An extremely foldable in all however identify

We’re various years into the supply of foldable telephones, however it looks like they’re simply now, lastly, coming into their very own. Gone are the times when shopping for a book-style foldable meant carrying round a cellphone two occasions the thickness of a conventional cellphone or utilizing completely sub-par cameras. Nowadays, there are a couple of foldables which can be about as thick as a slab cellphone when folded. Working example: The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7.

The brand new system retains the same total look because the Z Fold 6, and isn’t going to interrupt any information in the case of efficiency or digicam high quality. It’s additionally costly. Very costly. Paradoxically, you’d pay much less for 2 Samsung Galaxy S25 gadgets that you might glue collectively — and for the cash, you’d get double the processing.

So, what do you really get for a cool $2,000? Nicely, you get what’s arguably one of the best pocketable productiveness machine on the market. Just one downside. Even with a cellphone this measurement, are you actually going to be extra productive?

Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 specs

Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 evaluate: Design

By far the most important and most vital change to the Galaxy Z Fold comes within the type of the brand new design. At a look, and based mostly on photos on-line, you may not assume the design is an enormous deal. The Galaxy Z Fold 7 appears similar to the Galaxy Z Fold 6 in all methods however one — thickness.

For a foldable cellphone, that’s sort of an enormous deal, and the system does really really feel very skinny, particularly when unfolded. It’s exhausting to overstate this. The system is 4.2mm thick unfolded, which is round half the thickness of a tool just like the iPhone 16 Professional or Samsung Galaxy S25 Extremely. The tip consequence? When folded up and in your pocket, you may not really feel a lot of a distinction.

Really, the cellphone feels wonderful to carry — and it feels a lot completely different than it appears. That’s true each folded and unfolded — folded up it looks like a normal cellphone, as a substitute of a thick cellphone. Unfolded, it feels extremely skinny. It’s generally a bit tough to unfold, however you get used to the place to put your fingers to take action simply. Simply don’t count on to have the ability to unfold it with one hand.

To be clear, there are different super-thin foldable telephones on the market. For instance, the Honor Magic V5 is across the identical thickness, and Honor has been making skinny foldables for some time now. However, these different super-thin foldables aren’t out there in each market, and in the event you stay within the U.S., the Galaxy Z Fold 7 is certainly an enormous deal.

That ultra-thin construct does have its trade-offs. Particularly, cameras haven’t gotten magically thinner simply because the remainder of the cellphone has, and whereas Samsung might go for thinner cameras if it needed, that may come on the expense of digicam high quality. We’ll get into how the cameras carry out later, however for now, you may most likely inform that they protrude from the again of the cellphone a good greater than they did on the Z Fold 6. Once you’re holding the cellphone, you gained’t actually discover it, however you’ll when the system is on a desk or desk — it strikes a complete lot extra. Maybe a Pixel-style digicam bar could be a more sensible choice right here, as it might keep away from the cellphone wobbling round in the event you set it on a desk. It might nonetheless transfer when unfolded, although.

Picture supply: Christian de Looper for BGR

There are another design modifications. The cellphone has a wider and taller footprint, which signifies that it presents bigger screens.

Whereas the thickness of the cellphone is clearly a step ahead, there are different design modifications that some may think about a step again. Notably, the front-facing digicam on the within display has moved from being underneath the show to being a pinhole cutout. I’m unsure how I really feel about this. To make certain, the pinhole digicam is way higher-quality than the under-display digicam, however I solely ever used the front-facing digicam of the within display for video calls. That stated, the under-display digicam was removed from invisible. I’m principally detached about this alteration.

The hinge on the system felt sturdy sufficient. I didn’t conduct any sturdiness exams throughout my evaluate (I agreed to not as a part of Samsung’s evaluate program), however it typically felt prefer it was about as sturdy because the Galaxy Z Fold 6. It’s additionally IP48-rated, which implies it ought to survive a dunk in water completely high quality, however isn’t fairly as immune to mud and grime. You continue to gained’t need to get particles within the hinge, in the event you can keep away from it.

Every little thing else is as anticipated. There’s a USB-C port on the underside, together with an influence button and quantity rocker on the fitting edge. That energy button additionally homes a fingerprint sensor, which was responsive and correct.

Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 evaluate: Show

As you’d count on from Samsung, the show expertise on the Galaxy Z Fold 7 is superb. Each the quilt show and the within display are gorgeous, and there’s actually nothing to complain about right here.

The duvet display is a 6.5-inch LTPO AMOLED 2X show with a 1080p decision. All that principally signifies that it’s comparatively crisp and detailed, with a super-responsive really feel, and the power to vary down in refresh charge to avoid wasting on energy, when applicable.

Picture supply: Christian de Looper for BGR

The inside show sits in at 8.0 inches and has a 1,968 x 2,184 decision and a pair of,600 nit peak brightness. I discovered it to be simply shiny sufficient to be used open air, even in direct daylight.

Mainly, there’s little or no to criticize in regards to the shows on supply by the Galaxy Z Fold 7. They give the impression of being nice. Some may need higher-resolution screens, however I discovered the decision to be simply crisp sufficient, and the next decision would impression battery life.

Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 evaluate: Efficiency

Below the hood, the Galaxy Z Fold 7 is kind of what we’d count on. It comes with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite processor, coupled with both 12GB or 16GB of RAM relying in your configuration. The tip result’s that it’s simply highly effective sufficient to deal with every part you may use it for in 2025, together with cellular gaming, heavy multitasking, and extra.

Picture supply: Christian de Looper for BGR

That’s notably vital on a tool like this, the place productiveness is sort of the most important use case. Even when working a number of demanding apps without delay, I by no means skilled stutters or lag. Plus, demanding video games loaded rapidly and seemed nice. Should you’re a DeX consumer, you’ll respect the efficiency for desktop-style productiveness.

