Six years ago, Samsung released its first-ever foldable smartphone and since then, plenty of devices big and small have appeared from various manufacturers across different price ranges. The clamshell foldable flip phone in particular has become perhaps more popular than the original book-style foldable, with it being positioned as a more fashionable phone, but this writer has always personally preferred the larger foldables as it always seemed to offer more. Enter the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7.
The latest iteration of Samsung’s book-style foldable, it is also perhaps the most refined. With a re-engineered design, Samsung claims that their slimmest, lightest Fold ever will be able to offer an ‘Ultra experience, unfolded’, whatever that means. Marketing spiel aside, having previously used a Galaxy Z Fold 5, I was quite excited to check out the new Fold 7, hoping to see just how impressive it was.
And fair play to Samsung, this one might just be their best yet.
Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 Review
You’ll quickly forget it’s a Fold
The Galaxy Z Fold devices of old—and to a certain extent, most foldables—suffered from the fact that, by folding it half, you’re quite literally doubling the thickness of the phone. That might not be the biggest problem for a clamshell as you’re almost always using it unfolded, but for a Galaxy Z Fold? Your wrist will always remember that it’s a Fold you’re using due to the size and weight of it all. It was one of the biggest pain points of the Galaxy Z Fold 5, and a major reason I never made it my daily driver in the end.
But my first impressions of the Galaxy Z Fold 7 on the other hand were pretty good. Almost immediately I realised that this didn’t feel like a foldable device.
Weighing in at just 215g, it feels exactly like a regular phone, which is honestly one of the best compliments I can give it. In comparison, the Fold 6 weighed in at 239g, meaning the Fold 7 is more in line and even lighter in fact than regular slab flagships such as the Galaxy S25 Ultra (218g), Apple iPhone 16 Pro Max (227g) and Google Pixel 10 Pro XL (232g).
Weight isn’t the only thing it’s lost; it’s now way thinner too. At just 8.9mm thin when folded, it’s hard to describe how incredible it feels in your hand, especially when you realise its predecessor was 12.1mm thicc.
Again, this makes the Fold 7 more in line with your regular smartphones, putting it ever so slightly thicker than the S25 Ultra’s 8.2mm or the 16 Pro Max’s 8.3mm. Basically, if you’re already used to a regular flagship smartphone, the Fold 7, when folded, will feel exactly the same, making the transition to the Fold 7 practically seamless size and weight wise.
It’s worth pointing out that while the new hinge, which Samsung calls the Armor FlexHinge, is said to be stronger and better at withstanding repeated folding, we obviously weren’t able to test that out for now. However, we have noticed that our unit won’t unfold fully flat at times, especially after a long time being folded.
We weren’t the only ones with that complaint either; a quick look at the Galaxy Fold subreddit will get you plenty of other users with similar issues. That being said though, we did get it to ‘flatten’ out so to speak by leaving it open for a bit more, or just carefully nudging the halves a little.
Lastly, our unit came in a sleek Blue Shadow colourway, though you’d be able to get it in Jet Black, Silver Shadow and—if you purchase through their online store—a delightfully fun Mint colour option too. We’d definitely recommend getting a case though, as while it looks great, the sleek finish can be a tad slippy at times.
The expected hardware
A quick rundown of what the Galaxy Z Fold 7 offers first. There’s a 6.5-inch, Dynamic AMOLED 2X cover screen capable of up to a 120Hz refresh rate pushing a just-about-21:9 aspect ratio with its 2520 x 1080 resolution. Unfolded, you’ll find an 8-inch, Dynamic AMOLED 2X display pushing a 2184 x 1968 resolution which is 11% larger than its predecessor.
Under the hood meanwhile is a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy, paired with 12GB of RAM on the 256GB and 512GB models while the top of the range 1TB variant gets 16GB of memory. The battery capacity however remains unchanged with a 4,400mAh battery.
The displays are, as usual for Samsung, great in just about every use case. The cover screen’s 21:9 aspect ratio does mean it’s a little tall still compared to other flagships, but when using it on a day-to-day basis you’ll never realise it. It’s in fact a nice improvement over the Fold 5 I used to have, which had the narrower 23.1:9 aspect ratio; you’ll definitely feel the lankiness of the display there.
As for the main display, the 8-inch panel is a little too squared-out for my liking, but other than that nit pick there’s no real complaints here either. Both displays offer all the bells and whistles you’d expect on a flagship device, such as HDR10+ and an adaptive 120Hz refresh rate on top of being able to go bright enough under the sun for easy usage outdoors.The crease on the main display by the way is noticeable at an angle if you go looking for it, but you’ll quickly forget it’s there when actually using it.
As for its performance, as with any other flagship the Fold 7 handles your regular day-to-day workloads just fine. I had everything from multiple Chrome windows, Spotify, WhatsApp, your assortment of social media apps, YouTube, Netflix and more open and it’ll handle it just fine. Sustained workloads however are a little bit harder for the Fold 7 to handle, but other than some heat coming through the back panel, it’s fine for the most part.
