Every now and then, we see smartphone vendors release brave colorways in collaboration with community favourite brands. The artists at Samsung seem to have taken that concept and thrown all limits out into the oblivion with their recent release of the Galaxy Z Flip 3 5G’s Pokémon-themed special edition.
While the foldable form factor is still not the most widely adapted concept with users, the theme aims to lure in a highly niché set of consumers who consider themselves die hard fans of the Pokémon franchise.
The phone comes in a special box, with a default Pikachu themed case. And if the cute little yellow creature isn’t exactly your mainstay, samsung were thoughtful enough to include a picture case with swappable cards. The package also has a Pokédex themed strap-pouch, a Pikachu tail keychain and a pokéball pop-socket. The phone further commits to the theme with preloaded pokémon ringtones, wallpapers and presumably UI and app icon tweaks.
While the Pokémon franchise has its fair share of fans across the world, they shouldn’t be excited just yet. The phone is a South Korea exclusive release, and will not be made available for retail in other regions of the world. So if you’re an obsessed collector and this is a cannot-miss release, and this is the only phone you’d ever be caught with catching virtual aliens on Pokémon go, be prepared to shill out a hefty above-retail sum on StockX.
The price of the special edition has not been revealed by Samsung as yet, but the phone will be up for grabs on April 25th. A realistic expectation would be that the phone will definitely be priced more than the standard edition, which starts at ₹84,999 in India. The phone will be releasing with last year’s hardware, with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 888 under the hood. This would mark Samsung’s third special edition release of the Z Flip 3 5G, with earlier collaborations with Thom Browne and Bespoke already lining the market (With much more minimalistic designs).
