More people than ever before had doubts about the sixth Galaxy Z Fold 6. That’s because Samsung has increased the price by $100 while still playing it safe, just like they did last year.
Is the Fold 6 a worthy investment for a phone that starts at $1,899? Does it contain all the features it needs, or did Samsung overplay it safe?
Design and Build Quality
At first glance, the Galaxy Z Fold 6 appears to be comparable to its predecessors. However, Samsung has made a few little adjustments that distinguish and improve the appearance.
Samsung has significantly reduced the amount of rounded edges and corners this year. It results in a design and structure that is flatter and crisper. As a result, the Galaxy Z Fold 6 has a more sophisticated and polished appearance.
Samsung has moved to a ridged design for the camera rings on the back. In leaked phone photographs, the rings appeared cheap, but in actual life, they’re not obnoxious. It’s still an unneeded modification.
When folded and unfolded, the Fold 6 is slimmer. Additionally, Samsung has succeeded in reducing the weight by around 15g. In addition, this is the first Galaxy Z Fold that has received official certification for its defense against solid objects and tiny particles.
Previous versions were certified IPX8, meaning they could withstand water damage. In contrast, the Fold 6 has an IP48 classification. It can withstand damage from considerably tiny particles (as little as 1mm), but it is not dust-resistant.
Additionally, Samsung has enhanced the hinge. It can now withstand pressure and shocks from impacts more effectively. The building materials, however, remain unchanged.
The Fold 6 lacks the revolutionary Gorilla Glass Armor and titanium frame of the Galaxy S24 Utra. It uses the same Gorilla Glass Victus 2 front and rear panes as the Fold 5 and has an aluminum frame that is 10% more scratch resistant.
Nevertheless, the Galaxy Z Fold 6 has a flagship-level quality feel about it. My only gripe is that unfolding the phone is more challenging due to its thinner construction. This can be partially mitigated, but not entirely.
The Fold 6 is available in silver, pink, and navy blue from physical and internet retailers. It is also available in black and white, but unexpectedly, Samsung has limited access to those classic hues to purchases placed through its website.
Displays
The Galaxy Z Fold 6 screens include all the current characteristics, such as an AMOLED panel and a variable refresh rate of 120 Hz, but they also have various aspect ratio adjustments and at least one significant technical improvement.
The foldable displays and cover have both gotten shorter and broader. Also, the bezels on the former are less rounded. This contributes to the appearance of the cover screen being broader than it actually is.
The width of the cover display is only 1 mm. Practically speaking, it’s still rather limited. You won’t notice much of a difference in opinion with the Fold 6 if you felt that the cover display was too narrow on earlier Folds.
Another significant drawback of the foldable display is the same one that affects all Galaxy Z Fold smartphones: some applications still have enormous black bars in their movies. This is especially problematic with Netflix, which either blows up the video to fill the screen and cuts off most of it, or utilizes a small default aspect ratio.
However, you won’t be dissatisfied if you use your phone for things like sending and receiving emails, creating and viewing spreadsheets, browsing the web, or multitasking between numerous apps.
The large foldable display lets you do tasks more quickly. It works really well for gaming. Most games, in contrast to video apps, are designed to fit the huge screen perfectly.
Additionally, Samsung still provides the most feature-rich foldable stylus experience. However, the S Pen is not supported on the cover display and is not included in the package like it was previously. You must also purchase the limited-edition S Pen Fold Edition.
Technically speaking, the screens are rated for 2600 nits of brightness, which is a significant improvement over the Galaxy Z Fold 5. On earlier Folds, legibility wasn’t precisely an issue. Now, in every situation, legibility is ensured.
The enhanced crease on the foldable display also contributes to its legibility. On the Fold 6, the fold is less noticeable and reflected. Though it’s much simpler to ignore, it’s not completely gone.
Camera Capabilities
I feel differently about the Galaxy Z Fold 6’s cameras compared to the Galaxy Z Fold 5 and Galaxy Z Fold 4. The fact that the $600 Galaxy S23 FE has a comparable camera is something I find offensive. The Fold 5 was the same as the Fold 6, but at least it cost $100 less.
It’s still a powerful camera arrangement, unless you require a high-quality long-range zoom. Outdoor daylight photos taken with the 50MP primary camera have a wide dynamic range and excellent detail. When ambient illumination is plentiful indoors, the story is not much different.
Though the phone can occasionally overshoot, especially when taking close-up photos of objects like flowers, colors are typically rather accurate.
In low light, too, the picture quality is good. While it’s usually preferable to manually switch to Night mode for correct exposure of light sources in the scene (like the one with the disco ball in the gallery below), Night mode automatically activates when needed to capture greater information and minimize noise.
During the day, the ultra-wide camera captures beautiful images outside. However, Samsung has been employing the same 12MP ultra-wide camera for a long time, and in terms of detail resolution, it feels inadequate in comparison to competitors.
It would also be beneficial to upgrade the 3x zoom camera, which has a 30x zoom range. The zoom camera is best used outside during the day, just like the ultra-wide camera. You obtain passable results at up to 10x magnification and good quality images at 3x. The 10x–30x range works best for textual images.
The Galaxy Z Fold 6 can record portrait images at 1x, 2x, and 3x magnification, and those portraits tend to look amazing in most circumstances. Even low-light portraits appear fantastic thanks to the automatic night mode, however that demands holding the phone as steady as possible as even the slightest movement can result in a fuzzy photo.
The foldable screen’s under-display camera (UDC) is still essentially worthless. The UDC’s camera app can only capture basic images and videos, with the quality consistent with a 4-megapixel sensor. In Flex Mode, it works well for video calls, but only in well-lit spaces.
