According to a new report, Samsung may not be making major changes to its 2025 foldables after all, but it’s still too early to tell.
“Our phones aren’t selling well. What should we do?”
“Change nothing!”I’m no marketing guy, but somehow that doesn’t track.
It does track if you realise the category of phone does not have much demand. Foldables are a novelty that many people will be discouraged from buying due to issues (perceived and real).
It’s a waste of money to improve these phones if the market isn’t there. It’s much better to focus on the markets you have a reasonable chance of growing sales in.
I imagine all smart phone categories are fairly stagnant now. Phones have been more than good enough for many years now that replacing them is more about replacing worn out unsupported hardware rather than getting better performance and features.
My guess is that they are saving any big upgrades for when Apple launches their foldable.
I keep seeing articles like this.
Do you know why Samsung’s foldables sold so well each year prior to the last? Because they did something insane where they allowed the USA market to pay only $50-100 for the latest foldable if they just traded in their old model. They also often gave away free products with the phones like ear buds and watches.
In 2024, they stopped that insane deal. Obviously sales plummeted as a result.
I’m not saying that was at all a sustainable business model. But people are acting surprised when less people bought the newest line when they weren’t dirt cheap like the old ones and they are only iterative changes.
Gimme S pen integration and drop the price a bit, Samsung, I’m interested in upgrading from the Note 20 Ultra, but at what you’re asking, I’ll just buy spare parts and fix up my current phone.
If they could fit a tiny s pen in the Flip I’d buy it in a heartbeat. The Nintendo DS pulled it off.
That’s not really a fair comparison. The Nintendo DS had a passive stylus so making it tiny was easy. The S Pen is an active stylus, there is a limit to how tiny you can make the electronics and still have them work.
Don’t get me wrong, I would love the S Pen on a Galaxy Fold, but I don’t see them reducing it’s size by much. Putting it in the fold would absolutely require a sacrifice to the thickness of the phone, which is already an area where Samsung is miles behind the competition
It seems like a stylus would be such a natural pairing with either device, it’s really surprising to me that Samsung has left this out of the build.
Agreed! I had the fold previously and the S Pen case was so awkward. I’m blown away that that they didn’t make space for it in the phone itself. I had used every Note model before the Fold was released, and it was perfect.
Nowadays I’m running a Flip 5 and it’s perfectly okay but I’m really hoping for something big in the coming years.
The fold5 can use an S pen unless I’m an idiot.
It can, so can the 6, but there’s no housing for it in the body of the phone like on the Note and some of the Galaxy line.
Ah, I gave up wanting them to change course on that when it was clear that they never wanted to do it again for some insane reason. Note20 was probably the last.
They do have cases that will hold them, but the cases apparently suck.
That case issue is what actually finally turned me off of buying one. I was on the checkout screen on the Samsung website, saw they offered a case that would hold the S Pen that they wanted $40 for. So many of the reviews were for 1 star noting it quickly broke in the same place. So there’s a rather serious design flaw in that case.
I got an OEM replacement back panel and camera housing for the Note 20 Ultra for $17 with shipping.