Samsung's long-running pre-order perk that doubles your storage for free on the Galaxy Z Fold 8 is reportedly getting cut down. According to a new report, buyers of the Fold 8 series and the Galaxy Z Flip 8 will only get half that perk covered for free, with the ongoing RAM and storage crisis taking the blame.
Samsung's free storage perk gets cut in half
According to a report from South Korean outlet Chosun (translated source), Samsung will no longer double your storage tier for free when you pre-order a Galaxy Z Fold 8, Fold 8 Ultra, or Flip 8.
Instead, Samsung will reportedly only cover 50% of the price difference between storage tiers, leaving buyers to cover the rest out of pocket. The perk itself has been running since the Galaxy S23 series, so this would be the first real cut to it in years.
What's your reaction to Samsung possibly cutting its free storage upgrade in half?
80 Votes
Still buying, storage doesn't matter to me
6.25%
I'll pay extra for the storage I want
21.25%
I'll just stick with the base storage tier
16.25%
This kills my interest in pre-ordering
56.25%
What this means if you were counting on it
If this holds, pre-order buyers eyeing the pricier storage tiers will feel it most. Doubling your storage for free was one of the easiest ways to stretch your money on a foldable that already starts north of $1,900, so losing half of that benefit changes the math.
It's a different story for anyone eyeing Apple's rumored first foldable. Apple has never run a free storage-doubling perk on iPhone pre-orders, so this change just makes Samsung's foldables a little less of a bargain than before.
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We don't have final Fold 8 pricing yet, but if this year's leaked tiers hold, here's what the new 50% rule could look like in practice:
256GB to 512GB: a $200 gap, meaning roughly $100 out of pocket instead of free
512GB to 1TB: a $300 gap, meaning roughly $150 out of pocket instead of free
Samsung's own Reserve page for the next Galaxy Unpacked, where the free storage upgrade offer hangs in the balance. | Image by Samsung
That's still real money saved compared to paying full price for the jump, just not the free ride Fold and Flip buyers have gotten used to since 2023.
Samsung keeps trimming the little things
Samsung has been trimming small perks around its foldables all year, and this fits the pattern. We already flagged how the company quietly hiked the Z Fold 7's own storage tier prices by $80 apiece earlier this year, well before Fold 8 even launched.
None of these moves are dramatic alone, but stacked together, they add up to buyers getting slightly less each time, even as Samsung cites the same RAM and storage crunch as the reason. Memory prices are genuinely climbing industry-wide, but I'd still like to see Samsung hold the line on at least one of these perks instead of trimming them all at once.
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Johanna Romero is a Senior News Writer at PhoneArena, covering mobile technology news across Android, iOS, wearables, and the Google ecosystem she knows best. Drawing on 15 years in IT and tech support from 2007 to 2022, she brings a user-friendly eye for the practical features and lesser-known tricks readers care about. Google named her an official #TeamPixel member in 2022, and she also reviews the latest devices on her YouTube channel, JoJo the Techie.
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