On the cover display is a front-facing camera that works properly. The 10MP front camera offers reasonable picture and video quality, as well as functions like auto framing in video mode that automatically zooms in to keep you in the frame if you move away from the center.
You may also snap selfies utilizing the back cameras using the back cam selfie option. It can be a little inconvenient to use the back cameras for selfies, as you have to hold the completely unfolded phone in one hand.
However, the trouble is worthwhile. The greatest quality selfies are taken with the rear camera, and there are additional advantages including better nighttime selfies, the capacity to take portraits at various zoom settings, and the capacity to use the ultra-wide camera to fit more individuals in the frame.
Performance and Gaming
We can sum up the performance of every flagship phone Samsung has released after 2022 in one word: amazing.
The Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip (the ‘For Galaxy’ edition, which has slightly faster clock speeds) and 12GB of RAM come standard with the Galaxy Z Fold 6, along with options for 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB of storage. It manages everything with ease and is quick and seamless.
Although it prefers to throttle to control temperatures, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 operates marginally hotter than the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2—a problem that arises solely when running benchmarks.
In practice, the phone’s 1.6 times larger vapor chambor cooling system than the Fold 5 is more than enough to keep it operating smoothly, even after extended periods of demanding games like Call of Duty at high refresh rates.
The Fold 6 actually operates cool in almost every situation. It did grow warm during extended gaming sessions and 5-plus minute video captures, but I don’t recall ever experiencing it getting too hot.
The characteristics of Galaxy AI that can be processed on-device are processed swiftly as well. However, as the majority of AI features depend on the internet, the speed at which things are completed will depend on your connection speed.
Galaxy AI
Samsung has really stepped up its AI game with the Galaxy Z Fold 6. It’s clear they’ve put a ton of effort into making this phone smarter. Features like Sketch to Image are just plain fun. Turning my bad drawings into actual pictures is mind-blowing. And Portrait Studio, while not perfect, can create some really cool artistic portraits.
I’m also loving the improvements to writing with Galaxy AI. It’s like having a super smart assistant helping you write emails and social media posts. The Interpreter feature is another standout. Being able to have real-time conversations with people who speak different languages is a game-changer, especially with the new dual-screen mode.
And let’s not forget about the Google Gemini integration. It makes searching and getting information even faster and easier. Overall, Samsung has done an amazing job with Galaxy AI on the Fold 6. It feels like the future of smartphones is here.
Software: One UI 6.1.1
On the software front, there isn’t much to discuss other from Galaxy AI. Features include the ability to make live effect backgrounds from any image, to cut items or people from motion images and turn them into GIFs, and an enhanced Auto Blocker that prevents sideloading of apps by default are all included in One UI 6.1.1.
It also adds a few features for improved sound quality. Videos can have their dialogue and voices amplified, and abrupt changes in volume can be avoided with the loudness normalization setting.
For seven years, the Fold 6 will receive security upgrades, One UI, and Android.
Additionally, Samsung has resolved a few annoyances with earlier Fold models. For instance, registering new fingerprints no longer requires unfolding the phone. Wallpapers for the cover display of the Galaxy Z Fold 6 may also be set to Always On Display.
For seven years, the Fold 6 will receive security upgrades, One UI, and Android. With the exception of the Google Pixel Fold, that is longer than any other folding phone. It’s also one of the few plausible explanations for Samsung’s pricing increase.
Battery Life
For the fourth year in a row, Samsung declined to expand the Fold’s battery capacity. Like the Fold 3, Fold 4, and Fold 5, the Fold 6 has a 4,400 mAh battery; the OG Fold’s battery was only 20 mAh smaller. Thus, software optimization and the new Snapdragon chip are the main contributors to battery life gains.
Furthermore, the Fold 6 lasts far longer than the Fold 5. Even with heavy use of the large display, I regularly got between 24 and 26 hours off of a single charge. However, that did not involve prolonged play sessions or heavy usage of Galaxy AI features. The phone was linked to a Wi-Fi network for the most of the day.
When utilizing mobile data, battery life is a little disappointing. Endurance appears to be impacted by having two SIMs active as well. Wi-Fi and 4G/5G have low idle drain, but ultimately, there’s only so much you can accomplish before physical limitations impede your progress.
Moreover, the Fold 6 charges more slowly than the Fold 5. It takes about 100 minutes to fully charge, and it charges to about 40% in 30 minutes. Up to 50% of the Fold 5’s battery life could be achieved in 30 minutes, and 100% in about 80.
It’s unclear why charging is slower even with the same battery capacity and charging speed. Now that its flagships are eligible for seven years of upgrades, it’s plausible that Samsung wants to guarantee a longer battery life, but that’s just conjecture.
Conclusion
The Galaxy Z Fold 6 doesn’t come with many notable improvements. Arguably the most alluring feature is Galaxy AI, although that won’t last long until One UI 6.1.1 updates models that already have the new features.
This makes it clear to whom this phone is intended. You would only be squandering money if you upgraded from a Galaxy Z Fold 4 or Galaxy Z Fold 5 unless you were able to secure a decent trade-in bargain. It’s possible that users of the Galaxy Z Fold 3 won’t think the improvement is sufficient.
However, the Fold 6 is an excellent phone for anyone purchasing a Samsung foldable for the first time or upgrading from the first two Z Folds, particularly if you undertake activities that make use of huge displays.
It retains all the wonderful features of the previous Folds while enhancing or correcting a few of its less than ideal features. It’s also the most future-proof model to yet, with seven years of software updates promised.
