You guys think the Samsung Tri-Fold should cost $2,000, but have you considered this?

According to our latest poll on the Samsung Tri-Fold phone, you guys think this device should cost around $2000 to be an attractive buy.

I understand that smartphones are getting more and more expensive, and the $3,000 projected price for the Galaxy G Fold (the alleged name for the tri-fold) might seem steep, but there are things to be considered.

But first, let's get up to speed those of you who are just hearing about this tri-fold phone from Samsung.

The Galaxy G Fold

Rumors about Samsung working on a tri-folding phone started to emerge around the launch of Huawei's own triple-folding concept that subsequently turned into a mass-produced, market-available device—the Huawei Mate XT.

You can check out our review, but long story short—it's a unique phone offering some unique possibilities but also coming with unique drawbacks. From the sheer overuse of the term "unique," you can get a feel about this device, and it appears Samsung thinks so too. Because the company wants a bite of that cake.

TM Roh, Samsung's mobile business chief himself, said a couple of weeks earlier, "We are working hard on a tri-fold smartphone with the goal of launching it at the end of this year. We are now focusing on perfecting the product and its usability, but we have not decided its name. As the product nears completion, we are planning to make a final decision soon."

This statement fueled a huge metaphorical fire of speculations, rumors, and alleged leaks. One of these put the price of the Samsung Galaxy G Fold at 4 million won, or around $3000. Compared to the recently launched Galaxy Z Fold 7 and its $1,999 price tag, $1,000 for another fold in the screen might sound outrageous.

Why are tri-folding phones so expensive?

There are several key reasons. Let's not forget that the aforementioned Huawei Mate XT launched at 3,499 euros (around $3,660), illustrating many of those key reasons.

Reason 1 - Research & Development

This one's obvious for any innovative and pioneering product out there, but some might argue that we've had foldables for quite some time now and scaling from a single fold in the screen to a dual-hinge device should not be such a problem.

While there's truth to that argument, things are not that simple. Samsung needs to design the Galaxy G Fold from scratch; it's not as simple as attaching another wing to the Galaxy Z Fold 7. The three batteries inside must be designed separately, the hinge mechanisms are not the same as the ones used on a normal Fold, and the software involved to power a device that folds three times also requires a lot of work, some of it from the ground up.

A tri-folding phone might look like a normal foldable with a bigger screen and one additional hinge, but in fact, it's a completely different device. It's a complicated puzzle of components, split into three separate housings and arranged carefully to work in synchrony.

Reason 2 - Exotic materials

The cost of materials is another obvious reason—slapping a bigger flexible screen that folds in two places on a phone costs more, and using two hinges instead of one also ramps up the cost.

These two components are the most expensive ones on a foldable, as hinges require exotic materials such as liquid metal, titanium, or even some complicated alloys to make the end product strong enough and light enough to be useful.

The Huawei Mate XT, for example, uses non-Newtonian fluid in its design, coupled with ultra-thin glass. Non-Newtonian fluids change viscosity depending on the force, or to put it simply, they can act like solids when hit.

Incorporating these exotic materials in a smartphone could prove difficult not only due to the sheer price of the said materials, but also because working with them requires specific machinery. Which brings me to the next reason.

Reason 3 - Low production volume

In order to make something cheaper, one should mass-produce it in volume. And in the case of the Galaxy G Fold, this would require a big initial investment—tweaking the factories and changing the machines and tooling processes to incorporate the new design and all the R&D costs on top.

Samsung also won't take the risk of making the G Fold in huge volume, as it's a completely new design for the company and potential sales are a big unknown. So this initial investment will spread over a smaller volume of phones.

Let's say Samsung spent $100 million in R&D and decides to make 10,000 units of the Galaxy G Fold. This means each unit will have an inherent $1,000 cost just from R&D. Add the material costs on top, the software and hardware licenses and patent taxes, distribution, marketing, and ad budgets; it all piles up.

This is reflected in another quote from inside Samsung sources: "We’ve had a tri-fold for some time, designed and everything. So it’s not a new concept to us. What we’re debating is the viability. When I say the viability, is there really a demand for this form factor? ...we are ready (for it), we can put it into production, but to what purpose? That’s what we’re deeply investigating at the moment."

Do we need a tri-folding Galaxy, and are we prepared to pay the price?

Well, reasons can explain the price of a product but won't make people buy it if it's too expensive for them. There are a couple of questions we should ask ourselves before being too angry about how expensive the Galaxy G Fold might or might not be.

Do we really need tri-folding phones in the first place?

That's a good one. We're still not sure if we need normal foldables, according to the slow adoption and sales, even though we're seven generations in the game already. What does another fold give us that a dual-folding phone can't bring to the table?

Tri-folding phones fix a major issue with folding phones, one that companies have battled with generation after generation. Aspect ratio.

A tri-folding phone is close to a regular tablet in an unfolded state, which means media consumption is not awkward anymore—regular foldables have these big black borders around a video no matter how you turn the device.

Another big benefit is that you can use a tri-fold as a normal foldable should you decide to. There's no reason to unfold the whole thing; you could just flip one wing for some extra screen space if needed. This allows for extra flexibility while maintaining the compact folded form factor.

The price of innovation

As Samsung said itself, the company is weighing the pros and cons of launching a tri-fold and will make a decision soon. If we want to have tri-folding phones and reap the benefits of wider adoption, larger volumes, and prices going down, we should kind of put up with the initial steep price of the first-gen product.

If the Galaxy G Fold sells well, chances are Samsung will explore the design further, and it will make it out of the "peculiar prototype" phase in the coming years. Of course, it's not easy to tell people, "Go and buy this $3,000 phone if you want the design to stick," but unfortunately, this is how the economy works.

Personally, I'm a big fan of the tri-fold design and find it much more usable than a regular foldable, so I hope people who could afford the Galaxy G Fold would buy it when (or if) it comes out.

Then, a couple of generations down the line, we might get the $2,000 price tag you thought fair in the first place.

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