If this was around the 1200 price point they'd be selling like crazy. Chewing into the premium android and iPhone share. Google would have been a trend setter with foldables if they offered a lower price.

If they're selling them at $1800, they'd almost certainly be taking a steep loss selling them at $1200.

Of course they would. What I said was hypothetical but if it could have been done it would be a market disruptor.

It is if you're using Google Fi -- $700 off with 24 month commitment to keeping Google Fi

Fi user here: I don't see this offer anywhere. Inside the Fi store it shows a $1000 trade-in offer but that's it.

that seems like a fine tradeoff. I'm already on Fi, and the service is great, even internationally

Exactly. Have a barebones screen on the front or no screen at all, and make it cheaper. I get that they want it to be premium, but it doesn't need an expensive high-refresh OLED screen for both screens!

Just a matter of time really. 24 months ?

My theory is Google doesn't want to be too competitive, they mainly want to enable the Android market. If they're too competitive, Samsung, Motorolo, Oppo, etc will change to a different base. Google benefits from Android anyway by its embedded core of Google services.

However, I think with the -a series (7a, etc) they've turned to filling a gap with a reasonably priced high quality device, because Samsung &c low priced handsets are really terrible.

That's a good theory, could also explain why pixel devices are only available in only a small part of the world population.

What other OSes are out there to choose from?

I'm waiting for the great symbian comeback!

huawei seems to have found a way around google since they were restricted from using it.

Android forks.

Perhaps there will be a Pixel Fold Express (a) or some other moniker for a value-focused foldable that's more easily attainable for the masses? I'm trying to think how much money I'd need to make a year where dropping $1,700 on a device with a 3 year lifespan makes sense. I'm thinking I'd need to be an executive that works around the clock before I could justify that expense. Everyone has different values of course.

3 years life span is questionable considering pixel 7 and 7 pro quality issues (falling buttons, cracking camera glass)

They're $1100 if you subscribe to Google's phone plan

I'm a Fi user and don't see this offer. I've scoured every page of fi.google.com: nothing. Just a trade-in offer.

You have it reversed: it's not "we want to make a foldable phone, how expensive does it need to be?", it's "we want to ask $1800 for phone, what could we offer to find buyers".

The biggest problem in the market of exceptionally expensive phones is that they don't really look all that different from cheaper ones. Foldable phones solve that.

Yeah I think you're right. Phones have been pretty much the same since the first slab came out. I mean screen-size got bigger, DPI got higher, "stuff scrolls really smooth now!" These -- to me -- are just incremental changes to the same features from 2013 and aren't great motivators to drop the phone I have into the landfill and get a new one. It seems phone companies are casting about for a new gimmick.

Also true, but that's not what I meant: buyers not replacing the phone they have often enough is solved, battery decay and lack of updates. But there's not much that sets the $1000 replacement apart from the $300 replacement. A $1800 replacement? The market for a $1800 phone that is as obviously different from the rest as a foldable is many times bigger than the market for a $1800 phone that is just better somehow. My prediction is that unless some cheap newcomer brand shows up with a foldable, none of the established will ever make the first move and offer their foldable cheaper, no matter how low the actual cost might be.