What you need to know
- Samsung has launched the $2,899 Galaxy Z TriFold in the U.S. without offering any trade-in or early discount options.
- Unlike past Galaxy launches, Samsung is not providing trade-in deals, bundles, or launch incentives for early buyers.
- Buyers must pay full price upfront and rely on third-party resale platforms to sell their current smartphones.
Samsung Galaxy Z TriFold is an ultra-expensive smartphone that starts at $2,899 in the U.S., and if you were hoping to soften that blow by trading in your current flagship, it looks like that’s not happening.
After launching in parts of Asia and the Middle East, the Galaxy Z TriFold has officially gone on sale in the U.S. today. The $2,899 price tag (plus taxes!) is already eye-watering, but Samsung doesn’t seem prepared to ease things even a little by offering early discounts or trade-in options for its first tri-folding phone.
Samsung usually rolls out aggressive launch deals for its flagships. For example, when the Galaxy S25 Ultra launched last year, Samsung was offering up to $900 off through a mix of early discounts and trade-ins. We’re expecting something similar for the Galaxy S26 series as well, which debuts next month.
That doesn’t appear to be the case with the Galaxy Z TriFold.
As first spotted by 9to5Google yesterday, Samsung briefly made the Galaxy Z TriFold order page live a day before official sales began. While the page showed the usual bundles and add-ons, there was one thing missing: any option to trade in an existing smartphone.
Now that the Galaxy Z TriFold is officially on sale, that detail has been confirmed. Samsung isn’t offering any trade-in options at all for early adopters of its tri-folding phone.
This means that if you want to buy the Galaxy Z TriFold right now, your only option is to pay the full $2,899 upfront and then sell your current phone separately, either through a third-party service like Swappa or by listing it yourself on eBay.
Android Central’s Take
This is pretty outrageous, if you ask me. Samsung is already charging an absurd amount for this phone, and while I get that the engineering costs are high and production volumes are likely limited, offering at least some form of trade-in or early discount would have gone a long way.
But then, Samsung may be intentionally targeting a very specific audience with the Galaxy Z TriFold, one that probably doesn’t care much about trade-ins to begin with.
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