Samsung is preparing a cheaper Galaxy Fold “Lite” foldable smartphone

The Samsung Galaxy Fold was one of my favorite phones from last year. It’s Samsung’s first-ever foldable smartphone, and I think it’s a joy to use. In my view, the main issue with the Galaxy Fold isn’t its hardware but rather its price. At a retail price of $1,980, it is priced out of reach for most consumers. Even so, Samsung claimed back in January to have sold between 400-500k units, and that figure could be even higher by now. Now, we’re hearing from multiple sources that Samsung is looking to make the Galaxy Fold more palatable to consumers by introducing a much cheaper Galaxy Fold “Lite” model.

The CEO of Display Supply Chain Consultants, Ross Young, recently published a tweet on his official Twitter account revealing that Samsung plans to announce the “Galaxy Fold Special Edition” in July at a reduced price of $1,099. He claims that Samsung will sell this cheaper model in reduced quantities, approximately ~55k units worldwide, in order to clear out inventory of the first-generation Galaxy Fold before the second-generation model is introduced later this year.

To clear out Galaxy Fold 1 inventory before the Galaxy Fold 2 is launched, Samsung will announce the Galaxy Fold Special Edition in July at a price around $1099. Quantities will be limited to ~55K worldwide. It should look just like the Galaxy Fold 1. Great price!

— Ross Young (@DSCCRoss) May 13, 2020

In a separate tweet, Mr. Young also claims that the Special Edition phone will have the same design as the original Galaxy Fold that was released last year. Mr. Young’s sources recently gave us insight into the display specifications of the Galaxy Note 20 series, and his information corroborates what I shared earlier this week on Twitter.

I have some info on the Galaxy Fold Lite.

-Galaxy Fold Lite 4G
-256GB storage
-Mirror Black, Mirror Purple
-Display has no UTG
-Will be equipped with a mix of 2018/19/20 parts
-outside will probably have a smaller display (not like on Fold, but more like the Z Flip)

— Max Weinbach (@MaxWinebach) May 12, 2020

Over the weekend, one of my sources reached out to me to mention the existence of this device. My source referred to it as “Galaxy Fold e.” We believe that the “e” moniker is being used similarly to the Samsung Galaxy S10e, which basically means this new model is based on the original Galaxy Fold but with different internal hardware. This could mean fewer cameras, the removal of the cover display (or replacing it with a smaller one), and the Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 but without 5G support. We’re hearing that it could come in Astro Blue along with Mirror Purple and Mirror Black colors. We’re also hearing that it could come with 256GB of internal storage and 8GB of RAM. This Galaxy Fold “Lite” device would thus come with a mixture of 2018, 2019, and 2020 parts.

The rumored code-name of this product is “winner2” which we found in the Galaxy S20 Ultra’s kernel source code a few months ago. There is a chance this device could end up being either the Project “champ” or Project “top,” too. These are also rumored to be code-names of upcoming Samsung foldable smartphones.

While it might seem like there is a lot of information we already know about this device, I would take some of it with a grain of salt. Although we aren’t 100% sure of all the details yet, it’s clear to us now that Samsung is working on a cheaper foldable device.

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