $899 price lets you get an up-to-date handset for a relatively low cost of admission.

Is the Galaxy Z Flip 7 FE price right?

But is the price of admission low enough? Samsung would argue less, as you can pick up a new Galaxy Z Flip 7 FE for $200 less than what you'd pay for a regular Galaxy Z Flip 7, even if you're essentially buying last year's phone. After all, the Galaxy Z Flip 6 started at $1,099, too.

But that doesn't acknowledge that the price of the Galaxy Z Flip 6 isn't likely to stay at $1,099. I realizing I'm writing this during the midst of Amazon Prime Day, and prices on phones are dropping across the board. You can currently pick up a 512GB Galaxy Z Flip 6 at Amazon for the same $899 price as the entry-level Galaxy Z Flip 7 FE. Drop the storage down to 256GB on the Galaxy Z Flip 6, and you'd pay $799 — which is less than the Galaxy Z Flip 7 FE.

Now, that discounted price on the Galaxy Z Flip 6 is likely to end when Amazon Prime Day sales do. But I'd be willing to wager that prices on last year's Flip are likely to fall once the Galaxy Z Flip 7 series goes on sale for good on July 25.

To put it another way, why pay $899 for a device with the specs from last year's phone when last year's phone is probably going to cost less soon enough — especially since the Galaxy Z Flip 6 is getting Android and security updates for another six years?

Other cheap foldables

The Galaxy Z Flip 7 FE doesn't just exist in a world of Samsung phones. There are other foldable devices out there, particularly when it comes to flip phones, and Samsung's new affordable model is hardly the cheapest of the bunch.

That honor goes to the Motorola Razr (2025), a $699 foldable flip phone that also makes some compromises to deliver that lower price tag. The entry-level Razr runs on a MediaTek Dimensity 7400X system-on-chip, which I don't imagine will trouble the Exynos 2400-powered Z Flip 7 FE when I test those devices head to head.

But in other aspects, the Razr has better specs than the Flip. Motorola's phone offers bigger main and cover displays, has a bigger battery and more memory and storage. I wouldn't find taking a performance hit for gains in those other areas.

And if you do value performance above all, the $999 Razr Plus (2025) isn't much more expensive than the Galaxy Z Flip 7 FE. It has even larger screens, additional memory and a Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 chipset. And you're still paying a little less than $1,000 for that particular model.

I'm not saying the Galaxy Z Flip 7 FE won't outperform either of these phones once we get a chance to test Samsung's new lower-cost foldable. But I do think that when faced with a chance to produce a stripped-back phone for a lower price, Samsung put a little too much emphasis on the former part of the brief and not enough on the latter part. Those AI features on board the Flip are really going to have to shine through to take the sting out of that.

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