The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 is a very expensive smartphone that seems to live up to the hype — but for whom does this bell toll?
The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 is a masterpiece — but not necessarily for the reasons you might expect. Instead, it’s a triumph in industrial design — it looks and feels as high-end as its asking price would suggest it should be. That doesn’t necessarily mean it’s something you absolutely need to own — but if you’re looking for the most interesting smartphone on the market today, this might well be it.
Samsung went through several slightly rounder-edged versions of this device over the past half-decade — now the Z Fold 6 is positively rectangular by comparison. The version I’m reviewing was sent by Samsung for this review with an official S Pen Case — with S Pen included. You can make full use of this device without the stylus, but once you have it, you’ll feel like you need it.
After reviewing smartphones since the beginning of Android — starting not long after the term „smartphone“ was invented — I feel I can safely say I have a good understanding of what makes a device great. The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 is a delightful piece of hardware, and easily one of the best smartphones I’ve ever tested. But is it worth the cash? Do you really need a smartphone that’s this capable of blowing your socks off?Foldable Features
The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 is the latest in Samsung’s line of smartphones with foldable displays. There’s also a „Flip“ line of devices that folds like a traditional flip phone. Or if you’d like, the Galaxy Z Flip 6 folds like a burger bun while the Galaxy Z Fold 6 folds like a hot dog bun.
There are two displays on the Z Fold 6: one cover display, and one far larger foldable display. The cover display is a rather narrow 6.3-inches. It’s not so extremely narrow that it’s unusable, but if you’ve only ever used a traditional smartphone before now, you’ll need to do a bit of adjusting. You’ll find all your favorite apps still work on a display this narrow, but for most software you’ll want to open the whole thing up.
Inside is a 7.6-inch foldable „Dynamic LTPO AMOLED 2X“ screen with a 91% screen-to-body ratio. That means the usable display space reaches very nearly from one corner to the other. Both the cover and the foldable display have significantly more squared corners than the Galaxy Z Fold 5 — a very welcome change, especially in a device on this end of the price spectrum.Refreshing Displays, Similar Abilities
Both the cover and foldable display panels on the Z Fold 6 have 1-120Hz adaptive refresh rates. This is a slight improvement over the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5, as the cover display on that device did not have the same adaptive system to change refresh rate on the fly, based on app and battery preferences.
Other than the change in the curve of the corners, the biggest change on the cover display is an increased peak brightness. On the Z Fold 5 the front display rolls with 1750nits peak brightness, while the Z Fold 6 reaches a cool 2600nits. The same is true on the foldable display — the peak brightness is the same inside as it is on the cover. The foldable display on the Z Fold 6 also works with the same 1-120Hz adaptive refresh rate.
You’ll find a front-facing camera either inside or behind both the cover and foldable display panels — this is a feature that most modern phones take for granted. On the cover the camera peeks through a punch hole, inside the camera hides behind the display — and it would appear that Samsung’s figured out how to successfully make this one deliver decent results despite its necessary aesthetically-pleasing impediment.
Of course, as always, it’s the main set of cameras that are really here to perform the most daunting of tasks: Taking photos of moving objects in poorly-lit environments.
