The Galaxy Z Fold 6 is like staying in a very luxurious Airbnb.
It’s objectively luxurious: spacious and equipped with every amenity you can think of. But it’s a bit impractical, and you’ll never feel as comfortable as you would in your own home. Not to mention, tracking dirt in the wrong places can have real consequences. The home isn’t very well appointed, but it’s comfortable and by the time you check out, you’re ready to breathe a sigh of relief.
Book-style foldable phones like the Fold 6 cost much more than phablets and require protection of delicate moving parts, making them more or less a luxury product. The foldable phone is a small technological miracle that no one absolutely believes need. But even in this scarce segment, Samsung’s products aren’t as easy to please as their competitors. With the launch of the Google Pixel Fold and OnePlus Open last year, fans of foldable phones (at least in the US, where we have fewer options) saw a more familiar format with a wider outer screen – the kind you use A hundred times a day.
Samsung did maintain its lead in this area for four years. The Z Fold 6 offers such minor upgrades over the 5 that the differences are measured in millimeters: the screen is slightly wider and the profile is slightly narrower. telephone Flatness has been improved. There’s a new ultra-wide-angle camera. And, of course, all the AI features you can rock with the S Pen, for a whopping $1,899 — $100 more than the Z Fold 5 .
I don’t think we can keep waiting for the Z Fold to evolve into something meaningfully different; Samsung seems to think this is its final form and keeps polishing the edges every year. The Fold 6 is indeed an impressive gadget, but it’s one that I just can’t quite get used to.
The Z Fold 6’s outer screen measures 6.3 inches diagonally, an increase from last year’s model’s 6.2 inches because of a few millimeters more width. I can appreciate the difference when viewing the two phones side by side, but in reality, the difference is very small and doesn’t affect the experience of using the overlay screen much. This is still a tall and thin screen compared to the outer screens on regular phablets and even the Pixel and OnePlus foldable phones. I think a lot of people will have no problem adjusting to the unusual size of the external screen, but even after a week of use, the keyboard still feels a little too squished every time I use it. Your mileage may vary, etc.
Compared with the Fold 5, the Z Fold 6 is also lighter, dropping from 253 grams to 239 grams. That’s all well and good, but the reality is that the Z Fold 6 is still a big chunk when folded in half. It’s only 7 grams heavier than the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra, but the way the weight is distributed makes the Z Fold 6 less comfortable to use with one hand, and really Leaving my phone in the side pocket of my yoga pants looks stupid.
The edge closest to the hinge is also more square than the edge on the Z Fold 5. As far as I can tell, this really isn’t a phone you want to keep in your pants pocket. Oh, has the flatness improved? fold Do When the screen is placed face down on a flat surface, unfold it so it is almost flush. But when you use it on a table with it fully open, it still rocks back and forth on camera bumps, which you’re more likely to do.
The main highlight of the Z Fold 6 is the 7.6-inch internal screen, which is as impressive as ever. The crease looks roughly the same—it disappears when looking directly at the monitor, but you can see it from an angle. In bright light, it hits 2,600 nits, which makes it comfortable to use outdoors, but that’s when I noticed the crease more.
Still, I’m never not surprised that I can open this phone and run two apps side by side with ease. This was extremely helpful when I was planning a bike ride on Komoot and cross-referencing Strava’s heatmaps, since I’m too cheap to pay for premium accounts on both services.
I wish it was better suited for video conferencing. The laptop-style partially unfolded configuration is suitable for hands-free video calls, which is nice. But when you use it like this, the internal selfie camera is only centered on the left side of the screen. This is an awkward and very unflattering angle. In addition, the screen size is narrow, which makes folding it a cramped experience.
For more creative pursuits, the inner screen can serve as a large canvas for Samsung’s messiest new AI feature: Sketch to Image. No prompts needed – all you need to do is draw a rough sketch (mine was Very Roughly) anything you want to add to your photo, artificial intelligence will turn it into a realistic addition to the image. The results are often absurd and sometimes surprisingly believable. I dare you to try it at Best Buy or elsewhere, but there isn’t at least one small very funny.
Samsung’s other AI features — whether it’s the Z Fold 6 or Samsung’s other flagship devices — remain a mishmash of party tricks. Like Apple, Samsung promises that the best stuff, like context-aware help from its virtual assistant, will come later. (Bixby, are you there? It’s me, Allison.) Galaxy AI, like all AI on phones, remains unproven. But the Z Fold 6 comes with something better than artificial intelligence: a very generous seven years of operating system and security updates.
Samsung likes to emphasize that foldable phones are on par with phablets. The same is largely true of the Fold’s camera system, which is at its best when it comes to taking photos of people. While I don’t think covering the screen feels as easy to use as a traditional smartphone, the Fold 6’s battery life seems to be as strong as the best phablets. I tested the phone with the always-on display enabled throughout and on a few long bike rides using GPS and streaming music. Even so, I usually have at least 50% left at the end of the day.
But the Z Fold 6 still falls short of the phablet in one important way: durability. Samsung made some tweaks to the materials and hinge mechanism to improve drop protection, and it’s still fully waterproof, but dust is still an enemy of the foldable phone. For a limited time, customers who buy the phone directly from Samsung will get one free screen repair and one screen protector replacement within two years of purchase, but that doesn’t inspire confidence in long-term durability.
Don’t get me wrong. The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 is an amazing gadget. The Fold has earned a loyal following—and rightfully so. Multitasking on the big screen is effortless, the build quality is as good as it gets on a foldable, and the battery reliably lasts a day or more. Heck, you can plug the whole damn thing into a monitor and use it like a computer.
Samsung pioneered foldable phones, but now it’s stubbornly iterating on the original concept – and it feels like the time for iterations is over. The company seems committed to the current long and narrow template rather than adopting a wider format. Personally, I think the OnePlus Open is an ideal foldable design, roughly halfway between the tall and skinny Z Fold 6 and the wide and short Google Pixel Fold.
Not to mention, this phone costs nearly two thousand dollars! Can’t we ask for a little more than “improved flatness”? I wanted an S Pen, like the cheaper Galaxy S24 Ultra, and some way to store it without having to buy a special case with a pen slot. Or, I don’t know, how about cool modular accessories! A better video conferencing experience! Free screen protector replacement for everyone! Let’s dream big, people!
The Z Fold 6 is a very nice place to stay, but at least to me, it doesn’t quite feel like home.
Photography: Allison Johnson/The Verge
