With a newer design and fewer upgrades, the foldable feels special!!
The Galaxy Z Fold series is the right innovation developed by Samsung. Ever since it came with the Galaxy Z Fold in 2019, the foldable has provided a solid form factor. You can use it folded and as a wider display like a tablet. Now, talking about the Galaxy Z Fold 5, launched last year, the foldable was a major success as it brought some outstanding specifications and had a huge amount of success in the market.
Now, its successor, the Galaxy Z Fold 6, has been launched. It brings some improvements over the Galaxy Z Fold 5 and is trying to set the benchmark for foldables. Other than that, Samsung is focused more on the AI-driven features present on the Galaxy Z Fold 6, which will be seen on upcoming and some of the Samsung smartphones out there.
So with the newer design, a slightly powerful chipset, and some other improvements, is the Galaxy Z Fold 6 a worthy upgrade over the Galaxy Z Fold 5 or is the Galaxy Z Fold 5 still a good option to consider since its price has been reduced now? Let’s find out in the full review out there.
Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 Design:
In terms of design, the Galaxy Z Fold 6 brings a slightly tweaked design and as soon as you look at the device, you can clearly see the difference where the edges are sharper and the whole surface is now flatter. Other than that, compared to the Galaxy Z Fold 5, the Galaxy Z Fold is slightly shorter, wider as well as thinner.
The Galaxy Z Fold 6 is now thinner at 12.1mm when compared to the 13.4mm thickness on the Galaxy Z Fold 5 when folded but when unfolded, the Galaxy Z Fold 6 is thinner at 5.6mm compared to the 6.1mm thickness on the Galaxy Z Fold 5. In terms of weight distribution, even the weight has been reduced on the Galaxy Z Fold 6 which weighs around 239 grams making it 18 grams lighter compared to the Galaxy Z Fold 5.
When folded, at the back, there is a pill-shaped capsule which houses the triple cameras and beside the capsule, there is an LED flashlight. Around the sides, just like its predecessor, there is an Armor Aluminum frame that houses the power button along with volume buttons, and a dual SIM card slot. At the bottom, there is a USB Type-C port, a single speaker, and a loudspeaker grille.
On the top, there are three microphones with a secondary noise-cancelling microphone. When unfolded, the crease on the display is almost not present and looks to be slightly improved compared to the Galaxy Z Fold 5. Even with each generation of the foldable, Samsung is also improving upon the hinge mechanism which we earlier saw with the Galaxy Z Fold 5 and it is no different here.
Also when folded, dust would not settle as Samsung has ensured there is no gap present. Another big upgrade with the Galaxy Z Fold 6 is now it gets IP4X certification compared to the IPX8 protection on the Galaxy Z Fold 5. So what it means is that now the Galaxy Z Fold 6 is both dust and water-resistant when compared to the Galaxy Z Fold 5 which was only water-resistant.
Now talking about the outer display, the Galaxy Z Fold 5 has a slightly larger 6.3-inches display compared to the 6.2-inches outer display on the Galaxy Z Fold 5 whereas the inner display remains unchanged at 7.6-inches which houses a hidden selfie camera. In terms of protection, both the front and the back are protected by Corning Gorilla Glass Victus 2.
Overall, the design is a good improvement over its predecessor and the premium build makes it feel sturdy.
Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 Display:
The Galaxy Z Fold 6 sports a similar-sized inner display: 7.6 inches with a Full HD+ (1856×2160 pixels) 2X Dynamic AMOLED display, which has a slightly higher resolution than the Galaxy Z Fold 5’s Full HD+ (1812×2176 pixels) 2X Dynamic AMOLED display. The Galaxy Z Fold 6 also has a screen-to-body ratio of 10.5:9 compared to 10.8:9 on the Galaxy Z Fold 5.
