Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 Hands-On: Bigger And Better, But It'll Cost You

If you don't look too closely, you might have trouble figuring out what Samsung actually changed on the Galaxy Z Fold 6 when compared to the Galaxy Z Fold 5. The differences are subtle, but noticeable. The screen is a bit bigger, the cover screen is a bit wider, and the phone is a bit thinner. Also, the price has gone up by $100. That last part is certainly not awesome: Samsung's most expensive phone got even more expensive.

This presents a bit of a problem for Samsung because there has been a lot of laurel-resting since somewhere around the Galaxy Z Fold 3 or Z Fold 4. Put simply, there have been glaring problems with the Fold for the past few years, but there has been no competition to concern Samsung — at least not in the U.S. That has changed.

The OnePlus Open remains my favorite phone ever because of its attractive size when closed and smart multitasking when opened. The Open also takes advantage of Samsung's early presence in the space by designing a phone with an inner screen with similar dimensions, so that apps fit well. Over on the flip side — pun intended — Samsung has more competition in flip-style foldables, so put simply, this is not a good time to be resting.

The most noticeable change to the Galaxy Z Fold 6 is in the cameras, but mostly in a cosmetic sense. The camera bumps on the back now have thicker bezels with a pattern that catches the light in a pretty cool way. More cosmetic changes can be found around the phone. The phone's inner screen is 2.7 mm wider and 1.4mm shorter. The cover screen is 1mm wider than the Z Fold 5 as well. The phone also weighs just 239 grams.

Samsung's customer data reflected that some of the biggest concerns for the Z Fold Series were its weight and bulk, which it tried to address by making it thinner and lighter. That's nice, and in fairness, the phone is easier to hold. My very brief time with the device suggests that it might be a little easier to type on, but only just. The cover screen on the OnePlus Open is a much more attractive ratio that feels like a normal smartphone when closed. By contrast, the Galaxy Z Fold 6 feels like you need to open it in order to really use it.

Meanwhile, to the surprise of absolutely no one, Samsung is also leaning heavily on the AI features that the larger screen inside allows. Don't get me wrong, you don't necessarily need a larger screen for these features (many of them will also be available on the Z Flip 6), but some of them will work better because of the larger screen.

Smart sketch in particular is a potentially neat feature in which you can take a photo and draw a quick sketch on it for some type of embellishment and the AI will generate a much cleaner version for you. The example Samsung gave was drawing a pair of glasses on a dog.

There are also a ton of AI features including generative edit, which is similar to Google's Magic Editor; Portrait Studio which takes a photo of someone and generates a sketch of them; Note Assist which can auto-format your documents, browsing assist which can translate web pages on the fly and/or give you a summary. These are all fun tricks that you may or may not find useful depending on your workflow.

The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 comes with a similar set of cameras as last year. The upgrade comes in the 12-megapixel ultrawide camera. The new camera is supposed to have better low light noise reduction, and is capable of capturing 60fps video, even at 4K. The other two cameras — the 50-megapixel main sensor and the 10-megapixel 3x telephoto sensor — are both the same as last year.

As someone who only ever uses the ultrawide sensor when actually performing camera testing, this particular upgrade is underwhelming, but I am not necessarily the primary audience here. The OnePlus Open meanwhile has a monster set of cameras in a phone that's even thinner, which to me is just criminal.

Samsung is good at cameras. Samsung has been good at cameras for a long time, so it's maddening to not see progress in this area. We'll have to wait for our final testing to see where this set of cameras lands. Samsung was not shy talking about AI enhancements for its cameras, and that could make a big difference — it does in the Motorola Razr+ (2024) after all.

Samsung pointed out some interesting data about its foldables during our talk. Notably, most foldable customers are coming from a previous foldable. That is good news for Samsung — people who are buying its phones are staying with it. But it's also bad news because Samsung noted that many customers who are interested in foldables have never actually used one. Some retail experiences are hobbled by security devices, so customers can't even see or interact with the cover screen. Samsung is trying to fix that because it believes that once people get to play with a foldable, they'll become customers.

The Galaxy Z Fold 6 is rated for up to 200,000 folds or 10 years of folding, but just in case you're nervous about it, Samsung is also pushing its Z Assurance policy with customers. This comes with every purchase of a Samsung foldable, and it allows for one-time free screen protector replacement and a one-time reduced cost screen replacement. The reduced cost makes it possible to replace the screen of the Galaxy Z Fold 6 for the same cost as a screen replacement of an S series device, which for those not familiar, do not fold. The big question is, will this help?

The thing about cornering the market is, you can pretty much do anything you want. For the longest time, Samsung had the foldable market absolutely cornered in the United States. Then 2023 happened and much to Samsung's surprise, it was no longer the only game in town. I hate to keep coming back to the OnePlus Open, but when I see a Samsung Galaxy Fold 5 and a OnePlus Open on a table, I can't think of a single reason to pick up the Fold over the Open. I'm not positive that Samsung has done anything with the Z Fold 6 to change that perception.

But this is all based on a couple of hours with the phone, and all the other devices that Samsung launched today. Our reviewers will need to spend a significant amount of time with the phone to ultimately answer that question.

If you'd like to find out for yourself, preorders start up today. You can order the Galaxy Z Fold 6, shipping on July 24 from Amazon, Best Buy, Samsung.com and from carrier stores. People who preorder with a trade in can get up to $1,200 off the Fold 6 and get double the storage for free. The Fold 6 will be available in 256, 512, or 1 TB configurations — obviously with the complimentary doubling of storage, the base model starts at 512 GB, which is very nice. Naturally, other carriers will have their own trade-ins and deals, so be sure to check them all out and weigh your options.