The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6: A Refined Foldable with AI Prowess, but Pricey
The Galaxy Z Fold 6, Samsung’s latest addition to its foldable phone lineup, follows in the footsteps of its predecessors, the Galaxy Z Fold 4 and 5. While the changes on paper might not seem significant, the refinements and the company’s bold investment in AI (artificial intelligence) features make the Fold 6 a compelling, albeit pricey, proposition. It aims to be a top contender in the 2024 flagship smartphone market, and we’ll delve into its strengths and shortcomings to help you decide if it’s the right choice for you.
Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 Design: Thinner and Lighter with Improved Durability
The Galaxy Z Fold 6 marks a departure from the rounded corners of the Fold 5, adopting a flatter design. This shift results in a rectangular bar aesthetic when folded, with sharper edges that are immediately noticeable. The bezels have also been refined, boasting thinner borders around the display and a wider cover screen, significantly enhancing daily usability.
The Fold 6 achieves a noticeable reduction in both thickness and weight compared to its predecessor. With dimensions of 153.5×68.1×12.1mm (folded) and 153.5×132.6×5.6mm (unfolded), and a weight of 239 grams, the Fold 6 feels significantly lighter in daily use than the Fold 5 (253 grams). Samsung has also meticulously balanced the weight distribution, making it easier to hold the Fold 6 comfortably for one-handed texting and even camera work.
The sturdy aluminum frame offers a solid hand feel. Samsung claims an improved scratch-resistant matte finish, while both the front display and glass back are protected by Corning Gorilla Glass Victus 2. This year, Samsung has addressed concerns about durability by adding IP48 protection. Although the Fold 6 still lacks dust resistance, the enhanced sealing offers peace of mind.
The color options for the Fold 6 include Pink, Navy, Crafted Black (Special Edition), White (Special Edition), and Silver Shadow, the color we reviewed. Samsung has made a conscious effort to offer more diverse and appealing color choices, a welcome departure from the typical book-style foldable aesthetic. While we would have loved to try the White option, the Silver Shadow color has a subtle charm that grows on you.
Improved Hinge and Reduced Crease: The hinge on the Fold 6 has been refined, aiming for greater strength and lightness. Samsung has emphasized multiple hinge improvements, including a dual rail design for enhanced sturdiness and shock resistance. The phone snaps securely when folded, instilling confidence in its everyday usability.
The ever-present crease, a common concern with foldable devices, is still noticeable. However, Samsung has continuously worked to reduce its prominence with each iteration. While Samsung hasn’t detailed the specific changes, the main screen boasts a new, thicker, and more durable protective layer designed for longevity.
The Unboxing Experience: The retail box contains the phone, standard documentation, a SIM ejector tool, and a USB Type-C cable. It would have been a welcome addition if Samsung had included a case considering the phone’s premium price, or perhaps bundled it as a package.
Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 Display: An Exceptional Display Experience
The Galaxy Z Fold 6 stands out amongst 2024 flagship smartphones, particularly with its remarkable display that surpasses even the Fold 5’s performance. The foldable features a wider 6.3-inch cover screen (up from 6.2 inches on the Fold 5), while the main screen boasts a 1856×2160 pixel resolution and 374PPI pixel density. The cover screen offers a 968×2376 pixel resolution and 410PPI pixel density.
The Galaxy Z Fold 6 delivers an exceptional display experience for a wide range of tasks. Whether you’re gaming, multitasking, browsing, streaming, reading or exploring other activities, the Fold 6 shines with its brightness, clarity, and responsiveness. It boasts a peak brightness of 2600nits, ensuring excellent sunlight legibility. The adaptive 120Hz refresh rate provides smooth animations and buttery transitions in day-to-day use. Supporting both HDR10+ and HDR10 standards, the Fold 6 comes with Widevine L1 certification.
The 7.6-inch main screen is a multimedia enthusiast’s dream. The discreet under-display selfie camera on the main screen blends seamlessly, allowing you to make the most of the expansive screen. Samsung has leveraged the slight bump in width compared to the Fold 5 to enhance the resolution and aspect ratio of the main screen. The wider 6.3-inch cover screen is an absolute boon for typing short messages, composing emails, and navigating social media apps.
Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 Performance: Setting the Benchmark for Other Foldables
The Galaxy Z Fold 6 is powered by Qualcomm’s flagship Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset, delivering snappy and seamless performance in every scenario. From multitasking and gaming to streaming, photo editing and video editing, the Fold 6 handles everything with effortless grace. It outperforms other foldables released in 2024 in terms of raw power. Games like Call of Duty: Mobile and Asphalt Legends Unite run buttery smooth on the Fold 6 thanks to the powerful processor. The larger vapor chamber on the Fold 6 helps with thermal management, minimizing any noticeable heating issues.