Just like the inner display, the outer display is slightly larger at 6.3 inches and has a Full HD+ (968×2376 pixels) 2X Dynamic AMOLED display with a screen-to-body ratio of 22.1:9. Both the inner and outer displays have an LTPO panel with support for a 120Hz refresh rate. The LTPO display’s refresh rate can go as low as 1Hz and can stay at different refresh rates depending on the display’s usage.
Just like the Galaxy Z Fold 5, the outer display of the Galaxy Z Fold 6 refreshes between 48Hz and 120Hz, and the inner display refreshes between 1Hz and 120Hz. Under the Motion Smoothness option in settings, there are two different options: Standard and Adaptive. Setting the display to Adaptive allows it to refresh based on the content on the display, whereas Standard provides a 60Hz refresh rate throughout the display.
Combined with the 120Hz refresh rate, you get a 240Hz touch sampling rate for faster touch responses. Even the bezels are very much thinner compared to the Galaxy Z Fold 5 in the inner display. In terms of brightness, the display of the Galaxy Z Fold 6 can reach a peak brightness of 2600nits which is a good improvement over the 1750nits of peak brightness on the Galaxy Z Fold 5.
With the High Brightness Mode turned on, the display of the Galaxy Z Fold 6 can reach around 1600nits of brightness and also the display has good visibility under direct sunlight. There is an Extra Brightness Mode which when enabled increases the brightness further by around 800nits. In terms of colour reproduction, there are two different settings to choose from – Vivid and Natural.
Choosing the Vivid mode provides punchier colors with deep blues and blacks whereas Natural mode provides realistic colors with an off-white tone. The Vivid mode covers the DCI-P3 gamut whereas the Natural mode covers the sRGB color space. There is also a temperature slider where you can set the white balance to a warmer or cooler tone.
The display has support for HDR on YouTube and also there is Widevine L1 which allows to stream HDR content on OTT platforms like Prime Video, Netflix, etc. Overall, the display on the Galaxy Z Fold 6 has minor upgrades over its predecessor which are great additions and the display is great for multi-media consumption.
Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 Performance:
The Galaxy Z Fold 6 sports a powerful flagship Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset also found on other premium flagships of 2024 which includes the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra (Review). Just like the Galaxy Z Fold 5, here also Samsung has slightly overclocked the chipset where the primary Cortex-X4 core is clocked at 3.39GHz compared to the regular 3.3GHz on other Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 powered devices.
It is a similar iteration of the chipset also found on the Galaxy S24 Ultra. This chipset is based on a 4nm process and is coupled with a powerful Adreno 750 GPU that handles almost all the tasks thrown at it. Whether lighter tasks like scrolling through webpages, streaming social media, etc. and heavy tasks like playing games like BGMI, rendering videos, etc., the Galaxy Z Fold 6 feels faster in all the mentioned scenarios.
In BGMI, the Galaxy Z Fold 5 provided a smoother gameplay with the graphics set to HDR and frame rates set to Extreme. Similar results were obtained when the graphics were set to Smooth and the frame rates set to 90fps or Extreme. There were no frame drops noticed during the really great gameplay. Even other games like Call Of Duty Mobile and Genshin Impact run smoothly at the highest graphics settings without any issues.
After longer hours of gaming ie 3-4 hours, the back does feel a bit warmer but the slightly larger vapour cooling system does dissipate heat faster. In the CPU throttling test, the Galaxy Z Fold 6 could achieve a sustained performance of around 65-70 per cent with thermal throttling noted which is disappointing since the similar chipset on the Galaxy S24 Ultra does not throttle much and provides better sustained performance.
The benchmark scores come out really good whether it is Antutu v8 or Geekbench 6. In terms of network connectivity, you get support for carrier aggregation and almost support for all bands of 5G. The Galaxy Z Fold 6 is available in three different variants – 12GB LPDDR5X RAM with 256/512/1TB storage variants with all of them having UFS 4.0 speeds.
Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 Software:
The Galaxy Z Fold 6 runs on the latest OneUI 6.1.1 which is slightly different from the regular OneUI 6.1 on other Samsung smartphones and is based on Android 14 out of the box. Just like the OneUI on the Galaxy S24 Ultra, this one also provides a software-rich experience with some newer additions to the existing AI features which has been the biggest buzzword by Samsung named the Galaxy AI.
Talking about OneUI, there are a lot of customizations present where you can change icon shape, size, and colour and also there are a lot of themes, wallpapers, different AOD designs for the lock screen, etc. Now talking about the existing AI features like Circle To Search, Photomoji, AI Generative Wallpapers, Live Translate, etc. on the Galaxy S24 Ultra are there but there are newer additions on the Galaxy Z Fold 6 here.
Samsung has added extra features like automatic translation, and transcription, and also provides a summary of the voice that has been recorded whether in a voice recorder or some different applications like Google Meet or Teams. Along with Note Assist, there is the addition of PDF Overlay which now can translate the contents in PDF in whichever language you want and also provides a summary of it.
There is now enhanced transcription available in Samsung Notes where now you can summarize and transcribe together. For example, when you are listening to a lecture, you can open the Notes application and start the recording along with a summary which comes in handy. Now Live Translate supports Interpreter mode and lets you translate in whichever language is required.
Suppose two people are talking so one person can see the translation in the main display whereas the second person can see the translated text on the cover display which is a great move on the Galaxy Z Fold 6. There is also now a Composer integrated into the Samsung Keyboard which lets you set the tone of the things that are writing and sending.
For example, if you want to set a status on LinkedIn, Facebook, or Instagram, the Composer composes the tone in a social media-like format or if you are sending an email, it will professionally compose the whole thing. It also works well if you want to send the text as a comment and set it to a comment-like tone. There is also the Google Gemini application integrated with the Galaxy Z Fold 6.
Now talking about the Circle to Search which lets you select a subject or object in an image or text by circling around had support for translating anything into one single language but now it lets you translate the content into three different languages at a time which is really great. Photo Assist has some newer additions like Sketch to Image as part of Galaxy AI features.
It lets you edit/draw anything in an image which gets added to the existing images or if you are drawing anything randomly on the display, it shows the different variations and transforms it to a colourful look by providing different options like Watercolor, Illustration, Sketch, 3D Cartoon, and Pop Art which is just next level thing. You can select, move, resize or remove objects in the frame and also change the different angles of the object in the image.
On top of that, you can even fill the gaps around the edges. Portrait Studio lets you edit an image in four different portrait looks – Comic, 3D Cartoon, Watercolor, and Sketch which do come with various variations to choose from and these look very cool. On top of that, all other Samsung features like Samsung DeX and Samsung Pay are available which come in handy whenever required.
You get all the usual S-Pen features like Quick Memo, Screen-Off Memo, Air View, Smart Select, etc.
Talking about the bloatware, there are very few pre-installed applications present. In terms of software updates, just like the Galaxy S24 Ultra, the Galaxy Z Fold 6 will receive another seven years of software updates and also security patches which is impeccable and segment-best in the smartphone industry.
Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 Cameras:
The Galaxy Z Fold 6 sports a similar camera setup ie the camera setup from the Galaxy Z Fold 5 which includes the 50MP f/1.8 Samsung GN3 sensor for the primary camera that supports OIS, a 12MP f/2.2 ultrawide camera, and a 10MP f / 2.4 telephoto camera which supports OIS and provides 3x optical zoom. The outer display has a 10MP f/2.4 front camera whereas the inner display has a smaller 4MP camera.
The images from the primary camera come out with sharper details and have a good dynamic range with almost less noise present in the background. The contrast is good and the white balance is handled very well. The colours look saturated without any kind of oversharpening though. There is also a dedicated 50MP mode that lets you capture more detailed images providing good dynamic range.
However, the images shot at 50MP are saved by 12MP by default but there is some portion of the images that do crop in a bit and the noise is slightly higher. The colour looks saturated though. At night, the images come out with sharper details, have good dynamic range, and also the colours look saturated without any kind of oversharpening. All these results are captured with the Auto Night Mode which is triggered automatically.
