As if the Pablo Escobar Fold 1 wasn’t enough, there is now a second Pablo Escobar-branded folding smartphone. The name? Wait for it—the Pablo Escobar Fold 2.
Like its predecessor, the Fold 2 is a suspiciously cheap folding phone at $US400 ($598) and is the brainchild of the famed drug kingpin’s brother, Roberto De Jesus Escobar Gaviria. But whereas the first phone was seemingly made with Apple in its crosshairs, the Fold 2 is explicitly described on its website as ‘the real Samsung killer phone’ with the ominous tagline ‘Rest in peace Samsung, Pablo always wins.’
According to the press release, the Fold 2 is supposedly designed in the US and assembled in Hong Kong, with parts coming from Shenzen, China. If you look at the renders, however, it’s clear that this is a dupe oflast year’s Samsung Galaxy Fold with the Pablo Escobar Inc-branded gold paint and logo slapped on. It doesn’t help that the specs of both devices appear to be basically the same. Both feature Android 10, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 processor, a 4,380mAh battery, and a main 7.3-inch display. There are some subtle differences, however. The Escobar Fold 2 only has five cameras, compared to the Samsung Fold’s six. Oh, and the Escobar Fold 2 doesn’t cost $US2,000 ($2,989). Even the slightly more expensive 512GB version of the Fold 2 costs just $US550 ($822).
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“My goal is to become the overstock kingpin of electronical devices this year. All these factories simply have too much technology laying around, nobody is buying anything in China from secondary factories. We cut the prices and give clients direct discounts under the Escobar brand umbrella,” Escobar’s brother said in a press release. Sure, buddy.
Judging by that quote, it would appear the phones are the result of a deal cut with Chinese factories that produced the original Galaxy Fold. Perhaps overstock of the original Galaxy Fold that ‘fell off a truck’? Or, perhaps Escobar’s brother did some sleuthing to find which factories did what for the Galaxy Fold and had them reverse-engineer the phone—albeit slightly differently. Either which way, none of it sounds fully above-board.
The Fold 2 supposedly has “gone through rigorous testing” and has a limited production run of 200,000 phones. There is no limit, however, to the sleazy marketing materials. Like the Fold 1, there are copious product shots with Pablo Escobar wallpapers. There are also multiple videos starring busty models salivating over the device in increasingly uncomfortable-looking lingerie. (Though, the video narrator is very clear that the “sexy girls are not included.”) The best one is undoubtedly the one in which the models take sledgehammers and fire to Samsung Galaxy Folds with near-religious abandon. At the end, the narrator drawls “Samsung will not survive. Pablo is still upset. Pablo always wins. The death comes fast.”
Well, at least they didn’t feed the phones to Escobar’s horny feral hippos.