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Tom's Guide
4 days ago
- Tom's Guide
I've been testing the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 for a week — 7 things I like and 4 things I don't
I've been carrying the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 around in my pocket ever since it launched. Not just because it's my job to try out new devices like this, but because Samsung's biggest foldable phone upgrade yet is genuinely a fantastic product to use. While we wait for our full Galaxy Z Fold 7 review to arrive, I've distilled what I love about the Galaxy Z Fold 7 into, conveniently enough, seven specific points. I still have a few nits to pick, but we'll get into those later. On balance, it still feels likely that the Galaxy Z Fold 7 is going to make it onto our best foldable phones list. Here's what I like — and what I don't like — about the Z Fold 7 so far. Samsung made the Galaxy Z Fold 7 thinner, lighter and tougher than previous Z Folds — the holy trinity of improvements for a smartphone body. The 26% reduction in the Z Fold 7's thickness compared to the Galaxy Z Fold 6's is an incredible leap to make in a single generation. The 10% weight reduction is welcome too, especially considering the overall increase in screen size (which we'll look at more in a moment) and the new tougher materials. There's Gorilla Glass Victus 2 on the back, Gorilla Glass Ceramic 2 on the outer screen and new, thicker ultra-thin glass on the inside, along with a returning IP48 rating for dust/water resistance, should all help to keep this valuable phone intact and functional for as long as you use it. Galaxy Z Fold 7 preorder: up to $1,150 off w/ trade-in @ SamsungFree storage upgrade! Samsung is knocking up to $1,150 off Galaxy Z Fold 7 preorders when you trade-in an older phone. Additionally, you'll get a free storage upgrade with your preorder. The phone features an 8-inch AMOLED (2184 x 1968) 120Hz main display, 6.5-inch AMOLED (2520 x 1080) 120Hz cover display, Snapdragon 8 Elite CPU, 12GB of RAM, and 256GB of storage. On the rear you get a 200MP f/1.7 main wide-angle lens, 12MP f/2.2 ultra-wide lens, and 10MP f/2.4 telephoto lens. Selfie cams include a 10MP f/2.2 main display and cover camera. In our Galaxy Z Fold 7 hands-on, we called it the first foldable we'd want to carry and use all day. Samsung used to be a bit stingy with the cameras on its foldables, but that's changing with the Galaxy Z Fold 7. Its 200MP main camera means you're now on par with the Galaxy S25 Ultra, and likewise with the upgraded ultrawide camera that now features autofocus and support for macro shots. Get instant access to breaking news, the hottest reviews, great deals and helpful tips. Samsung could still have bumped up the Z Fold 7's ultrawide camera to 50MP, plus its 3x 10MP telephoto is starting to show its age. But the overall loadout is now worthy of a two-grand foldable, with the benefits clear to see in comparisons such as my Galaxy Z Fold 7 vs Galaxy Z Fold 6 camera shoot-out. The enlarged 8-inch inner display of the Galaxy Z Fold 7 means you now basically have a pocketable iPad mini, similar to rival devices from China. You do lose a little bit of space to the new camera punch-hole, but like on a regular phone, the cutout virtually disappears as soon as you start focusing on your game, video or feed. This increased size didn't come at the expense of the crease down the center of the panel. These are present on all foldable phones to one extent or another, but Samsung revised its hinge technology to make the Z Fold 7's crease look and feel less obvious. Samsung also made the smaller cover screen of the Galaxy Z Fold 7 wider and larger at 6.5 inches (up from 6.3 inches). That makes the new Z Fold much more comfortable to use closed up. Previous Z Folds only worked at their best when open, as their outer screens were awkwardly narrow for typing. With the Galaxy Z Fold 7, it's now up to you which configuration of the phone works best for what you're doing at the moment. A Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset is as good as it gets for an Android phone, and the "For Galaxy" edition is even better. Only Apple's A18 chipsets do better, and even then only on select benchmarks. This makes playing games like Wuthering Waves immersive on the Galaxy Z Fold 7, although you'll have to get used to playing your games in a square window if you want the big screen open. Opening up multiple apps for productivity works brilliantly, too, and all without taking a major toll on battery life. Samsung's under-display camera on the inside display of the previous Z Folds helped make the display look cleaner (minus a few odd-looking pixels), but it severely impacted the camera's performance. Even companies dedicated to perfecting the UDC, such as ZTE, have yet to get it right. Samsung's decision to go back to a more typical punch-hole camera is overall better for the phone, even if a few users won't like the new hole in their screen. You can see the difference it makes to photography in my selfie comparison with the Galaxy Z Fold 6. I'm not huge on AI features, but Samsung, with the help of Google in some