Samsung Ends $2,899 Galaxy Z TriFold Sales After Just Three Months (9to5google.com) 34
Samsung is reportedly ending sales of the Galaxy Z TriFold just months after launch, likely due to "high production costs" and limited supply. 9to5Google reports: The Galaxy Z TriFold launched in South Korea barely four months ago, arriving in Samsung's home market ahead of a larger debut in the U.S. and other markets in January. The $2,899 smartphone brought an entirely new form factor to the foldable market, but it's apparently very short-lived.
Korean media reports (via SamMobile) that Samsung is planning to end sales of the Galaxy Z TriFold in Korea, with one more restock coming in the country this week. In the United States, the report mentions that the TriFold will be available until "the current production volume is sold out," which sounds like we might only get another restock or two here as well.
Korean media reports (via SamMobile) that Samsung is planning to end sales of the Galaxy Z TriFold in Korea, with one more restock coming in the country this week. In the United States, the report mentions that the TriFold will be available until "the current production volume is sold out," which sounds like we might only get another restock or two here as well.
Who could've seen this coming? (Score:5, Insightful)
Overpriced phone based on a wildly unpopular form factor isn't successful and is cancelled. Who'd a thunk it?
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Yeah, I couldn't imagine wanting one of these at all, let alone paying almost three grand for it. I've had the same $200 phone for five years.
Re:Who could've seen this coming? (Score:4, Insightful)
I could. I don't look at it as a phone so much as a foldable tablet with a screen sufficiently large as to be actually useful.
If it also happens to work well as a smartphone when folded down then that could likewise be useful.
Trouble is, it needs to be no more expensive than a phone and a tablet separately purchased in order for most potential customers to justify it. If it costs more than both combined then scant few will bother adopting it.
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I think a single fold would be enough, two is not going to add much value for me.
They could make them a lot cheaper if they didn't insist on having so many cameras. Just a couple on the back, a main and a wide or telephoto, would be fine for me. No need for two selfie cameras, you can just fold it out and use the rear ones.
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My current phone has three cameras on it, two for regular use and one for selfies. If they increased the resolution of the cameras, they could easily change it to two cameras.
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Yeah, I couldn't imagine wanting one of these at all, let alone paying almost three grand for it. I've had the same $200 phone for five years.
I would like a phone like that - but never at that price. In fact, I wouldn't pay more than a few hundred US dollars for it. It is a nice gadget, but nowhere near as nice as warranting that preposterous price.
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Just about any new form factor is going to be 'wildly unpopular' unless it takes off.
It is usually hard to get it right the first time either. Look at Apple, they became one of the biggest tech vendors on the planet mostly by spotting other innovative products, and some combination of
1) Waiting for the tech to mature, and cloning with improved capabilities
2) Identifying and fixing usability issues and delivering an improved implementation
3) waiting for the public to be ready / marketing the hell out of some
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Re: Who could've seen this coming? (Score:3)
My wife had a flip phone. The non-removable screen protector developed a crease until it got so big that the screen cracked from folding. The quote to fix it was $2k and had to send it to Samsung for weeks to wait for it to be fixed. Now we are once bitten twice shy and I'm done with new designs that make people into suckers because they may not be ready for production. We may consider getting one again if we knew any other people using it in our -30c climate without problems, but I have never known any
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That would bug the hell out of me.
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Overpriced phone
Given the problem was turning a profit due to manufacturing costs, by all accounts it was underpriced.
The Influencer Market. (Score:2)
Overpriced phone based on a wildly unpopular form factor isn't successful and is cancelled. Who'd a thunk it?
Samsung should have. Long before making a $3K phone. Can I sue the Board now for my predictive losses in the stock market? Fiduciary Duty seems to think so.
In all seriousness, this kind of product failure makes me wonder if companies are literally targeting an Influencer market when justifying the creation of certain products. With a price tag like that, I’m betting 95% of the units that sold qualify for a social media channel business write off.
IS that rather silly market, now actually large enou
Sold Out, Did They? (Score:2)
LOL!
The REAL reason it got cancelled (Score:5, Funny)
Samsung's chairman, Lee Jae-yong, was overheard saying "F*** everything, we're doing 5 folds."
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You joke, but 4 to 5 would be the right number if they could magically work out all the engineering problems.
The biggest problem for 2-fold is that if you start with a a standard widescreen 9:16, unfolding gets you 18:16 -- a glorified square. It's nice for content that doesn't care, and is awesome for tankobon comics which are 7:5 and painful to read on a normal phone. On the other hand, the unfolded version doesn't get you much extra space when viewing standard widescreen video -- it's a small improveme
Fool me once ... (Score:3)
Every time I/we pay extra for more screen real estate, it just gets hijacked for advertising, on-screen controls and other crap obscuring the content or the stupid website breaks the content over several pages and refuses to flow or size text.
Samsung should get all those idiots to chip in and buy me a three grand phone if they are the ones getting to use it.
Jacket (Score:3)
I'd buy 2 iPads professional and one of the special jackets with a pocket for them instead.
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I love the way you pluralized that. I don't think it's right, as it isn't hyphenated or a Norman root, but I really enjoyed it.
I'm honestly impressed anytime I see someone add a pluralizing 's' without adding an apostrophe. It's almost unheard of!
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While you're correct, and I'm not disputing that, I often don't like an 'unadorned s' for pluralizing proper nouns and non-word things (like acronyms.) I wish there was a way to pluralize while still keeping the base word distinct.
As an example, multiple people named Judy definitely won't be "Judies", but I don't like them being "Judys" either, and definitely not "Judyes". "Judy's" seems more respecting of their actual name. I haven't figured out how to solve the collision with the possessive, and tha
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While you're correct, and I'm not disputing that, I often don't like an 'unadorned s' for pluralizing proper nouns and non-word things (like acronyms.) I wish there was a way to pluralize while still keeping the base word distinct.
As an example, multiple people named Judy definitely won't be "Judies", but I don't like them being "Judys" either, and definitely not "Judyes". "Judy's" seems more respecting of their actual name. I haven't figured out how to solve the collision with the possessive, and that's the fatal flaw of my argument. [Side note: The editor marked "Judys" and "Judyes" as being spelled incorrectly. Take THAT Merriam-Webster.]
So, while it's purely accidental and muscle memory in my stupid fingers, not lack of knowledge, when I always use "it's" as a possessive, it's a deliberate choice, having full knowledge, when I add extra characters to my pluralized proper nouns. Call it a rebellion.
English is stupidly beautiful. All these confusions allow for some great puns and absurdist writing techniques.
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English being my 4th language makes me miss some things,:-)
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I insist that you keep the compliment.
post mortem? (Score:1)
Now we know how much is too much for a phone (Score:2)
Samsung had to go test the upper bound.
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I guess they thought that making an expensive phone just to be expensive would one up Apple. Meanwhile Apple built the very reasonably priced MacBook Neo, which is much more capable than a similarly priced ChromeBook, or other Windows based laptops.
TBH, this was probably more of a technology showcase to brag about what they can build, while most, but not all, Apple releases are for products that are actually usable by the masses.
Well, let's start with $2,899 price....... (Score:2)
$3k phone not doing well (Score:2)
Huawei's tri fold sold for almost half the price. (Score:2)
Meanwhile the huawei tri-fold sold for almost half the cost...