Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 review: the ultimate foldable experience

The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 is a radical redesign of Samsung’s flagship folding smartphone. It has a more refined design that looks and feels nicer in the hand. The flexible handset is also more durable, thanks to changes to the hinge and display. The crease still exists, although it is less apparent than before. And that tiny flaw is justified by an extremely multifunctional device. Galaxy AI is powerful and impressive, but it’s more fun than useful. Photography is good, thanks primarily to a software improvement. Nothing is more difficult to overcome than price, but you can almost certainly locate a deal that drastically reduces that price pain threshold.

At first sight, Samsung’s new Galaxy Z Fold6 appears to do little to tread new ground. The new foldable from the company shared the launch stage at the recent Unpacked event alongside the new Galaxy Ring (first impressions) and the Galaxy Watch Ultra, and these wearables managed to steal the show. However, taking a deeper look at what the Galaxy Z Fold6 has to offer — hardware, software, AI, S Pen support, and ecosystem benefits — reveals that it is quite attractive altogether.

GALAXY Z FOLD 6 KEY FEATURE

If it’s working, don’t touch it – that’s probably what the Galaxy Z Fold6 development team wrote in capital letters on the whiteboard when they got together to sketch up the design for Samsung’s latest huge foldable. Indeed, the Fold5 was as close to becoming every man’s phone-turned-tablet device as anything else on the market, and there wasn’t much incentive to make radical changes to the new one.

The Z Fold6 has modest changes to the sizes of both displays, a lighter weight, and improved solids protection (but not the best). A year later, a necessary chipset upgrade is included in the list of modifications.

Nothing has changed with the camera. Samsung did not make any advancements in that area last year, thus the 6’s cameras are identical to the 4’s. Admittedly, it was a pretty capable triple arrangement on the back, and the under-display selfie camera is a reasonable trade-off for what it is, but other manufacturers have been releasing close-focusing telephotos and large-sensor ultra wides (both with AF), not Samsung.

It’s also exhausting to protest year after year about Samsung’s continuing failure to implement a reasonable charging solution – we’ll see what the 25W spec means in terms of top-up speeds this time, but don’t anticipate miracles. The battery capacity remains the same as last year, which is not necessarily a positive thing.

Of course, the feature-rich One UI software package is difficult to criticize, and it makes the Fold6 an excellent choice if you need tablet capabilities in your pocket. Another notable feature is the support for the S Pen, which is tough to match. There is minimal space for improvement here. Oh, there is Galaxy AI now, correct?

GALAXY Z FOLD 6 UNBOXING

The Galaxy Z range is no longer known for its elaborate retail bundles. The Z Fold6 comes in the standard simple black cardboard box, which contains little more than the phone.

You got the normal papers, but the only functional items are a USB-C cable and a SIM ejection pin. Some pre-order offers or carrier bundles may contain a charger but don’t expect it.

CAMERA

Smartphones are becoming increasingly similar, therefore manufacturers use odd and sometimes ill-conceived camera arrays to differentiate their devices. If I were in charge, I’d go for subtlety, or at least the same level of refinement and professionalism that Samsung achieved with the Galaxy Z Fold 6. The three-camera array on the rear is noticeable, but I appreciate how each lens resembles a prosumer camera lens. That’s good news.

The bad news is that Samsung didn’t do much to improve this array, and the cameras on the previous Galaxy Z Fold 5 were a disappointment. This is essentially the same camera specifications as the Samsung Galaxy S24.

It’s a good pair of cameras, and I took dozens of beautiful photos in Paris in a variety of conditions. Colors and crispness are consistently good. Low-light performance is generally satisfactory. Macrophotography is nonexistent. Portrait mode images of people and dogs were stunning.

I’m very delighted with the color richness and intricacies. This is undoubtedly due to Samsung’s greatly improved ProVisual Engine, which is the computational component of Samsung’s smartphone photographic pipeline. It gradually improves its knowledge of reality. Nonetheless, Samsung continues to create skies that are overly blue.

I’m disappointed that Samsung only included a 3X optical zoom and a 50MP sensor in the main camera of their flagship foldable. This looks like a mistake. I expected at least 5X optical zoom and a 200MP sensor to match its other top device, the Galaxy S 24 Ultra.

Yes, the Z Fold 6 has 30X’space zoom,’ but this is a software gimmick, not optical zoom, and even Samsung refers to such captures as “images” rather than photos. Look, this is an almost $2,000 / £2,000 / AU $3,000 smartphone (with two screens, of course), and I expect nothing less than the best Samsung has to offer in every category.

When not in use, the 4MP camera is hidden behind a small cluster of pixels below the main screen. It’s adequate for video, but not much more. A great 10MP, f/2.2 selfie camera produces good portrait images. To capture selfies with the triple camera array, you may unfold the phone, use the cover screen as a viewfinder, and use the larger cameras.