That stated, whereas on paper the cellphone has comparable specs to different high-end Android gadgets, it could not fairly carry out as nicely for sustained intervals of time, given its thickness. The cellphone did warmth up a bit, and whereas it didn’t get tremendous scorching in my utilization, over lengthy gaming or productiveness classes, you might discover that it has to throttle a bit. Frankly, that is to be anticipated, and I nonetheless count on that the majority will discover the cellphone to be greater than highly effective sufficient.

Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 evaluate: Battery and charging

Powering the Galaxy Z Fold 7 is a 4,400mAh battery, which is smaller than high rivals. The Oppo Discover N5 has a 5,600mAh battery, whereas the brand new Honor Magic V5 will step issues as much as 6,000mAh.

That stated, I discovered that the precise battery life wasn’t that dangerous. Was it wonderful? No, although that largely is determined by how you employ the system, and the way a lot you employ the inside show versus the quilt show. However, in my utilization, it nonetheless obtained me by a day of even average utilization, together with brief stints of gaming and longer stints of productiveness and scrolling random social media networks. I actually want that the battery was a bit higher, particularly for these days once I do need to spend various minutes gaming, or for once I could be touring or one thing. However, in day after day use, I feel most will nonetheless be high quality with how lengthy it lasts.

Picture supply: Christian de Looper for BGR

The charging tech is ok. The system can cost at 25W with a wired connection, which is pretty gradual, and I’d have appreciated Samsung to at the least match the 45W charging velocity of the Galaxy S25 Extremely. The cellphone helps Qi2 charging speeds, 15W, however it’s solely “Qi2 prepared.” That signifies that when you’ll be capable to use Qi2 chargers to get the complete 15W charging velocity, it doesn’t have the magnets for Qi2 equipment, and it gained’t maintain in place on a charging stand magnetically and not using a Qi2 case or one thing else that provides the magnets. It additionally has 4.5W reverse wi-fi charging to your earbuds or different small gadgets.

Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 evaluate: Digital camera

One of many greatest criticisms of gadgets just like the Z Fold sequence is that the digicam tech merely doesn’t match the likes of the Galaxy S25 Extremely. On the one hand, I perceive why — a skinny construct is extra vital than ever on foldable telephones, and the Galaxy S25 Extremely is a far thicker system, so it will possibly take in these bigger cameras. Alternatively, I additionally perceive why somebody paying this a lot for a cellphone would count on digicam high quality that’s at the least on par with Samsung’s greatest slab telephones.

Picture supply: Christian de Looper for BGR

For the Galaxy Z Fold 7, Samsung is at the least trying to shut the hole between the Fold and the Extremely. For starters, it’s placing the 200-megapixel important digicam from the Extremely into the Z Fold 7. That digicam delivers 2x optical-quality zoom by a sensor crop, that means it will possibly principally crop the picture earlier than the picture is captured and processed, outputting a picture that’s the identical decision, so it’s not technically digitally cropping. The cellphone additionally has a 12-megapixel ultrawide digicam and a 10-megapixel telephoto digicam at 3x zoom.

Regardless of not providing the 5x periscope telephoto digicam from the Galaxy S25 Extremely, the digicam system on the Galaxy Z Fold 7 continues to be very versatile, and may seize nice pictures in principally any scenario. In actual fact, more often than not, photos have been indistinguishable from these captured by the Galaxy S25 Extremely, together with in low lighting. Images have been colourful, crisp, and detailed, and easily seemed glorious.

As anticipated, the one exception to that got here from photos at over 5x zoom, the place the S25 Extremely was capable of lean on the periscope telephoto lens. The distinction was notably obvious in low lighting, the place the Z Fold 7 misplaced element faster than the S25 Extremely.

However, actually, the S25 Extremely is simply lots higher in some area of interest conditions. Zooming to over 5x isn’t essentially a tremendous-common factor to do. And, for some, the power to take significantly better selfie pictures by utilizing the rear-facing cameras within the unfolded place will make up for it.

That’s all to say that the digicam system on the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 is best than ever, and nearer to Samsung’s greatest than ever. It’s not there but, however don’t assume that it’s sub-par, as a result of it’s really very, excellent.

Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 evaluate: Software program

The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 ships with Samsung’s One UI 8, and in the event you’re used to Samsung’s software program and prefer it, you’ll love what’s on supply right here. Every little thing is kind of the place you count on it to be, and it’s all very Samsung-y. There are a couple of further apps although, like LinkedIn and Outlook, which you will or might not really use. Fortunately, a few of these could be uninstalled, although others can solely be hidden.

Picture supply: Christian de Looper for BGR

The cellphone is nice in the case of taking full benefit of the additional display area too. Apps can go into cut up display mode or a windowed mode, and it’s fairly straightforward to resize them as wanted. And, you may select for the house display to be mirrored on each shows or customise them individually.

The bones are all there for an incredible foldable expertise. You’ll need to determine for your self in the event you really plan on utilizing that inside display, however that’s a separate dialog.

Conclusions

The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 represents a stable step ahead for Samsung’s foldable gadgets. I really like the truth that it’s a lot thinner, and the digicam does characterize a step ahead over the Galaxy Z Fold 6. The cellphone is ultra-expensive although, and for a lot of, too costly. You probably have the money to spend and wish Samsung’s greatest foldable but, you’ll love what’s on supply right here.

The competitors

In areas just like the U.S., the most important competitor to the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 comes within the type of the Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold. I want the software program expertise of the Pixel 9 Professional Fold, although the digicam isn’t pretty much as good because the Galaxy Z Fold 7, and it’s not as highly effective. It does come at a lower cost, although.

Ought to I purchase the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7?

Sure, however provided that you’re prepared to pay an arm and a leg.