cases, has thought carefully about ways to make these features work better on a foldable's big inner screen. My favorite is how you now get a before/after view when editing photos, a really simple idea but one with a lot of potential value. You can also move Gemini and other AI prompt windows freely around the display, letting you get answers or images without obscuring your other apps, and copy the output into those apps more conveniently. A $100 increase to $2,000 for the Fold 7 really stings. And this comes after a $100 price increase last year as well. Granted, the Galaxy Z Fold 7 still costs the same as last year here in the U.K. at £1,800, so while Samsung gets a point for not increasing the price here, you can't deny it's an expensive phone, even compared to other foldables. Considering how excellent the Galaxy S25 series is, while costing up to half as much, it can be hard to justify spending so much more for a foldable. You'll have to be certain you want to go the foldable route before you commit to spending this much money. I've been able to get a day's use from the Galaxy Z Fold 7 without an issue. But that doesn't detract from the fact that Samsung could have done even better. While the batteries in the Z Fold 7 take up less space than previous generations, it still has the same 4,400 mAh battery capacity that the Galaxy Z Fold 3 introduced four years ago. Considering that rival foldables like the Honor Magic V5 and Oppo Find N5 are fitting close to 6,000 mAh of capacity — thanks to new silicon carbon technology — there's a lot of space for Samsung to grow into. Samsung lets you open up to three apps, plus one slide-over app, at the same time on the Galaxy Z Fold 7. This works decently, but it's not as good as OnePlus' Open Canvas system for its OnePlus Open. Although that foldable's coming up to two years old, the ability to open apps in larger windows and slide between them as needed is a much smarter use of screen space than the cramped look of the Galaxy Z Fold 7's interface with all possible apps open. The Z Fold 7 does offer a DeX desktop mode too, but that's designed for use with a dedicated monitor rather than just the device. Samsung gave up S Pen support with the Z Fold 7 in favor of thinning out the design. And while I'm full of praise for how far Samsung's engineering has come, I wish this was one caveat it didn't come with. I admit I never used the S Pen much, but I still liked the availability being there, as it rounded out the Z Fold's versatility and identity as a pocketable tablet. Especially considering that rival foldables are just as thin and still offer stylus support. I'm not just talking about the iinner display, but on the outer display too, which is something Samsung somehow never managed to offer.
Tom's Guide
12-07-2025
- Business
- Tom's Guide
Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7: 5 reasons to buy (and 3 reasons to skip)
With the Galaxy Z Fold 7, Samsung has made the best argument yet for ditching conventional phones in favor of a foldable device. The changes are so significant that in his Galaxy Z Fold 7 hands-on, Mark Spoonauer calls the new Samsung offering the first foldable he'd truly want to buy. Are you in the same boat? And if so, should you be planning on setting aside a (fairly substantial) stack of cash to buy the phone now that Galaxy Z Fold 7 preorders are underway? We're in the process of testing and reviewing the Galaxy Z Fold 7 to give you our definitive buying advice on the latest foldable phone from Samsung. But we've seen enough from Samsung's Galaxy Unpacked presentation and our initial hands-on time to make a case for why you'd want to buy the Galaxy Z Fold 7. And we've also spotted a few things that might make you pause before mashing that buy button. Here's an overview of the five best reasons to buy a Galaxy Z Fold 7 and three why you might want to skip the phone this time around. Galaxy Z Fold 7 preorder: up to $1,150 off w/ trade-in @ SamsungFree storage upgrade! Samsung is knocking up to $1,150 off Galaxy Z Fold 7 preorders when you trade-in an older phone. Additionally, you'll get a free storage upgrade with your preorder, so you'll get a 512GB version for the same price as the 256GB base model. I've compared the Galaxy Z Fold 7's thinness to other phones, and the short answer is you'd have to go a long way to find a phone as slender as Samsung's new foldable when it's open. Specifically, you'd have to go to where the Oppo Find N5 and Honor Magic V5 are sold, and those phones are pretty hard to come by outside of Asia. But as impressive as the 4.2mm-thin profile of an open Galaxy Z Fold 7 may be, don't overlook the 8.9mm-thin design of the folded-up phone. That's a very thin device, making the Galaxy Z Fold 7 easier to tote around while still enjoy the benefits of having a super-sized screen. Samsung also didn't skimp on durability to make the Galaxy Z Fold 7 so thin. A new Armor Flex hinge evenly dispenses stress as you open and shut the phone, while both the frame and hinge use Advanced Armor Aluminum for increased strength and hardness compared to previous models. Even with all that, the Galaxy Z Fold 7 is lighter than before, tipping