Samsung just unveiled its best foldables yet, but they’ve all gotten price hikes over last year’s models. Folding phones have always been the most premium devices — with price tags to match — but this year’s crop is something else. 

I was aghast when the first foldables debuted around $2,000 years ago, and they haven’t gotten more affordable. Even though the starting price has stayed the same, these phones are still out of reach for many phone buyers, especially in these financially strained times.

Those prices are just for the minimum 256GB minimum for storage. If you want more room for photos, videos and apps, expect to pay out the nose: A fully kitted out Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra with the maximum 1TB of storage is $2,700, which is stunning, considering that the Samsung Galaxy Z TriFold released in January was only a bit more expensive at $2,900. For a couple of hundred bucks more than the highest-tier Z Fold 8 Ultra, you can get an inner screen that’s 25% bigger. 

Or rather you could have, but Samsung pulled the plug on sales of TriFold phones back in March. At the time, Samsung said that the TriFold was “a super-premium device in limited quantities.” 

Personally, I’d bet this and the Z Fold 8’s rising price have the same culprit: the RAM shortage, which is making seemingly every tech product more expensive. It’s not hard to draw conclusions from the rising cost of memory and components and a shuttered product.

Given these conditions, it’s not surprising that Samsung has followed other products (and even its earlier phones, like the Galaxy S26 series) in raising prices by $100 or more over last year’s models. Samsung itself said that higher prices for the Z-series phones reflect increased memory and component costs, which have affected the larger tech industry. The company also pointed to improvements over last year’s devices, including the new Titanium Flex displays, larger batteries and better 50-megapixel ultrawide cameras on the Z Fold 8 and Z Fold 8 Ultra.

So how does a fully kitted-out Galaxy Z Fold 8 Ultra get up to $2,700? Because of another typical practice, which is for phone-makers to boost prices of the higher storage tiers. In fact, last year’s Galaxy Z Fold 7 topped out at $2,500 for 1TB of storage.

That was still a lot of money, but there’s something bleak about the rising cost of memory, further skyrocketing the prices of the most advanced phones on the market. Back in 2017, the iPhone X crossed the phone-price Rubicon by launching at $1,000; in 2019, the original Samsung Galaxy Fold debuted at just under $2,000. 

The Galaxy Z Fold line has come a long way since then, with a litany of durability, design and feature improvements. You can still get the latest Z Fold 8 Ultra for $2,100 if you don’t mind the minimal 256GB storage without the capability to expand it using a microSD card. But with a maximum price creeping toward the $3,000 milestone with little increase in functionality, the Z Fold 8 Ultra might be a harbinger of diminishing affordability at the top end of smartphone lineups. 

As the RAM shortage continues driving up product prices, either everyone will have to live with a lot less onboard storage — or fancy foldables will continue to be priced out of everyone’s hands.

David Lumb

Managing Editor, Mobile

David Lumb is a managing editor for the mobile team, covering mobile and gaming spaces. Before CNET, he covered tech, gaming, and culture for TechRadar, Engadget, Popular Mechanics, NBC Asian America, Increment, Fast Company and others. As a true Californian, he lives for coffee, beaches and burritos.

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