If you think Samsung is done releasing new foldable smartphones for 2024, think again. Just months after releasing the Galaxy Z Fold 6, the Korean smartphone maker has just introduced the Galaxy Z Fold Special Edition. Unlike its previous iteration, the new Special Edition device comes with a larger screen and it manages to be thinner and lighter than the Galaxy Z Fold 6.
With the number of notable upgrades, it is hard not to think that this could have been the Galaxy Z Fold 6 for this year.
Samsung Galaxy Z Fold Special Edition Pricing and Availability
The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold Special Edition is currently launched in South Korea with a retail price of KRW 2,789,600 (about RM8,710). There’s only a single configuration – 512GB of storage and it comes only in “Black Shadow”.
According to the official announcement, the new foldable device will go on sale starting 25th October at 9:00am in South Korea through official malls of three local telcos. Customers who purchase and activate the Special Edition foldable by 31st December will be given discount coupons for the Galaxy Ring, Galaxy Watch Ultra, Galaxy Buds 3 Pro and Galaxy Tab S10 Ultra.
Samsung Galaxy Z Fold Special Edition vs Galaxy Z Fold 6
While the Galaxy Z Fold Special Edition looks quite similar to the current Galaxy Z Fold 6, there are a couple of huge upgrades. The biggest difference is the display as the Special Edition device gets a larger 8.0″ inner screen with a 20:18 resolution of 2184 x 1968 while the cover display is also bigger at 6.5″ with a 21:9 resolution of 2520 x 1080 pixels. As a comparison, the Galaxy Z Fold 6 features a 7.6″ inner display and a 6.3″ outer display.
Despite the larger screens, the Galaxy Z Fold Special Edition is Samsung’s thinnest and lightest large-screen foldable smartphone yet. At 10.6mm thick (Unfolded: 4.9mm), and weighing 236g, it is 1.5mm thinner and 3g lighter than the Galaxy Z Fold 6. However, it still isn’t as slim and lightweight as the Honor Magic V3 which measures 9.2mm thin and weighs just 226g.
Under the hood, it still runs on a familiar Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 for Galaxy, but the amount of RAM has been bumped from 12GB to 16GB which Samsung says provides a “Galaxy AI experience optimised for foldables”.
In terms of design, it gets a more squarish camera island and the back glass panel and metal frame now feature a striped pattern for a more sophisticated look.
Another major upgrade is the main camera as the 50MP main shooter has been upgraded to a higher-resolution 200MP camera, which is similar to the current Galaxy S24 Ultra. The rest of the camera seems to be unchanged which includes a 12MP ultra-wide-angle camera and a 10MP telephoto camera with 3x optical zoom. For selfies, the cover display still gets a 10MP front shooter while the main screen on the inside gets a 4MP camera.
Interestingly, the product page in South Korea mentions that the Galaxy Z Fold Special Edition cannot be used with the S Pen but it isn’t clear if it supports the S Pen Pro.
However, the Special Edition device still gets a rather small 4,400mAh battery. Being the latest flagship device, the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold Special Edition supports 7 years of Android OS upgrades and comes pre-installed with Android 14 based on One UI 6.1.1.
So far there are no details of this Galaxy Z Fold Special Edition coming to Malaysia anytime soon. However, it has been speculated that it could be released in mainland China as the Samsung W25 Fold.
To recap, the Galaxy Z Fold 6 was launched in July this year alongside the Z Flip 6. The official price in Malaysia starts from RM7,299 for the 256GB model and goes all the way to RM9,099 for the 1TB version.
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