Small changes based on user feedback: That seems to be the story for Samsung’s 2024 foldable phones. Just look at the new Galaxy Z Fold 6, which looks a lot like the phone-meets-tablet that Samsung launched last year but actually packs a number of promising changes that directly address some of its biggest criticisms — including ours.
Launching alongside a slew of other big releases like the Galaxy Z Flip 6, Galaxy Watch Ultra, Galaxy Buds 3 and Galaxy Ring, the Galaxy Z Fold 6 is up for preorder now and starts at a hefty $1,900. Wondering if its the right foldable phone for you? Here’s what we think after getting our hands on it.
The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 improves on the company's highest-end foldable with a bigger screen, a lighter design and a wealth of performance and AI perks. Samsung is currently offering a free year of Samsung Care+ with preorders for folks who buy a carrier version of the phone, while most retailers are offering a free storage upgrade through July 23.
More display, less bulk
Perhaps the most notable thing about the Z Fold 6 is that it’s both bigger and smaller in the ways that matter. Both of the phone’s displays have gotten wider; the foldable’s candybar-like front display now stretches an extra millimeter, and you’ll gain an extra 2.7 millimeters of real estate when you fold it open like a tablet. The former upgrade helps address one of our biggest issues with the Z Fold 5, which felt a bit cramped and unnatural to use while folded up — especially compared to the Google Pixel Fold, which feels much more like a standard smartphone when closed. The Z Fold 6 manages to make all these changes while shedding 14 grams of weight from last year’s model, and I found it to be pleasantly light when I got one in my hands.
In addition to the larger displays, I also dig the Z Fold 6’s rear-facing camera lenses, which are bigger and more conspicuous than on previous generations but in a way I find slick and stylish. You’ll be able to score this big foldable in Pink, Navy and Silver Shadow from most retailers, while the White and textured Crafted Black model are exclusive to Samsung’s website. I wish Samsung’s larger foldable had the same expansive range of colors as its Z Flip 6 sibling, but I do like that pink — and not just because it happened to match the shirt I wore to my hands-on session.
While you’ll find Galaxy AI on pretty much every flagship Samsung device this year, and love them or hate them, Samsung’s assistive tools seem like they’ll shine best on the Z Fold 6. Its extra-wide interior screen means you can, say, listen to a voice note on one side of the display while reading a live transcription on the other. The phone’s two-way displays already allowed you to have conversations with people that speak other languages, thanks to instant translation, but now there’s also a listening mode that just focuses on a single voice (something that could be handy if you’re on a tour in a foreign country).
The Galaxy Z Fold 6’s camera didn’t get quite as dramatic an upgrade as the Z Flip 6 did, but that’s because it was already pretty solid. Joining the Z Fold 6’s 50-megapixel main shooter and 10-megapixel telephoto lens is a new 12-megapixel ultrawide camera, which should result in more detail and better panoramic shots. You’ll also get all the AI camera perks of a modern Samsung flagship, including AI Zoom, Instant Slow-Mo and the ability to quickly edit unwanted objects and photobombers out of pictures.
Samsung’s big-screen foldable packs the same speedy Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip as the rest of the current Galaxy family, backed by a vapor chamber that is 1.6-times larger and should hopefully do a better job keeping the device cool when you’re playing Genshin Impact or multitasking between apps. Bouncing between home screens, watching YouTube videos and splitting the screen between Chrome and Notes felt zippy in my testing, but as always, I’m eager to see how the Z Fold 6 stacks up on our more intensive benchmark tests.
The takeaway
The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 is the most iterative improvement in Samsung’s current foldable lineup, so unless you’re buying your first foldable or upgrading from a Z Fold that’s at least two or three years old, you can probably hold off for now. That said, last year’s Z Fold 5 is one of the best foldables we’ve tested, so we can’t blame Samsung for focusing on small improvements for 2024.
However, the Z Fold series now faces very strong competition in the Google Pixel Fold, which we found to offer a more comfortable front display and superior camera experience but at the cost of compatibility issues with certain apps. We can’t wait to put the Galaxy Z Fold 6 through our full review treatment to see which is better this time around, so stay tuned for much more.
