Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 3 price and specs break cover – and I'm seriously worried

It's fair to say that I've been incredibly hyped for the incoming Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 3 which, as I've written about numerous times recently, I think looks like a potential best folding phone champion, as well as the device that could take foldable phones mainstream.

However, due to a brand new set of leaks from an established tech leakster breaking cover, my faith that the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 3 could deliver both of these things has been rocked, as while its rumored specs look incredibly tasty, its price point does not. In fact, if the rumored price is true, it looks like it could be deal breaking for a lot of people.

The rumored specs and price info for the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 3 come courtesy of the Twitter account @_snoopytech_, who has a history in leaking information about soon-to-be-released technology online. This time Snoopy has dropped a rumor bomb for the Fold 3 mere days before the device is slated to unveiled at Samsung Unpacked 2021, which is taking place on 11 August.

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For smartphone tech enthusiasts there's plenty to like in the rumored specs leak, too, as can be seen below:

There's a load of standouts there in terms of tech in my opinion, with the flagship Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 CPU sat at the Fold 3's core, along with a 7.6-inch 120Hz foldable AMOLED screen and triple lens camera system. Fat amounts of RAM and storage space, as well as a good-size battery complete what looks like a very appealing smartphone package.

However, while Snoopy's leaked specs list for the Fold 3 has me drooling, the leaked price for said device has me looking away in horror. That's because, if accurate, the price for the Fold 3 is more than the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 2 retailed for a launch.

As can be seen in the above tweet, Snoopy lists the price of the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 3 as starting at "2009€" for the 256GB variant, which then rises to "2099€" for the 512GB model.

Now, for the record, the Samsung Galaxy Fold 2 retailed at €1,999 at launch for the entry level model, so if this pricing is correct that means that the Fold 3 is €10 more expensive out of the gate. Not only does the Fold 3 not drop the price of Samsung's flagship foldable, but it actually increases it according to this rumored information.

Interestingly, the leaker does though go on to say in another tweet that the pricing information was "taken from the retailer who listed the devices with these high quality images, so I expect them to be correct", but then states that "I hope they aren't for the Z Fold3 (I just hope they hadn't had them and used placeholders)".

As such, while one part of this rumored info does look like it leans towards being accurate (the images are high quality and Snoopy's sources do tend to be authoritative), it is also clear that the prices could just be placeholders, estimated by the retailer.

And, well, in my mind I really hope that the Galaxy Z Fold 3's price is a placeholder, as €2099 is a massive amount of money to spend on a smartphone and absolutely obliterates any hope I had that we could see the price of flagship foldables start to drop.

Right now the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 2 is retailing for £1,599 at Samsung's official store in the UK and $1499.99 at the official store in the USA, and a price point in that ballpark would of been my ideal aim with the Fold3 – something that brings the cost down and also then allows the Fold 2 to drop to an even lower price point. It wouldn't have to be that cheap, but at least a $100 or more cut off the cost of the Fold 2 price point at launch would of felt realistic.

But with it looks like the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 3 isn't going to get anywhere near that in reality, and especially not in Europe or the UK, where prices tend to be higher than in the United States anyway. And that has left me worried and on tenterhooks, as on the one hand I'm super excited to see just how special the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 3 is, but on the other I am apprehensive that I, like many other tech enthusiasts, are going to remain priced out of the market for it.

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