The Fold 6 is a testament to the capability of folding devices to handle demanding tasks. In synthetic benchmark tests, the Fold 6 performs exceptionally well. The table below showcases its performance in comparison to other leading foldables:
| Benchmark | Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 (Cover/ Main) | Vivo X Fold 3 Pro (Cover/ Main) | OnePlus Open (Cover/ Main) |
|---|---|---|---|
| AnTuTu v10 | 1,642,118 / 1,695,896 | 2,051,650 / 2,063,526 | 1,305,500 / 1,26,4480 |
| PCMark Work 3.0 | 18,688 / 18,460 | 14,489 / 14,251 | 10,276 / 10,521 |
| Geekbench 6 Single | 2,216/ 2,197 | 2,143 / 2,167 | 1,426 / 1,056 |
| Geekbench 6 Multi | 6,725/ 6,689 | 6,562 / 6,800 | 4,096 / 4,114 |
| GFXB T-rex (fps) | 120 / 120 | 120 / 120 | 60 / 60 |
| GFXB Manhattan 3.1 (fps) | 120 / 120 | 120 / 105 | 60 / 60 |
| GFXB Car Chase (fps) | 119 / 119 | 102 / 67 | 60 / 46 |
| 3DM Slingshot Extreme OpenGL | Maxed Out / Maxed Out | Maxed Out / Maxed Out | Maxed Out / Maxed Out |
| 3DM Slingshot | Maxed Out / Maxed Out | Maxed Out / Maxed Out | Maxed Out / Maxed Out |
| 3DM Wild Life | 15,678 / 15,210 | Maxed Out / Maxed Out | Maxed Out / Maxed Out |
| 3DM Wild Life Unlimited | 18,786 / 17,898 | 17,985 / 18,721 | 13,731 / 13,731 |
The Fold 6 features 12GB of LPDDR5X RAM and comes in three storage options: 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB (UFS 4.0). The powerful haptic motor delivers a satisfying response during typing on the cover screen. The speaker system on the Fold 6 is capable and loud enough to fill a small room with clear and crisp audio. The call quality is excellent, and the phone maintains a strong network connection even in areas with weak signal strength.
Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 Software and AI Features: Adding Value
The Galaxy Z Fold 6 runs One UI 6.1.1, based on Android 14. Users familiar with premium Galaxy devices will find the interface familiar, with minimum bloatware. The experience is smooth, with a seamless transition from the cover to the main screen and most apps opening smoothly without lag. Samsung has committed to seven years of Android and security updates for the Fold 6, ensuring long-term support.
The Galaxy Z Fold 6 and Galaxy Z Flip 6 boast a suite of AI features, solidifying Samsung’s commitment to leveraging the latest technologies. This move is particularly timely as other manufacturers are increasingly integrating AI in their latest devices. The Fold 6 builds upon the AI foundation laid out with the Galaxy S24 series, offering enhanced capabilities.
AI Features in Action:
Notes App (Note Assist): This feature, a personal favorite, is packed with AI-powered enhancements for note-taking. Some of these include automatic formatting, note summarization, transcription and summarization of voice recordings, automatic cover generation based on note content, grammar and spelling correction, and text translation. It even includes a PDF overlay translation feature for quick translation of PDF documents, a feature not readily available for free online.
Sketch to Image: This fun and remarkable feature allows users to "draw" even with limited artistic skills. It leverages AI to transform rough sketches into realistic images, making creativity accessible to everyone.
Interpreter (Conversation Mode): This feature provides real-time translation, seamlessly converting conversations into different languages. We found it to be accurate and reliable.
Portrait Studio: This feature lets you convert portraits into 3D cartoons or choose from a selection of stylistic interpretations.
Photo Assist: This AI photo editing tool offers a range of enhancements to improve your images.
Browsing Assist: With this feature, you can summarize a webpage text, translate content, and enhance your reading experience.
- Chat Assist: This feature provides assistance with composing text messages, adjusting tone, and ensuring proper grammar.
These AI features, combined with the powerful hardware, make the Fold 6 a unique and versatile device for productivity and entertainment.
Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 Camera: Decently Equipped, But Not the Industry Leader
The Galaxy Z Fold 6 adopts the rear camera setup found on the Fold 5 and Fold 4, with a notable upgrade to the ultrawide sensor for improved low-light performance. The selfie cameras remain unchanged.
Rear Cameras:
- Main Camera: 50-megapixel, Dual Pixel PDAF, OIS, f/1.8 aperture, AF
- Telephoto Camera: 10-megapixel, PDAF, 3x zoom
- Ultra-wide Camera: 12-megapixel, f/2.2 aperture
Selfie Cameras:
- Main Screen Under-display Camera: 4-megapixel, f/1.8 aperture
- Cover Screen Selfie Camera: 10-megapixel, f/2.2 aperture
The Fold 6 captures fantastic daylight photos with exceptional detail, vibrant colors, and accurate color rendering. The shots demonstrate excellent dynamic range, and autofocus is reliable. Portraits showcase good skin tone reproduction. The bokeh effect is also impressive, with accurate depth estimation in most portrait shots. The ultrawide camera performs adequately in daylight, delivering good detail and dynamic range. However, the lack of autofocus can lead to soft focus in some situations. The telephoto camera is also capable, but the zoom capabilities are not as impressive as some other premium smartphones.
Low Light Performance: The Fold 6’s low-light performance is less impressive due to factors like irregular autofocus and noise. Photos can be underexposed, and noise levels are noticeable.
Video Quality: Samsung has made slight improvements to video quality, but the overall performance still lags behind some other flagship devices.
Under-display Camera: The 4-megapixel under-display camera on the main screen is primarily suitable for video calls and is not ideal for social media uploads. The 10-megapixel camera on the cover screen is more suitable for social media content due to its higher resolution and consistent performance across lighting conditions.
While the Fold 6 doesn’t lead the camera pack in the premium smartphone market, it offers a capable camera experience. However, the camera performance falls short of expectations given the Fold 6’s premium price.
Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 Battery Life: Still Room for Improvement
The Galaxy Z Fold 6 features a 4,400mAh battery, a retention of the capacity seen on the Fold 5. This decision likely reflects a commitment to maintaining the lighter weight of the device.
With mixed usage, including extended use of the cover screen and the main screen for reading, editing, and streaming, the Fold 6 provided nearly a full day of battery life. The battery performance is largely similar to the Fold 5. In our video loop test, the Fold 6 lasted for an impressive 20 hours and 24 minutes, with the videos played on the inner display.
Charging: However, the Fold 6 continues to disappoint with its charging speeds. Despite the device’s premium price, Samsung is still only providing 25W fast charging support. Other Android flagships have minimum charging speeds of 65W. The Fold 6 takes approximately 30 minutes to charge from 0 to 50 percent. However, full charging takes over 100 minutes, an area where the Fold 6 lags behind the competition.
Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 Review: Verdict
The Galaxy Z Fold 6 is currently Samsung’s best foldable offering. It excels in numerous aspects and is an exceptional device for multitasking. The displays are among the best available in foldable phones, the performance is snappy, and the software features (particularly the AI capabilities) are a real strength. The more you explore the Fold 6, the more you’ll appreciate its form factor and capabilities, which essentially offer the convenience of multiple devices rolled into one.
AI Integration: In a landscape where AI is rapidly evolving, Samsung has successfully integrated a robust set of AI features that enhance the Fold 6’s usability and productivity.
Strengths:
- Excellent displays (both cover and main screens)
- Top-notch performance
- Unique and beneficial AI features
- Strong software support (seven years of updates)
- Improved durability and build quality
Weaknesses:
- High price
- Lackluster camera performance (particularly in low light)
- Slow charging speeds compared to the competition
- Foldable design can be prone to damage
Should You Buy It?
If you prioritize a refined book-style foldable phone with exceptional performance and a comprehensive suite of AI features, the Galaxy Z Fold 6 is a strong contender.
Alternatives:
- Galaxy S24 Ultra: Offers many features similar to the Fold 6 at a lower price, but lacks the foldable design.
- OnePlus Open: A solid book-style foldable option.
- Vivo X Fold 3 Pro: Another competitive book-style foldable.
In Conclusion: The Galaxy Z Fold 6 is a supremely capable foldable smartphone. However, its premium price might deter some potential buyers. While it offers a differentiated experience compared to other flagship Android smartphones like the Galaxy S24 Ultra, it is not a direct competitor. The Fold 6’s appeal lies in its unique folding form factor, its powerful AI capabilities, and its innovative blend of features. Ultimately, the decision boils down to your individual needs, budget, and preferences.
