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The Morning After: First impressions of Samsung's Galaxy Z Fold 7, Z Flip 7 and the rest

The Morning After: First impressions of Samsung's Galaxy Z Fold 7, Z Flip 7 and the rest

Engadget11-07-2025
It's the summer, so that means Samsung foldables, wearables and awkward celebrity appearances. This year, the company introduced three new folding smartphones, but that didn't include the rumored 'ultra' trifold — that's coming later this year .
The Galaxy Fold 7 ( $2,000 ) has a bigger 8-inch unfolded screen and a camera array that matches the S25 Ultra. However, there's no more support for the S Pen. Removing the digitizer layer for styluses meant Samsung could make the device even thinner. The Z Fold 7 now has a primary 200-megapixel sensor, similar to the one used in the S25 Ultra and S25 Edge. This fixes one of the big complaints we've had with foldables: cameras that didn't match the abilities of more traditional Galaxy phones. Especially when Fold devices always cost more. Talking of costs, Samsung has bumped the price up to $2,000 — that's $100 more than last year's Fold 6.
The Z Flip 7 ( $1,100 ) finally has a full-screen 4.1-inch cover screen, a bigger battery and a normal proportioned (21:9) foldable screen once you've opened it. Oh, and that's bigger too, from 6.4 to 6.9 inches.
While Samsung didn't notably upgrade the cameras, it managed to add 300mAh of battery while making an even thinner foldable. Unfolded, it's almost as thin as the S25 Edge, a phone where the whole point of existing was to be thin. There are fractions of a millimeter in it – and if you include the Edge's chunky camera, the Flip 7 seems technically thinner.
Then there's the Galaxy Z Flip 7 FE ( $900 ), Samsung's first fan-edition foldable. Barring a shift to a homemade Exynos chip and Samsung's 2025 software additions, like the Now Brief, this is… a Z Flip 6 from last year. The hardware looks (is?) identical, which is a bit of a disappointment when FE devices are pitched as more reasonably priced Galaxy devices.
The timing sucked too. Thanks to Prime Day, you could buy last year's Z Flip 6 this week for $100 less than pre-ordering the Z Flip 7 FE.
— Mat Smith
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Speaking of which, Amazon's Prime Day has been a whole-week affair. The end is in sight, though — it all ends tonight. We've pulled together the best Prime Day deals still in stock, and while there's a lot of predictable gear (Amazon hardware, so much audio stuff), the sale remains one of the best times to buy tech like robot vacuums, kitchen appliances and, hey, maybe even a Surface Laptop.
Continue reading.
Grok, X's built-in chatbot, took a hard turn toward antisemitism following a recent update. Amid unprompted, hateful rhetoric against Jews, it even began referring to itself as MechaHitler — a boss enemy from 1992's Wolfenstein 3D. The company admitted there were areas where Grok's training could be improved. 'We are aware of recent posts made by Grok and are actively working to remove the inappropriate posts.'
Chatbots, like Grok, are built on large language models (LLMs) designed to mimic natural language. LLMs are pretrained on giant swaths of text, including books, academic papers and, yes, the contents of the internet, including X/Twitter.
If an AI model hasn't seen hateful, anti-antisemitic content, it won't be aware of the patterns that inform that kind of speech, including phrases such as 'Heil Hitler.' Is this due to X's user base shifting to the right in recent years, changing the mix of what Grok was being trained on? Maybe, but maybe not. Igor Bonifacic took a deeper look.
Continue reading.
When the Switch 2 launched, one GameStop store used a stapler a little too aggressively to attach receipts to retail boxes, puncturing Switch 2 screens and ruining several people's days. GameStop is trying to turn debacle lemons into charitable lemonade.
It's auctioning off the infamous stapler responsible for the incident, with the proceeds benefiting the Children's Miracle Network Hospitals. You'll get not only some naughty stationery but also one of the Switch 2 consoles that it broke.
Continue reading. If you buy something through a link in this article, we may earn commission.
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