Report: Don’t expect a charger or earphones in the Galaxy S30’s box

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Reports from July pointed to Samsung ditching the bundled charger from its future smartphone packaging. Now, another report from the firm’s home country is substantiating this claim, suggesting that the Galaxy S30 may not arrive with a full box.

ChosunBiz, citing industry insiders, suggests that Samsung will follow Apple by not only ditching the in-box charger but its bundled earphones, too. While the Galaxy S20 series included a 25W charger and a pair of USB-C AKG earphones, the Galaxy S30 series may just include a cable and a SIM eject tool.

Despite its open criticism of Apple’s charger-less boxes, not including accessories with its phones makes financial sense for Samsung. Instead of dropping these components in the box for free, it can coax buyers to purchase its range of wireless earbuds and chargers if they so wish. It’s done just that before, asking users to buy another $50 charger to activate the Galaxy S20 Ultra’s 45W charging mode.

Not including these in-box goodies won’t massively reduce Samsung’s environmental impact. Although smaller boxes will cut down on shipping costs, like Apple, it’ll still have to produce chargers and earphones to sell to users who require replacements.

Read more: The charger-less iPhone 12 isn’t as eco-friendly as Apple wants you to think

It’s also likely that users will feel the real impact of the move. Android Authority readers aren’t thrilled by Apple’s decision to empty its phone boxes of accessories and we can’t imagine the move would be appreciated by Samsung users.

While Samsung won’t be the first Android OEM to skip bundled earphones, we’d expect its premium devices to be among the last. When buying a $1,000 smartphone, you’d also expect the device to arrive with a full box of accessories, or at least cost a little less. It’s unclear if Samsung would adjust the price of the Galaxy S30 series to offset the missing charger and earphones.

Either way, we’ll likely find out soon. The Galaxy S30 series is rumored for a January 2021 launch, much earlier than Samsung’s previous S line.