Samsung just made the Galaxy Z Flip 7 FE even more pointless

Ben Schoon | Aug 15 2025 - 4:00 am PT

Samsung’s Galaxy Z Flip 7 FE is perhaps one of the worst deals in the foldable market, but the company isn’t helping its case with a revival of the Galaxy Z Flip 5 which is even cheaper, and far more worthwhile.

The Galaxy Z Flip 7 FE is a recycled Galaxy Z Flip 6, but with a worse chipset, limited color choices, and a too-high price of $899. It’s commendable that Samsung has finally answered the call for more affordable foldables, but it’s a lazy attempt, and that’s a generous way of putting it.

As we called out when the device launched, the Galaxy Z Flip 7 FE is a device that no one should purchase at its full price, and for a number of reasons. Perhaps the biggest kicker is just how close in cost the FE is to the standard and far-superior Galaxy Z Flip 7. On paper, there’s a $200 difference, but that shrinks to $100 when you consider that the $1,099 Flip 7 has 256GB of storage to the $899 FE’s 128GB, meaning the proper comparison is the $999 256GB variant of the Flip 7 FE.

Compared to the Motorola Razr (2025), the FE just doesn’t make sense for most customers.

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But, this week, Samsung made it even less relevant.

For the first time, Samsung has added foldables to its “Re-Newed” program, which revives the Galaxy Z Fold 5 and Galaxy Z Flip 5 at lower prices. While the choice to start selling two-year-old foldables as refurbished is an interesting choice, it’s still nice to see. The Galaxy Z Flip 5 in particular, though, is what stands out.

At $650, the “Re-Newed” Galaxy Z Flip 5 is a far better deal than the Galaxy Z Flip 7 FE. It has the same hardware, more or less, while swapping out the Exynos chipset with a Snapdragon one, including 256GB of storage, and also still supporting plenty of future software updates. Samsung promised 7 years of updates on the Flip 5, and only two years have passed, more than making up for the difference in price between these two devices.

It’s still not the best deal you can get on a Flip.

As mentioned, the base Razr (2025) is pretty compelling for its $699 – but often even less – price tag, but you can also just get a last-gen device. A refurbished Galaxy Z Flip 6, for example, is not hard to find in the realm of $500-600. That’s by far the most value you’ll get out of a foldable right now.

What do you think? Would you buy a “Re-Newed” Galaxy foldable? Let’s discuss!