Battery life meanwhile wasn’t particularly impressive, but again it falls into the ‘adequate’ category, as I managed about 4 to 6 screen-on time daily before needing to juice it up again. The charging 25W wired charging speed may seem paltry by modern standards, but to be fair getting it back up to 50% will take you just about half an hour, with a full charge a little over 90 minutes to two hours.
Perhaps the most mediocre of all its hardware is its camera. This isn’t a slight to it whatsoever, it’s just that the Galaxy S series has raised the bar so much for Samsung that in comparison, the Galaxy Z Fold 7 just seems alright instead.
The main camera actually did get upgraded to the same 200MP shooter found in the Galaxy S25 Ultra, but there’s something about the post-processing done to it when using it as a point-and-shoot that makes the shots seem a little flat in comparison to competing flagships from this year. The raw 200MP photos aren’t bad either, but you’ll want to ensure good lighting or shots may turn out even more flat for a small gain in detail.
Other than the main camera though, the rest is pretty standard fare. The 3x telephoto shooter is decent and offers run-of-the-mill quality optical zoom, but go any further than that and you’ll quickly lose detail at an exponential rate. The 2x zoom meanwhile gets you a cropped shot from the primary shooter, but does seem to have a little less detail compared to the main. And as for the ultrawide, it’s again perfectly fine for everyday shots for social media and what not but won’t be blowing away the competition anytime soon. But the selfie cameras? You should probably just use the main camera while unfolded.
The 2-for-1 special
And yet, despite everything I just said, I still find myself loving the Galaxy Z Fold 7 quite a bit. The beauty of the Galaxy Z Fold 7 is that it’s more than the sum of its parts, all pieced together into a gorgeously sleek and slim chassis.
Mind you, it’s not perfect. There are still apps that don’t seem to work well in the larger aspect ratio of the main display, though thankfully everything turned out fine on the cover screen. The camera for instance could be just a little better. On top of that, I think anyone would take a longer battery life on this thing, and the camera bump is just a little too tall in comparison to how slim the rest of the body is leading to this little odd wonkiness when placed on the table. Also, there’s probably at least a couple of people out there who would want S Pen support on it.
But when you find yourself effortlessly unfolding and immediately doubling your productivity on the go, when you find out how easy it is to reply to someone asking you for information while looking for said details at the same time, the Galaxy Z Fold 7 suddenly makes sense. It’s like a two-for-one special, having both your smartphone and a tablet all packaged together yet never feeling like you’re carrying more than one device.
If you find yourself leaning more into the ‘power user’ category, this is the smartphone for you. While I’m personally not the biggest fan of Samsung’s One UI, it works extremely well here to make the overall experience simple and easy to use.
The split-screen is pretty self explanatory once you’ve given it a try, and is definitely the one thing that makes me want to fully move over to the Galaxy Z Fold 7 full time. Another thing of note is that it comes with One UI 8 based on Android 16 out of the box, with seven major Android OS upgrades guaranteed so as long as you take good care of your Fold 7, you should be able to squeeze out a good number of years from it.
Work becomes exceptionally easy. I started writing out the draft for this review on the Fold 7 itself, with one half being my doc file and the other my browser for easy access to information like specs and pricing. I could have my messages open on one side and documents on the other.
Tired of working? Nothing quite like unfolding for some time in games such as Stardew Valley or mobile-based board games, which greatly benefit from the larger screen. Even the daily crossword on the New York Times Games app became so much easier as I can see multiple hints at one go now, rather than clicking through different boxes for each hint.
Done playing games? Unfold and open up an eBook with eye comfort settings on for easy reading without needing to carry a physical book or eReader with you. Watching content on the main display is also fantastic; sure there’s some chunky black bars on the top and bottom, but it probably still beats watching it on the standard Galaxy S25.
There’s simply so much you can do on this one device that you really start wondering if you actually need all your other gadgets in your bag too.
Indeed, the sign of a great product is perhaps when you want to keep using it after reviewing it, and the Galaxy Z Fold 7 finds itself in that category. Since returning the review unit back to Samsung, I simply crave the productivity and versatility of the Fold 7 that no longer has the downsides of being too thick and too heavy for even the strongest of wrists. Would I go out and get one myself? Maybe, but there’s one big factor in the way.
Price of progress?
It’s their most refined foldable yet, and unsurprisingly this kind of innovation will set you back a fair bit. Starting at RM7,799 for the base model with 256GB of storage, it’s not cheap, and is in fact a little more expensive than the previous Galaxy Z Fold 6—up to RM800 depending on the storage variant.
That being said, I think if you’re coming from a previous Z Fold device or maybe you’re someone who uses both a smartphone and a tablet on a daily basis, the Galaxy Z Fold 7 might just be for you. Just make sure you get a case; you wouldn’t want to scuff up eight grand worth of hardware now would you?
This review was written by Weiwen Su.
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