No one has been making foldable phones for longer than Samsung. And the sheer number of improvements we’ve seen in the Galaxy Z Fold line over the first few years meant it really had no competition. However, recently the pace of innovation has slowed, but as new competitors OnePlus Open and Pixel Fold they came Now in 2024, Samsung has beefed up the Galaxy Z Fold 6 with a stronger yet significantly lighter frame, a new ultra-wide-angle camera, and a host of AI-powered tools. Unfortunately, not much else has changed, leaving us with a very repetitive upgrade. So while the Galaxy Z Fold 6 remains the best large foldable on the market, complacency erodes Samsung’s lead among flagship flexible phones.
Photo: Sam Rutherford/Engadget
Even without a new primary camera, Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold’s sleeker design, brighter screens, and native stylus support are enough to maintain its status as the best large foldable phone on the market.
- Super bright and colorful screen
- Lighter chassis
- Great battery life
- Native stylus support
- It is even more expensive than before
- Same main camera as the previous two Z Folds
- S Pen not included
- Charging speed could be faster
Design and displays: Changed dimensions with brighter screens
After eliminating the gap between the screen (when closed) in last year’s phone, Samsung has re-adjusted the dimensions of the Galaxy Z Fold 6 for 2024. But the changes are so small that you have to measure them in millimeters. When closed, the phone is just over a millimeter thinner, and when you open it (in portrait), the main screen is 2.7mm wider but a millimeter shorter. It’s not a ton, but you get some more space for activities. Of course, this also affects the external Cover Display, which is about 1mm wider – enough to make using the on-screen keyboard more forgiving.
Elsewhere, the entire phone is sharper, from its edges to the squarer corners on both screens. Samsung also says the Advanced Armor Aluminum used in the Z Fold 6’s chassis is about 10 percent stronger than before, but I hope you’ll forgive me for not dropping it on purpose to find out. Holding everything together is a new two-rail hinge. And this time, I think Samsung has struck the perfect balance between something that’s easy to open but holds its own when you want it to. But the biggest design improvement is the 14 gram weight reduction compared to the previous model. Granted, that might not sound like much, but now the Z Fold 6 is only 4 grams heavier than its non-folding cousin. S24 Ultra. And on an already heavy phone, this change makes a big difference.
As for the displays, as someone who’s been using the Pixel Fold a lot recently – which itself has a solid screen – can I say, Samsung’s panels such a choice. Not only has the maximum brightness for both displays been bumped up to 2,600 nits, as in the standard S24 family, but Samsung has subtly shrunk and flattened the bezels, so the phone looks more like a magazine come to life. Until I see something better, it’s just the best display on a large foldable right now.
Performance: Fast as expected
The Z Fold line has never been slow, and this year we get the same update to the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip as we saw in the S24, while the base RAM remains at 12GB. And as you’d expect, the Z Fold 6’s performance is fast and responsive. There’s almost no lag when multitasking, and thanks to the addition of a larger vapor chamber inside, the phone stays cooler for longer sessions, which is a nice bonus for all those gamers who really like to play on the big screen. device.
Cameras: Mostly unchanged
When it comes to photography, I’m a little disappointed with the Z Fold 6, not because it can’t take decent photos, but because I know Samsung can do better. For this, Samsung stuck to its trio of rear cameras, opting for a new 12-megapixel sensor for the ultra-wide lens, and it’s pretty good. But at the same time, the ultra-wide lens is the one I use the least in everyday use, and it’s not close.
The other two cameras – a 50-megapixel main and a 12-megapixel telephoto with 3x optical zoom – are solid, but they’re the same cameras Samsung used for at least the previous two generations. In a photograph of some strawberries, the Z Fold 6 produced a delicious image with deeply saturated hues and great detail. You can also see the slightly exaggerated warm tones you often get from Samsung cameras. At night, the Z Fold captured a beautiful flower in a very difficult lighting environment.
The thing is, after Google released the Pixel Fold, Samsung really has no excuse to saddle the Z Fold 6 with inferior photography compared to the S24 Ultra. The Pixel Fold has a longer 5x optical zoom and an advantage in overall photo quality. Just take a look at two zoom shots taken by the Z Fold 6 and the Pixel Fold. In a vacuum, Samsung’s picture doesn’t look bad. But then take a look at the Pixel’s image. It is remarkably sharp and detailed.
It’s the same in really low-light situations, as I’ve seen from some Bluey figurines, where the Pixel Fold produces less grainy, sharper and better-exposed images. After being pleasantly surprised by the cameras on the S24 Ultra, it’s a shame that Samsung’s most expensive phone sits in second place when it comes to photography.
AI features: Fun and sometimes useful, but not essential
As we saw earlier in the year, Samsung brought the Galaxy AI suite it introduced on the S24 to the Z Fold 6. In general, many features are the same, including Chat Assist. Use it to create social posts or emails while choosing different tones. Along with translation and summarization tools, there’s also support for Google’s Search Circle. A couple of new fixes for the Fold are that the phone can now translate text on the spot instead of spitting out a big unformatted blog, which is nice, but kind of situational. I should mention that Google Lens already offers similar functionality. Perhaps more important is the ability to do dual-screen translations, so each person can see text in their own language in real-time, depending on which side of the phone they’re looking at.
Some new additions are the Portrait Studio tool, which can create an AI-generated drawing of someone based on a number of styles, such as photo and comic or watercolor. It’s fun and good for a laugh or two, but I’m not sure how useful it will be on a regular basis. There’s also a Sketch from Photo feature that lets you add a simple drawing to an existing photo and then create a more realistic representation of it in your final phone photo. I still think Samsung’s basic AI photo editing tools are the most useful of the bunch, as they make it easy to remove distracting objects or simple touch-ups. But again, all of this is more like bonus content than core content.
Battery life: Great longevity, but could use faster charging technology
While the Samsung Z Fold 6 doesn’t increase the size of the 4,400mAh cell, the phone has slightly better battery life due to the improved power efficiency of its new chip. In our video review test, it lasted 20 hours and seven minutes using the large main screen and 25 hours and 19 minutes using the outer cover display. That first number is better than what we’ve seen on the Pixel Fold (15:22) and the OnePlus Open (19:19), so if you need a big-screen phone with longevity, the Z Fold 6 is an easy choice.
Unfortunately, its filling has not changed much. You still get 25 watts of wired charging and 15 watts of wireless charging, which are pretty average in 2024. I didn’t expect to see support for Qi2 magnetic charging on the Z Fold 6 after Samsung chose not to add it. As for the flagship S24 line, I’m still a bit concerned that such an expensive phone is cutting important features from the specs.
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It wasn’t long before almost every component in the Z Fold line was unmatched by its competitors. But now there are phones like the Pixel Fold that offer better overall photography. Then there’s the OnePlus Open, which weighs the same as the Z Fold 6, even after its recent diet. Let’s not forget that both of those competitors are 2023 models. In addition, there are Chinese competitors Honor Magic V3 and upcoming Xiaomi Mix Fold 4It’s both thinner and lighter than Samsung’s champion.
Don’t get me wrong, the Galaxy Z Fold 6 still folds well, even great. It has excellent performance, a powerful battery and useful features such as native stylus support. But after all this time sitting fat and happy on its throne, Samsung’s hunger for overall dominance has waned. Instead of long-awaited features like a built-in S Pen or an improved under-display camera, we got a bunch of AI-powered tools and tricks that are fun but not really eye-catching. And at $1,900 — $100 more than last year — the Galaxy Z Fold 6 is the most expensive since the Z Fold 3. But I guess that’s the price you pay for giving Samsung such a long life.
