This flip phone pummels Samsung Galaxy Z Flip and Motorola Razr in one key area – the price

Folding phones have so far had one thing in common – the high price. But the Nova Flip bucks the trend with a $310 / £230 price tag. So what's the catch that allows it to beat Motorola and Samsung?

As it turns out, there's quite a bit to consider. The phone comes from homegrown Indian brand Ai+ (via Yanko Design) and it seems to lean on Samsung design, with the frame looking like some of Samsung's older folding phones.

Some of the specs might impress, though: there's a Dimensity 7300X powering it, a 6.78-inch AMOLED display with 120Hz, a 50-megapixel rear camera, and a relatively large 4,325mAh battery.

So on one hand you're getting quite a bit for your money, but there are some hallmarks of a budget phone here: it only has 8GB RAM, the external display is really just a small window, while one of the cameras on the back is a 2-megapixel "depth sensor".

Look a little closer and this phone might be familiar, because it appears to be the same as the Nubia Flip 2 – with Nubia a sub-brand of Chinese company ZTE. Ai+ is all about being an Indian brand, claiming that phones are Indian-built – that could be the case with the Nova Flip, assembled from a ZTE design.

How can an OLED flip phone be so cheap?

The involvement of ZTE could provide some reassurance as folding phones aren't quite as solid as traditional candybar phones. Even for a big brand like Samsung, the folding screen is still a point of failure, softer than the glass-topped surface of a normal smartphone.

Big brands are also putting a lot of time and energy into designing hinges and refining these devices and some of that gets wrapped up in the cost, which is one of the reasons while folding phones have been expensive so far.

However, there's no telling how long something at the cheaper end of the market is going to last because it isn't just about using cheaper components for step-down performance, it's about making sure that the display and the folding mechanism lasts too.

This isn't the only route to a more affordable folding phone, however. Samsung's Galaxy Z Flip 7 FE (£849) was £200 cheaper than the flagship model, while Motorola's Razr 60 (or Razr 2025 in the US) was £300 cheaper than the Ultra model.

Elsewhere, the Xiaomi Mix Flip, Oppo Find N Flip and Honor Magic V Flip all offer a flip phone experience, but nothing gets close to the price from Ai+. Could this be the future of affordable folding phones?