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Galaxy Z Flip 5G will have another major advantage over the LTE model

Published Jun 18th, 2020 7:03PM EDT
Galaxy Z Flip 5G specs
Image: Samsung

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  • The Galaxy Z Flip 5G appeared in a Geekbench benchmark listing which reveals that the phone will have upgraded specs with a Snapdragon 865 processor.
  • The LTE Galaxy Z Flip shipped with a Snapdragon 855+ processor, which is now over a year old.
  • Samsung is expected to reveal the Galaxy Z Flip 5G alongside the Galaxy Note 20, Galaxy Fold 2, and Galaxy Watch 3 at an Unpacked event on August 5th.

Recent rumors have led us to believe that Samsung will hold its next Unpacked event on August 5th to announce the new Galaxy Note 20 and the follow-up to the Galaxy Fold. Those should be the highlights of the show, but they won’t be the only pieces of hardware Samsung will unveil. In addition to its new Note and Fold, Samsung is also expected to announce the Galaxy Watch 3 (which has leaked on multiple occasions in recent days) and a 5G variant of the Galaxy Z Flip. And now it sounds like the Z Flip will be an even bigger upgrade than expected.

As spotted by SamMobile, the Galaxy Z Flip 5G appeared on Geekbench on Thursday. The assumption was that the 5G model of the Z Flip would feature the same specifications as the LTE model, but according to the benchmark, the Z Flip 5G will ship with a Snapdragon 865 processor — a notable upgrade over the Snapdragon 855+ that Samsung used in the original Z Flip. As a result, the single-core and multi-core scores are higher on the 5G model.

When the Galaxy Z Flip launched earlier this year, it looked like a final product rather than an unfinished experiment. It sold rather well for Samsung, especially for such a seemingly niche product, so it’s easy to see why the company would want to give consumers a good reason to upgrade in the form of an updated CPU.

The problem, as SamMobile notes, is that the Galaxy Z Flip was $1,380 at launch. Adding 5G capabilities and a top-of-the-line Qualcomm chip will inevitably bump the price up even further, and while hundreds of thousands of people may have been willing to take a risk on an interesting new form factor with a steep price in February, we’re still going to be in the middle of a pandemic in August, and millions of Americans are still out of work.

Based on Samsung’s previous pricing differentials for 5G versions of its phones, it wouldn’t be surprising to see the Z Flip 5G sell for $1,600 in August, but we haven’t heard much in terms of rumors about the price, so perhaps Samsung will pleasantly surprise us. Considering that virtually every Samsung phone — from the Galaxy S flagships to budget handsets — has leaked weeks before launch, it’s probably only a matter of time before we know all there is to know about the Galaxy Z Flip 5G anyway, especially with the reveal just weeks away.

Jacob Siegal
Jacob Siegal Associate Editor

Jacob Siegal is Associate Editor at BGR, having joined the news team in 2013. He has over a decade of professional writing and editing experience, and helps to lead our technology and entertainment product launch and movie release coverage.