The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 makes our favorite foldable phone even better

Samsung’s Galaxy Z Flip 5 has long reigned as our best foldable phone pick, but it’s not without its flaws. Between its outdated cameras, so-so battery life and its cover screen’s limitations, Samsung’s otherwise reliable and adorable flip phone had plenty of room for improvement when it dropped in 2023. Fortunately, Samsung seems to have taken that feedback to heart for the new Galaxy Z Flip 6, which is a subtle but potentially significant upgrade that could deliver the same full-fledged flagship experience of the Galaxy S24 but within a more fun, foldable design.

The Galaxy Z Flip 6 is up for preorder now with a release date of July 24. Is this the flip phone we’ve been waiting for? And will it be good enough to stave off the impressive new Moto Razr+ 2024? Here’s what we think after some early hands-on time with the company’s latest pocket-sized foldable.

Subtle but smart upgrades, from display to cameras

The Galaxy Z Flip 5 marked a big leap forward for Samsung’s popular clamshell, replacing the tiny cover screen from previous iterations with a nice 3.4-inch panel that let you see and do a whole lot of stuff without even opening the phone. It works great for seeing quick info at a glance and even taking photos, but it’s a bit limited in terms of the number of apps that were optimized for use on the small screen.

Fortunately, the Z Flip 6’s cover display (or Flex Window, as Samsung calls it) is much more versatile, giving you access to a wider range of widgets and customization options so you can get a quick look at whatever you need without opening the thing up and getting lost in a doomscroll. You can now have multiple widgets and apps on a single page, which seems handy for, say, checking the weather, time and your Samsung Health stats all at once without any thumbing around. You’ll also have a bunch of new wallpaper options, including an interactive fidget spinner-like option where I bounced little dog and bear emojis across the screen.

One of our biggest criticisms of the Z Flip 5 was its camera setup, which we deemed good but not exactly flagship quality. Again, Samsung must have been listening because the company basically took the Galaxy S24’s excellent cameras and stuffed them into its flippy foldable. That means you’re getting a sharp 50-megapixel main lens — a huge step up from the 12-megapixel shooter on last year’s model — in addition to an improved 12-megapixel ultrawide camera that should result in much more vibrant and detailed shots that better match what we got out of the S24.

And because this is a foldable, you’ll be able to use those cameras in fun ways that regular phones don’t allow. That includes holding the phone sideways like a camcorder and enjoying fine zoom control or propping it up like a tripod for hands-free selfies. Speaking of hands-free, there’s a new Auto Zoom feature that’ll automatically detect you and zoom in so that you’re properly cropped when taking photos with the Flip in Flex Mode. This worked well during my hands-on time; even while in a busy event space, the Z Flip 6 was able to detect and zoom in on my face pretty quickly with only a handful of hiccups that came from being in a crowded room.

The Z Flip 6 also holds up well against its nonfoldable counterpart in terms of specs, matching the S24’s 4,000mAh battery that gave us very good endurance earlier this year. You’ll get the same Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip as Samsung’s other flagships, as well as a bump up to 12GB of RAM for even speedier multitasking.

The Galaxy Z Flip 5 is one of the most attractive phones I’ve gotten my hands on, so I wasn’t too disappointed to learn that this year’s model doesn’t look a lot different. The Z Flip 6’s two-tone design continues to look slick as hell, this time with a new suite of color options that includes Silver Shadow, Yellow, Blue and Mint as well as three Samsung.com exclusives in the form of Crafted Black, White and Peach. I found Mint and Blue to look the best up close, but you shouldn’t have too much trouble finding a hue that suits your style.

Of course, you can’t talk about a 2024 Samsung product without talking about AI, and the Z Flip 6 comes loaded with it. This includes all the same tricks we saw on the S24 series, including AI assistance with summarizing articles, transcribing notes and translating other languages,?as well as Google’s Circle to Search tool for instantly learning more about anything on your screen. We found these features to be a mixed bag when we tested the Galaxy S24 range: Circle to Search is legitimately useful for, say, shopping for a cool item you see in a photo, whereas other features, such as asking the AI to reword your emails and text messages, seem questionable. Your mileage will vary on all this stuff, but if Galaxy AI excites you, know that the Z Flip 6 will support all its latest features.

The takeaway

Taken on its own, the Galaxy Z Flip 6 looks like a subtle but meaningful improvement on our favorite foldable phone on the market. With a more versatile cover screen, better cameras and a bigger battery, Samsung’s latest clamshell takes a device that’s already a delight to use and makes it that much better. It seems like an obvious successor to the Z Flip 5’s throne — if Motorola wasn’t in the picture, that is.

The OG king of flip phones also just refreshed its line of Razr foldables, which also tout improved cover screens, good battery life and faster performance. And here’s the kicker: While the Z Flip 6 starts at a fairly steep $1,100, the standard Moto Razr — which itself just gained a larger cover display to match the competition — is a much more affordable $700. The higher-end Razr+ also slightly undercuts the Z Flip 6 at $1,000.

So, which is better? We’ll be putting the Galaxy Z Flip 6 through its full paces for our review this month, so stay tuned for our verdict.