The sky-high price of the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 just got even higher for some models. Â
The premium book-style foldable, which debuted last summer, starts at $2,000 for 256GB of storage. That much hasn't changed. What has apparently changed is the price of the phone at higher storage levels.Â
As 9to5Google reported on Thursday, Samsung has quietly hiked the price of the Galaxy Z Fold 7 with 1TB of storage from $2,420 to $2,500. It also raised the ticket price of its 512GB variant from around $2,120 to $2,200 -- though it's on sale right now for $2,080.
The rises come amid a memory shortage that's spiking the cost of components for phones and computers. Smartphone sales are expected to plummet by around 13% this year as a result.
The $80 increase for Samsung's foldable isn't particularly jarring, especially since the larger-storage configurations are already astronomically priced. But it's also not a promising trajectory. It could hint at more looming price hikes for other devices -- and not just newly released ones, but those already on the market. Any cost increase is hardly going to be a welcome change among consumers, especially if they're on the fence about splurging on a foldable phone. As a further indication of the global memory shortage, some third-party external storage products on Apple's online store have reportedly gotten more expensive or sold out.
The Galaxy Z Fold 7 is one of the best phones I reviewed last year. Its strikingly slim profile will likely set the precedent for future foldables released in the US. Its cameras are also on par with Samsung's nonfolding high-end phones. One of the biggest deterrents is the $2,000 sticker price, and to see the cost go up for any model isn't a very promising direction.Â
Samsung declined to comment.