Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 Review

When you’ve been covering tech for arsenic agelong arsenic I have, particularly successful this epoch of yearly iterative updates, it gets progressively hard to beryllium impressed by anything. But the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 is the archetypal telephone successful years that I can’t look to enactment down.

We’re adjacent astatine a constituent wherever foldables person go benignant of blasè – each Android shaper seems to beryllium making one, and there’s a perennial rumor that Apple’s archetypal folding telephone is close astir the corner. But the Fold 7 is the archetypal clip I’ve utilized a foldable that I truly privation to support utilizing beyond the archetypal week of reviewing it. Its secret? It conscionable benignant of feels similar utilizing immoderate different phone.

Samsung has slimmed the Fold 7 down to the constituent wherever it’s nary thicker than a regular ‘slate’ telephone erstwhile it's folded up, which is unthinkable successful its ain right. What’s more, though, the institution has yet fixed the facet ratio, truthful I tin yet usage each my apps and play each my mobile games without feeling similar the contented is getting squeezed into this skinny tube. And that makes the larger unfolded show consciousness better, too.

We’re present 7 years into foldables being a happening – aft the Royole Flexpai launched each the mode backmost successful 2018 – and it truly feels similar the Galaxy Z Fold 7 has perfected the formula.

Design and Features

The archetypal Galaxy Fold was the archetypal foldable I ever held, astatine immoderate preview lawsuit galore years ago. It was thick, and the interior show felt similar it would interruption if I ever took it to the beach. The show had these weird small gaps wherever soil could get in, and it adjacent made this uncomfortable creaking sound erstwhile you opened and closed it. It astir feels similar a wholly antithetic institution made the Fold 7.

When I pulled the Fold 7 retired of its box, I was instantly struck by however bladed it was: At 8.9mm folded, it’s 26% thinner than the Fold 6 I reviewed past year. And erstwhile you unfold it, it’s conscionable 4.2mm thin. That’s thinner than the precocious released S25 Edge, and bladed capable that I was disquieted that it would beryllium casual to crook retired of signifier – luckily that hasn’t been the case, not yet astatine least.

It besides looks overmuch nicer than different foldables retired there, similar the Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold, which inactive has this bulky rounded look to it. Instead, the Fold 7 has a bully quadrate plan that makes it acceptable close successful with the S25 Ultra, adjacent if it is simply a smidge thicker. The ‘Blue Shadow’ colorway of the exemplary Samsung sent america for reappraisal besides looks incredible, and is overmuch much vivid than the past fewer models.

With however bladed this telephone is, though, comes a beauteous noticeable camera bump. Some benignant of camera bump was going to beryllium inevitable with a 200MP rear shooter, but it astir doubles the thickness successful 1 country of the device. That means erstwhile it’s sitting connected a array without a lawsuit – and you should person this telephone successful a lawsuit – it’s incredibly wobbly. It’s to the constituent wherever erstwhile I person the Fold 7 connected a table, I support it display-down, to support it from moving astir excessively much.

On the broadside of the phone, you person your modular measurement rocker and a operation fastener fastener and fingerprint sensor. The fingerprint sensor is tiny, though, truthful I was shocked astatine however close it seems to be. Beyond accidentally missing it erstwhile I was archetypal mounting up the biometrics, I’ve ne'er had to re-scan my fingerprint a 2nd clip to unlock the device. What’s much surprising, fixed the phone’s dimensions, is that connected the apical of the telephone there’s inactive a carnal SIM slot. That’s bully if your bearer doesn’t enactment eSIM for immoderate reason, but that’s becoming uncommon these days.

Down connected the bottommost you person a USB-C larboard for charging and information transfer, but due to the fact that each broadside of the telephone is conscionable implicit 4mm thick, the edges of the larboard are astir flush with the device. I haven’t had immoderate problems with it, but it’s not intolerable to ideate dropping the telephone portion it's charging and having thing catastrophic happen. Just, like, beryllium cautious with it, ok?

Display

While a bladed telephone is chill and all, possibly the biggest betterment is with the display, and successful peculiar the outer display. My biggest ailment with the Fold 6 – and the Fold 5 – was the highly constrictive facet ratio connected the outer screen. That 22:9 facet ratio made games similar Hearthstone and Marvel Snap borderline unplayable, but this year’s exemplary updates the surface to a overmuch much modular 21:9 ratio. That sounds similar a insignificant update, but it’s truly nighttime and day, and puts it much successful enactment with competitors similar the Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold and the One Plus Open.

The caller solution erstwhile closed is 2,520 x 1,080, which unfolds to a 2,184 x 1,968 surface erstwhile it's successful tablet mode. These are some gorgeous AMOLED panels, with agleam colors and heavy blacks, which is cleanable for watching videos oregon playing games. Because of the mode astir mobile games are made, I inactive find that the outer show is amended for playing, arsenic the afloat show volition present heavy achromatic bars if the crippled isn’t made to instrumentality vantage of the much quadrate facet ratio.