DESIGN AND SCREEN

The Z Fold6 model saves a few millimeters and kilos compared to the previous model. Although the difference may appear minor, it significantly improves usage. When folded, the Fold5 is 13.4mm thick, whereas the current variant is 12.1mm. The old model weights 253g, whereas the new one weighs 239g. When compared to Samsung’s own Galaxy S24 Ultra, which weighs 232g, it is evident that the weight has shifted closer to that of an ordinary phone. This, paired with the modified design, which has a blockier profile and flat corners, makes the Z Fold6 more comfortable to handle and use for extended durations.

Samsung claims it’s the thinnest and lightest Fold yet, as well as the most robust. Aside from employing Armor Aluminium, Gorilla Glass Victus 2, and a twin rail hinge mechanism, the Z Fold6 has an improved IP rating of IP48 compared to IPX8 on the predecessor, signifying increased dust and water resistance. The crease on the main screen is less apparent, yet it is still present.

Aside from the blocky shape and flat sides, the overall design language is as expected: a cover screen with a front camera inside the punch hole on the front, a hinge in the middle, a gapless fold that opens up to reveal the larger main screen, which has its in-display camera to the right, and three vertically aligned snappers on the back panel. The fingerprint reader is still incorporated into the power button, and it provides rapid and precise access to the phone. One disadvantage of a side-mounted fingerprint scanner over an in-display one is that one’s fingertips frequently brush across the sensor during normal use, and those touches are recognized as attempts to unlock.

The cover screen’s 22.1:9 aspect ratio still makes it narrower than standard bar phones, thus the screen can seem claustrophobic at times, especially while using the keyboard to type something. However, due to the flat sides and lighter weight, the Z Fold6 is comfortable to grip, and the small form factor might be advantageous for typing a fast message one-handed. The cover screen is 6.3 inches and has a 120Hz Dynamic LTPO AMOLED panel with Gorilla Glass Victus 2 protection. With a peak brightness of 2,600 nits, it becomes sufficiently bright and provides the desired visual treat.

The main display is 7.6 inches and employs a foldable LTPO AMOLED panel, with a refresh rate of up to 120Hz and a peak brightness of 2,600 nits. The crease in the middle remains, although it feels more modest than in the previous-generation Fold. The primary screen is visually appealing and works particularly well for web browsing and productivity-related tasks such as document and spreadsheet creation. Its aspect ratio, however, does not function well with videos, which have broad black bars at the top and bottom. I found the cover screen to be slightly superior for watching OTT videos while commuting to and from work.

It’s also worth noting that the Z Fold6 still supports the S Pen on its primary screen, which is a strong differentiator for this tablet. I wish Samsung had found a method to integrate the S Pen into the Z Fold6 design and put one in the retail package, but the fact that the S Pen can be used on the foldable’s primary screen may tilt the scales in its favor for those who want to use it.

HOW’S THE PERFORMANCE?

Samsung has a close cooperation with Qualcomm. For the past few years, the flagship Snapdragon CPUs inside Samsung phones have carried the “For Galaxy” label. This generally means that the Snapdragons in the current Samsung Galaxy phones are slightly speedier than those in phones from other brands.

The Galaxy Z Fold 6 continues this trend, featuring the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 for the Galaxy chipset. It’s a reasonably capable SoC with hardware-accelerated ray tracing, Wi-Fi 7, and all of the contemporary bells and whistles. It competes with the Apple A17 Pro, despite being produced on a 4 nm process rather than the current 3 nm.

Samsung realizes that gaming is a big use case for foldables, so it has worked hard to squeeze every last FPS out of the phone. As cooling is a major bottleneck in phones, Samsung has done the most to address it, equipping the Z Fold 6 with a 1.6x larger vapor chamber for faster and broader heat transmission.

The redesigned chipset and enhanced components promise up to 41% NPU, 25% GPU, and 14% CPU performance improvements over the Fold 5. In real life, the Galaxy Z Fold 6 moves like a speed demon. Scrolling through the menus seems really quick and fluid.

Based on our performance benchmark tests, the Fold 6 is quite capable. It outperforms the previous generation across the board. The most significant improvement is evident in multi-core CPU and overall graphics performance. Samsung is pitching the Z Fold 6 as a superb gaming phone, and the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 for Galaxy chipset, combined with the sophisticated vapor chamber, certainly delivers.

If you’re curious about the NPU, it’s the component of the chipset that is most actively used for various AI features. This is why manufacturers are doubling down on developing larger and faster NPUs.

Buy it if...

• The IP48 grade now includes protection against particulates in addition to water resistance.
• Some of the greatest displays in the form factor, and the same goes for the speakers.
• Feature-rich software with excellent multitasking capabilities and S Pen compatibility – Galaxy AI included, of course.
• As a cameraphone, it is reliable but unremarkable.

Don't buy it if…

• Charging speeds are glacial.
• A larger and wider cover screen (like the competition’s) would have made it easier to use closed.
• The same camera technology for the third generation in a row, and it wasn’t exactly cutting-edge when it was released.

FULL SPECIFICATION