Even the images taken without the Auto Night Mode come out with good dynamic range and sharper details but the noise is slightly on the higher side. The contrast is on the slightly higher side auto white balance works very well. However, with the Auto Night Mode, the details in the shadows are more evident and even the exposure is very well handled by the camera with/without the Auto Night Mode.
The 12MP ultrawide camera does a good job in terms of details that look sharper, have a good dynamic range, and colours that look saturated but there is a considerable amount of oversharpening present in the background. Since the ultrawide camera lacks autofocus, the details do look a tad softer when compared to the results from the primary camera but there is clear distortion seen around the edges of the images.
At night, the ultrawide camera does a good job in terms of details that look sharper and have a good dynamic range with slightly higher noise in the background. The colours look saturated without any kind of oversharpening and all these results are captured by using the dedicated Night Mode but without the Night Mode, the details do look slightly softer and the dynamic range comes out average.
The noise is also on the higher side slightly but the exposure is well handled in both scenarios. The 10MP telephoto camera does a solid job in terms of images which come out with sharper details and have excellent dynamic range. The noise is almost non-existent in the background and also the colors look saturated without any kind of oversharpening.
The contrast is good and also the auto-white balance works perfectly well. The telephoto camera does an exceptional job in terms of portraits. At night, the images from the telephoto camera come out with sharper details, good dynamic range, and good contrast, but the noise is slightly higher. Tcoloursors look saturated without any kind of oversharpening. These results are all captured using the dedicated Night Mode.
Without the Night Mode, some of the details look a little softer, but they are very hard to differentiate from the images shot using the Night Mode. In terms of portraits, both the primary camera and the telephoto camera can take portraits where the former can take portraits at 1x and 2x zoom levels whereas the latter takes portraits at 3x zoom levels.
The portraits from the primary camera have slightly better details and dynamic range, and even skin tones look perfect with no oversharpening in the background compared to the Galaxy Z Fold 5. The edge detection is perfect along with the background blur which can be adjusted also. The portraits from the telephoto camera come out with similar results as on the primary camera but they do offer slightly less noise in the background.
In terms of selfies, the selfie camera on the outer display does a good job in terms of details that look sharper, have a wider dynamic range, and skin tones that look saturated without any kind of oversharpening in the background. The noise is on the lower side which is good. The inner display front camera has fewer megapixels, so the images come out with a lot of noise, and poor dynamic range, and details look softer.
The Galaxy Z Fold 6 rear cameras can also be used for capturing selfies when completely unfolded and here the cover display acts as a viewfinder. The selfies from the primary camera come out with excellent details that look sharper and have a great dynamic range with less noise in the background. The ultrawide camera also takes selfies with good dynamic range but there is some softness in the details noticed.
However, the noise is barely present which is good. The selfies from the telephoto camera come out at 3x zoom levels that look sharper and have excellent dynamic range with proper natural-looking skin tones. The noise is barely present in the background. Regarding videos, all three rear cameras and the outer display camera can record 4K videos at 60fps whereas the inner display camera is only restricted to 1080p video recording at 60fps.
The primary camera also supports 8K video recording at 30fps. The videos taken from the primary camera come out with sharper details and good dynamic range. The colours look saturated, and since there is OIS present, there is no distortion in the videos. Also, the contrast is handled very well. The situation is similar during the night except for the few noises in the background.
The videos from the ultrawide camera come out with good dynamic range and have saturated colours in the background, but the details look slightly softer with some amount of noise in the background. The videos from the telephoto camera come with excellent details that look sharper and have a great dynamic range with almost less noise in the background.
The videos from the camera on the cover display provide sharper details, have a wider dynamic range, and skin tones look natural without any kind of oversharpening. The noise is slightly on the higher side though. The 1080p videos at 60fps from the inner display camera come out with average details but have a good dynamic range with a higher level of noise in the background.
Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 Battery Life:
The battery part remains unchanged as the Galaxy Z Fold 6 houses the similarly sized 4400mAh battery as on its predecessor ie Galaxy Z Fold 5. But here now you have the newer chipset ie Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset and OneUI 6.1.1, so definitely we expect a slightly better battery life here. With normal usage, the foldable can last for one and a half days and with heavy usage it can easily last one day with some charge left.
With normal usage, the standard screen-on time came around 6-6.5 hours and with heavy usage, the standard screen-on time came around 4.5-5 hours which is a slight improvement over the Galaxy Z Fold 5. Just like the battery capacity, even the charging speeds remain unchanged as the Galaxy Z Fold 6 just like its predecessor has support for 25W fast charging and 15W wireless charging speeds along with reverse wireless charging support.
This is a huge disappointment since many smartphones that are priced way cheaper than the Galaxy Z Fold 6 have support for 65/120W fast charging speeds and also provide much faster 50W wireless charging speeds. On top of that, Samsung does not provide any kind of charger inside the box so there are two options to choose from – either buy some third-party charger that supports 25W fast charging or buy the Samsung proprietary 25W fast charger.
The Samsung proprietary 25W fast charger takes around 0 to 50 per cent within 30 minutes which is good but a complete charge from 0 to 100 per cent takes around 1 hour 30 minutes which is very time-consuming. In terms of battery life, there is a slight improvement but the exclusion of a charger inside the box and still the similar and slower charging speeds remain a concern as always.
Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 Audio Quality:
The Galaxy Z Fold 6 sports a dual stereo speaker setup that sounds equally good from both the top speaker as well as the bottom-firing speakers where you get a good level of bass and treble. Even the sound does not feel muffled at the highest volume settings. There is Dolby Atmos present for enhanced sound output.
Verdict:
The Galaxy Z Fold 6 is a perfect foldable that also defines what a premium flagship can do along with its foldable form factor. It enhances productivity further with the newer set of features which we discussed in the software section and the presence of AI takes it to the next level. Many things hold strong points for the Galaxy Z Fold 6.
It brings a slightly improved and solid build and design with the slightly larger cover display and also even it is lighter compared to its previous generations, the 120Hz LTPO AMOLED displays along with the stereo speakers are great for multimedia consumption, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 provides solid performance in regular activities and as well as in gaming, and the software experience is just amazing.
Talking about the software experience, with each generation of the Fold we see the addition of newer features but this time everything is seen to be AI-driven which makes things work smoother and on top of that the software update cycle policy remains the best as of now in the smartphone industry. In terms of cameras, nothing is much changed from its predecessor as you get a good experience both in terms of images and videos.
The battery life is good with a slight improvement. However, there are still some areas where things still remain the same from the Galaxy Z Fold 5 and have not been addressed. The charging speeds at 25W for a smartphone that is priced way too high and the absence of a charger inside the box does not make sense as it lets it down and still, you have to rely on buying a separate charger.
Even though the camera experience is good, there are still some areas of improvement needed especially when it comes to ultrawide camera output. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 provides great performance and gaming experience, but the chipset tends to throttle a lot which needs to be addressed. The inner display camera needs to have a higher megapixel count also.
Another slight disappointment is that the inner crease is still visible when seen from afar. Now compared with its predecessor i.e. the Galaxy Z Fold 5, you are getting a slightly tweaked design, additional IP4X protection, a slightly larger cover display, slightly improved brightness levels and thinner bezels around the display, better performance and gaming, extra Galaxy AI features as part of the software which also be slowly be seen on the Galaxy Z Fold 5 soon.
The camera experience remains unchanged and so are the charging speeds also. So if you do consider these upgrades, then the Galaxy Z Fold 6 is a good upgrade over its predecessor since the latter is also cheaper now in the market. Overall, the Galaxy Z Fold 6 serves the end user well very with its foldable form factor and the software features based on AI just elevate the experience to a whole next level.