Forget the note – Samsung’s foldables are also coming for the Galaxy S

Folding phones have been easy to dismiss as science fiction, even after they became a reality two years ago. They were too expensive, too big, too compromised to make sense for most. Some flips collapsed instantly. But in 2021, a foldable phone appears to have killed Samsung’s longtime Galaxy Note – and I’m starting to wonder if they’ll destroy the flagship Galaxy S as well.

This is because last month Samsung promised to generalize foldables. And at $ 999, with fewer compromises than ever before, Samsung’s new Z Flip 3 looks dangerously close to a full replacement for Samsung’s $ 999 Galaxy S21 Plus. For the same price, they both have 6.7-inch 120Hz AMOLED displays, the latest Snapdragon 888 processors, the same memory and storage options, the same water resistance, and roughly the same dimensions. , just with a slightly lighter frame and a smaller battery, and one less camera on the back.

Except a of these phones impressively folds up to half its size, and the other doesn’t. Assuming Samsung’s new durability improvements aren’t just talk and the plastic-coated screen isn’t weird, I know which one I would choose!

Would Samsung really center its Galaxy S flat screen in favor of foldables, however? It’s not as far-fetched as you might think, because after two years of selling a ridiculous number of ‘flagship’ phones, Galaxy S handsets are surrounded on all sides.

In 2019, the company tried to sell as many as 10 different flagship phones around the world, including four different Galaxy S10s and four different Galaxy Notes with largely identical base specs. 2020 brought 11 different flagships, if you count the Galaxy S10 Lite and Note 10 Lite. Five flagship phones could still be too many in 2021, if three of them don’t sell particularly well.

It’s not like Samsung is killing its best-selling handsets by ditching the Galaxy S, by the way. The company’s mid-range A-series phones are actually its sales champions, after Samsung said it would prioritize these handsets in 2018. Meanwhile, sales of Samsung’s Galaxy S phones are said to have fell 47% over the past two generations, with the Galaxy S21 on track to be even more disappointing than the Galaxy S20 was the year before.

Does Samsung need the Galaxy S more than the Galaxy Note? For smartphone enthusiasts who want the best of everything, now including the ability to fold into a tablet, the Z Fold is already replacing the Note. Next year, with a few camera upgrades, it could theoretically dethrone Samsung’s “Ultra” phones as well. That could make way for the Flip to become Samsung’s new default flagship, with the fold-like “Next Big Thing” that Apple isn’t offering its customers (at least not yet). For everyone else, there’s Samsung’s increasingly powerful Galaxy A series, which will likely get even more aggressive now that Xiaomi has overtaken Samsung in Europe.

If that happens, I would expect a period of transition: the flagship category still starts around $ 700, not the $ 1,000 Samsung is asking for the Flip 3, so the company would likely keep a Galaxy S22 FE in the game. minimum. (The Galaxy S21 FE is still on hold.)

And even if Samsung decides not to focus on flat-panel flagships, that doesn’t mean the Galaxy S name will necessarily go away. It just might become what Samsung calls its foldable phones one day. Galaxy S is the brand that has put Samsung in the spotlight for the past decade, so there is value and precedent in transferring the name to a new design: when Samsung started experimenting with curved glass screens, it started off as the Galaxy Edge, but those curves became standard with the Galaxy S8. If Samsung makes foldables the new standard, we might see the same thing.

All I know for sure: Samsung’s bloated lineup of flagships was getting pretty ridiculous – remember the Note 10 specifically for the blockchain? – and it doesn’t have to be that way.

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