Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 review: The complacent king of big foldables

no one has been making foldable phones as long as Samsung and in the beginning the sheer number of improvements we got on the Galaxy Z fold line meant that it basically didn't have any competition but more recently the pace of innovation has slowed while challenges like the OnePlus open and the pixel fold have arrived so while the Galaxy Z fold 6 is still the best all-around big foldable phone on the market it feels like complacency is starting to erode the kingdom of Samsung's flagship Flexible phone after eliminating the gap between the screen on last year's phone Samsung adjusted the Galaxy zold Six Dimensions again for 2024 but the changes are so small you have to measure them in you know millimeters literally when closed the phone is just over 1 mm thinner and when you open it up in portrait mode the main screen is 2.7 mm wider but 1 mm shorter it's not a ton but you do get a little more room for activities and of course course this also affects the exterior cover screen which is about 1 mm wider as well which is just enough to make using its onscreen keyboard a little B more forgiving elsewhere the entire phone is sharper from its boxier edges to more squared off corners on both of its screens Samsung also says the enhanced armor aluminum used in the zold 6's chassis is about 10% stronger than before but I hope you'll forgive me for not dropping it on purpose just to find out then holding everything together is a new dual rail hinge and this time I think Samsung has nailed the perfect balance between something that's easy to open but also holds its position when you want it to perhaps the biggest design upgrade is a 14 G weight reduction compared to the previous model granted that might not sound like much but the z46 now only weighs about 4 G more than an s24 ultra and on an already heavy phone this change makes a big difference as for the displays as someone's been using the pixel fold a lot recently which has solid screens in its own right can I say Samsung's panels are so choice not only has Peak brightness increased to 2600 nits just like you get on the standard s24 family for both screens I should add Samsung has subtly shrunk and flatten the bezels so the phone looks even more like a magazine come to life and until I see something better this is simply the best screen on a big foldable right now now for performance the zold line has never been slow and this year we got the same upgrade to a Snapdragon 8 gen 3 chip like we got on the s24 while base Ram is staying Pat at 12 GB and as you'd expect the Z6 performance is fast and responsive there's no lag when doing pretty much anything and thanks to the addition of a larger Vapor chamber on the inside the phone stays cooler during longer sessions which is a really nice bonus to all the gamers out there who like playing stuff on a truly big screen device when it comes to photography I'm a bit disappointed with the z46 not because it can't take a decent pick but because I know Samsung can do better for this go around Samsung installed a new 12 megap sens sensor for the ultra wide camera and it's pretty good but at the same time the ultra wide lens is the one I use the least in daily use and it's not really even close the other two cameras the 50 megapix Main and the 12 megapixel telephoto with a 3X optical zoom are the exact same ones we got on the previous two generations and they're solid but once again we've seen them before in a photo of some strawberries the zold 6 produced a delicious pick with deep saturated Hues and great details though at the same time you'll also see the slight exaggerated warm tones that you often get from Samsung cameras and at night the zold produced a beautiful pick of a flower even in a very tricky backlight environment the issue is that after Google released the pixel fold Samsung just doesn't really have an excuse for saddling the zold 6 with downgraded photography when compared to the s24 ultra the pixel fold has a longer 5x optical zoom and an edge in overall photo quality just look at two Zoom shots I took with the zold 6 and the pixel fold in a vacuum Samsung shot doesn't look better bad but then go take a look at the pixels image and it's noticeably sharper and more detailed and it's the same thing in really low light situations too like the one I took of some Bluey figurines where the pixel fold captured a less grainy sharper and more well-exposed pick and after being pleasantly surprised by the cameras on the s24 ultra it's just really a shame that Samsung's most expensive phone comes in second place when it comes to photography now for other features as we saw back at the beginning of the year Samsung has brought the Galaxy AI Suite it launched on the s24 to the zold 6 and by and large a lot of the features are the same including things like chat assist which you can use to generate social posts or emails while selecting a variety of tones and stuff like that there's also support for Google circal search of course you're running Android so you're going to get that along with translation and summarization tools a couple new tweaks for the fold is that now the phone can translate text in place instead of spitting it out into a Big unformatted Blob which is nice but admittedly kind of situation perhaps the more important one is the ability to do dual screen translations so each person can see text in their language in real time depending on what side of the phone they're looking at some other new additions are the portrait studio tool that can create an AI generated drawing of someone based on a photo that you take and then change it depending on a range of styles like comic or watercolor it's fun and it's pretty good for a laugh or two I'm just not sure how useful it's going to be on an everyday basis there's also the sketch to image feature that allows you to add a simple drawing to an existing photo and then have the phone generate a more realistic rendition of it in your final image I still think Samsung's basic AI photo editing tools are the most useful of the bunch as they make it easy to delete distracting objects or do simple touchups but once again all of this feels like bonus content instead of core Essentials now for batter Rel from charging while Samsung didn't increase the size of The 4400 millia cell in the zold 6 the phone does have slightly better battery life due to improved Energy Efficiency from that new chip on our video rundown test it lasted 20 hours and 7 minutes when using its large main screen and 25 hours and 190 minutes when using its exterior cover display that first number is even better than what we saw from the pixel fold and the OnePlus open so if you need a big screen phone with ample longevity the zold 6 is the easy pick unfortunately charging hasn't changed much at all you still get 25 W wire charging and 15 W wireless charging which are both pretty mediocre figures in 2024 and while I wasn't expecting to support for ch2 magnetic charging on the Z 6 especially after Samsung opted not to include it to the main s24 line I'm just still a bit miffed that a phone this expensive is cutting important features off the spec sheet okay let's wrap it up look it wasn't long ago when practically every component on the zold line was unmatched by its competitors but now phones like the pixel fold exist which offers better overall photo quality then there's the OnePlus open which weighs the same as the Z 6 even after it's decent diet and let's not forget both of those Rivals are 2023 models plus there are also Chinese competitors like the newly announced honor magic V3 and the upcoming xiaomi mix fold 4 which are both thinner and lighter than Samsung's Champion don't get me wrong the Galaxy zold 6 is a good foldable a great one even it's got excellent performance strong battery life and handy features like native style support but it feels like after all this time of sitting fat and happy on its Throne Samsung has a diminished hunger for Total Domination instead of long awaited features like a built-in S Pen or an improved underd display camera we got a bunch of AI power tools and tricks which are fun but not highlight attractions and at $1,900 which is $100 more than last year's phone the Galaxy Z fold 6 is the most expensive it's ever been dating back to the Galaxy Z fold 3 but I guess that's the price you pay for having such a long rign on top but what do you think are you planning on upgrading to the zold 6 I kind of hope not if you bought last year's zold 5 but either way let me know in the comments down below and as always don't forget to subscribe to Engadget for more news reviews and hands-ons [Music] [Music]