I’ve held a Galaxy Z Fold 7, and unlike last year’s model, Samsung’s latest book-style foldable doesn’t feel like a refined version of its previous one—it feels like a different phone entirely, one that has made enough compromises to make me really appreciate my Z Fold 6.
5The Z Fold 6 Is Easier to Open
I’m drawn to book-style foldables as tablets that I can easily carry around in my pocket. A7-inch tablet is ideal for so many tasks, but small tablets are not pocketable devices. Book-style foldable phones solve that problem.
Thing is, the Z Fold 7 isn’t better at being a tablet. Its pursuit of thinness is driven from a desire to be a better slab phone, one whose size and shape is as similar to conventional phones as possible. It’s that same thinness that has made the phone harder to open.
When I directly compared a Z Fold 7 to my current phone, I could feel how there is less phone to grip when trying to pry the device open. Plus, changes to the hinge’s design have introduced more resistance. Accessing the internal screen suddenly feels like it has gone from being the Z Fold’s main selling point on previous models to an afterthought on the latest one.
4The Old Internal Screen Is Better for One-Hand Use
The Z Fold 7 bumps the size of the internal screen up from 7.6 inches to 8 inches. I know techies typically like to see numbers go up when talking about anything other than price, but I don’t have this sentiment towards screen sizes. A bigger screen is often, by definition, less portable.
The size of the Z Fold’s internal screen has, for six generations, been easy enough to hold in one hand. Samsung has nailed both the aspect ratio and the weight distribution. I’d call it the upper limit of what can be considered a one-handed phone.
The Z Fold 7 crosses over the limit. It’s a two-handed device. Unfortunately, the slightly tweaked aspect ratio isn’t any better for watching video or playing games—but it is slightly worse forreading ebooks,enjoying digital comics, writing documents, and browsing the web.
3My Foldable Is My Digital Notebook
I start each morning by journaling. I wake up, open my phone, and start scribbling a few pages down in Samsung Notes. I like the idea of using a physical journal instead, but in practice, the accessibility of a phone is a big part of why the journaling habit has stuck this time around.
The Z Fold 6 is smaller than most notebooks but magically opens up to have a wider page than a similarly sized Moleskine would provide. This page also lies flat without me having to hold it down. As someone who likes to write by hand, this is a great device to write on. It’s neither too big to keep on me (like a tablet) nor too narrow (like the S25 Ultra, which is sized more like a notepad than a journal).
I use theolder Fold edition S Pendesigned for the Z Fold 3, which feels more like the S Pen released for tablets and is shaped more like a regular pen. Theslim Fold edition S Penreleased for the Z Fold 5 is too dainty for my tastes. I personally don’t care that my Z Fold 6 doesn’t have a slot for an S Pen, because I just don’t find a pen that size to be comfortable for anything other than the briefest of notes.
I get it. Many people who just want a phone don’t want to carry around a separate pen. But I’m a writer, one who has tried many times over the years to carry a pen and notebook with me everywhere I went. The Z Fold has been a dream come true, but the 7th generation sadly does away with the S Pen entirely. This one change is enough toruin the phone’s appeal for me. It’s still a foldable phone, but it’s no longer a digital notebook.
2My Cameras Are Less Disruptive
I hardly ever use the front-facing camera on any phone. Its existence at the top of any screen is a compromise I begrudgingly except as a necessity to make the occasional video call. The Z Fold series has thankfully at least hid the camera as best it can by using under-display technology.
The Z Fold 7 uses a regular hole-punch camera. Since Samsung’s engineers left the camera in the same spot as before, it now sits prominently in the middle of videos. It interrupts the immersion of comics and web pages alike.
Sure, this camera delivers slightly better picture quality, but the Z Fold already has two cameras that are better for taking selfies. It doesn’t need a third.
Plus, while the cameras on the back of my phone do cause it to wobble when placed on a table, the Z Fold 7’s wobble is truly next level.
1The Older Phone Has Better Speakers
Much of what I’ve written can be dismissed as subjective. You likely don’t care about the S Pen, and maybe you like the larger screen. But an inferior speaker is an inferior speaker. I personally can’t speak to this difference firsthand, since I didn’t play any audio from the Z Fold 7, but enough reviews have come out that tell a similar story.
The problem here is pretty straightforward. A super-thin device has less space for the components and the sound waves emanating from them. Unlike with cameras, there aren’t speaker bumps to compensate. Instead, the Galaxy Z Fold 7 is stuck with less space to work with. It’s not the only super-thin foldable to have this issue. You can read similar critiques of the Oppo Find N5 as well.
There are two things that people who love the Galaxy Z Fold 7 are drawn to: its wider cover display and its thinness. These are the phone’s blessings. They’re also its curses.
Unfortunately for me, I neither feel like the cover display on my Z Fold 6 is too narrow nor that the phone is too thick, so the Z Fold 7 takes away features I value in service of a goal that doesn’t do me any good. Fortunately, the Z Fold 6 has seven years of software support. That’s a long time to see if future models regain what has been lost.
Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6
The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 is a foldable smartphone that combines the functionality of a tablet with the convenience of a phone. It features a large, flexible internal screen that automatically picks up where you left off on the cover display.