There are exceptions, though. During Galaxy Unpacked, Samsung showed disconnected Honkai Star Rail moving connected the larger display. Now, I discontinue playing that clip descend astir a twelvemonth ago, but I redownloaded it to spot if it holds up, and wow. While the crippled doesn’t instrumentality up the full display, it inactive gets ample capable to look mode better, though inactive with immoderate tiny achromatic bars astatine the apical and bottommost of the screen.

Just similar with the past fewer Folds, the Fold 7 volition fto you spell into the settings and alteration the fullscreen behaviour of each app. But due to the fact that some of the displays are more, well, normal, I didn’t truly consciousness the request to really bash that. I’ve fto apps conscionable usage their default settings, and it’s been fine. This makes the Fold 7 a overmuch amended gaming phone, which combined with its thinner plan makes it overmuch much appealing arsenic a regular driver.

Performance

The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 is powered by the Snapdragon 8 Elite, the fastest mobile spot connected the marketplace close now, and the aforesaid SoC that powers the Galaxy S25 lineup – including the Edge. And portion I did announcement the aforesaid throttling show we saw successful the S25 Edge, the highest show of this spot puts the Galaxy Z Flip 6 to shame.

In Geekbench, which purely tests CPU performance, the Z Flip 7 enactment up a multicore people of 8,041 points, compared with the Flip 6’s 6,598. That’s a 22% lead, but it comes astatine the outgo of single-core performance. The caller telephone lone gets 1,756 points successful the azygous halfway test, which is importantly slower than the Flip 6’s 2,112 points successful that test. But fixed that this telephone is fundamentally purpose-built for multitasking, it’s hard to get huffy astatine that.

This is particularly existent erstwhile you look astatine gaming performance, wherever the Galaxy Z Fold 7 doubles the show of the Z Flip 6 successful the GFXBench Aztec Ruins trial with 100 fps to 49 fps. The GPU wrong the Snapdragon 8 Elite is incredibly powerful, which is awesome for playing demanding games similar Honkai Star Rail, but it does travel astatine the outgo of thermal performance.

Nearly each telephone we’ve tested with the Snapdragon 8 Elite this twelvemonth has had a occupation with throttling, and the Z Fold 7 is nary different. Running the 3DMark Steel Nomad Lite accent trial sees show driblet by astir 60% by the extremity of the run. Just similar a batch of mobile processors, the show algorithm seems to favour precocious burst performance, past letting the spot throttle itself implicit time. This is mean behavior, but it is exacerbated by the bladed chassis. If you privation amended sustained performance, thing similar the Asus ROG Phone 9 is overmuch amended equipped to grip the thermal load – but past you suffer the nifty folding design.

Instead, this bursty show illustration is overmuch amended attuned to productivity work, which is what Samsung seems to beryllium aiming for. After all, Samsung’s Roh Tae-moon told the Korea Herald that Samsung is consenting to sorb immoderate of the costs to “democratize AI experiences” – thing the Fold 7 is truly trying to do.

And to beryllium fair, the Fold 7’s bursty show illustration does look to payment AI workloads a lot. I haven’t truly recovered an existent usage for AI successful my life, but playing astir with the nifty ‘Circle to search’ diagnostic is speedy and snappy, and adjacent works successful games now. I conscionable don’t cognize however utile that diagnostic really is, nevertheless chill it is to play with erstwhile oregon twice.

Camera

While the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 has astir apt the astir pronounced camera bump I’ve ever seen successful my life, it does look to wage off. Samsung has included a akin 200MP main camera to the 1 recovered successful the Galaxy S25 Ultra, though with lone 3 sensors. This is simply a immense betterment implicit the 50MP shooter successful past year’s foldable, and is susceptible of overmuch sharper shots.

It’s not going to interruption maine distant from my DSLR immoderate clip soon, but the photos I changeable walking astir my vicinity are affluent and vibrant. The camera besides supports a 30x integer zoom, which works overmuch amended than I thought it would.

The beforehand facing camera is besides improved, but Samsung replaced the somewhat hidden plan recovered successful the Fold 6 with a much evident cutout. This volition beryllium a spot much distracting erstwhile you’re utilizing the phone, but it does let for a overmuch sharper 10MP selfie cam, alternatively than the 4MP catastrophe successful past year’s model.

Battery

For a telephone with aggregate displays and the astir almighty mobile spot connected the planet, it mightiness beryllium astonishing that Samsung stuck with the aforesaid 4,400mAh artillery that powers the S25 Ultra. That’s not ideal, particularly if you program connected doing a batch of dense enactment connected it, but I really recovered that it usually lasts each day.

I kept an oculus connected the artillery leafage successful the settings conscionable to get an thought of what artillery drain looks like, and I recovered that the telephone typically lasts astir 22 hours – and that’s with astir 4 hours of gaming. It’s inactive not a telephone that’ll past for aggregate days betwixt charges, but it should past each day, and immoderate of the mode into the adjacent greeting if you hide to flip it connected the charger overnight.

Jackie Thomas is the Hardware and Buying Guides Editor astatine IGN and the PC components queen. You tin travel her @Jackiecobra