the scales at 215 grams. That's 3 grams lighter than the Galaxy S25 Ultra, and that phone doesn't have the multiple screens that the Z Fold 7 carries around. When it comes to snapping photos with a foldable phone, I always preferred the Galaxy Z Flip models to the larger Fold, but some improvements to the Galaxy Z Fold 7 may cause me to adjust my thinking. Like the Galaxy S25 Ultra and Galaxy S25 Edge, the Z Fold 7 now offers a 200MP main camera for richer, more detailed photos. Samsung says the new main camera on the Galaxy Z Fold 7 can capture 4x the detail of previous Galaxy Z Fold models, which featured a 50MP main lens. Images should be 44% brighter, too, while the ProVisual photo processing engine has beeen tweaked to work faster, boosting the sharpness of images. The selfie cam on the interior display — long the weakest part of the Galaxy Z Fold's camera setup — gets an update with this version. The 4MP sensor makes ways for a 10MP one, and an expanded 100-degree frame should allow you to fit more into any shots you take with that camera. Size matters when it comes to phone screens, as more expansive displays make it easier to get work done on the go. Both the exterior and interior screens get a size boost on the Galaxy Z Fold 7, with the cover display expanding from 6.3 inches to 6.5 inches. The main panel on the Z Fold 7 is now 8 inches, up from 7.6 inches on the previous model. Of the two displays, the more significant change is probably to the external panel. That screen on past Folds has felt a bit cramped so the extra 0.2 inches of space on the Galaxy Z Fold 7 should make it feel more like using a conventional phone. That's significant as there are times when you're not going to want to unfold your device, instead getting work done on the cover display — and that will be easier to do on the Galaxy Z Fold 7. One of my recurring complaints with foldable phones is that device makers really haven't provided much of a justification to pay up for a foldable other than that larger screen. Foldable-specific features feel few and far between. The Galaxy Z Fold 7 changes that, and Galaxy AI is a big reason why. Samsung is optimizing some of its AI tools to take advantage of a foldable phone's design, making this new model a much more compelling option than before. For instance, results from AI-powered searches and tasks appear in their own split view or floating view window, so that whatever it is your working on doesn't get covered up. That way you can more easily refer to something like Circle to Search results or writing suggestions without losing sight of your original work. I also appreciate that the Galaxy Z Fold 7's larger screen can give you a before and after view of changes wrought by generative AI. In his hands-on time with the Galaxy Z Fold 7, Mark Spoonauer was able to get side-by-side comparisons of an image to see how the AI-edited version looked compared to the original. I'm primarily an iPhone user, able to upgrade to new software versions the moment they're released. For that reason, I've never understand how Android users can cope with the haphazard update schedules for their phones — that a new version of Android might be available, but they can't download it until their phone maker is good and ready to release it. That's not something you'll have to suffer through with the Galaxy Z Fold 7. Android 16 is out, and so Android 16 is the version of the software that will run on your new phone. That also means Samsung's One UI 8 interface is readily available, too, so you won't be taking your brand new phone out of the box only to wait for the new software features to show up weeks or months later. The Galaxy Z Fold 3 was the first of Samsung's foldables to support the S Pen. It's an addition that made sense, and not just because the Fold essentially replaced the old Galaxy Note phablet in Samsung's lineup. The large display on the Fold lends itself to sketching and note-taking, and the S Pen has proven itself to be adept at both. You won't get that benefit with the Galaxy Z Fold 7, though, as Samsung has dropped S Pen support from this model. The likely culprit is that thin design I was singing the praises of earlier. To get the Fold that thin, I'm guessing Samsung did away with the digitizer layer on the displays that enable the S Pen to work. "When we look at the insights from what our customers were using on the Galaxy Z Fold series and what they wanted, fundamentally they wanted a thinner and lighter device," Kadesh Beckford, a smartphone specialist manager with Samsung UK, told my colleague Richard Priday in an interview about the new phone. "And with us we definitely pay attention and listen to our customers. So with those insights, we implemented what they asked." Maybe that's a trade-off the majority of Fold customers are happy to make. But if you value S Pen compatibility, this is not the model for you. The Galaxy Z Fold 7 runs on a 4,400 mAh battery, which is the same power pack that the Galaxy Z Fold 6 used. That phone wasn't well known for lasting a long time on a charge — it posted an average result of 10.5 hours on our battery test, which essentially matches the average smartphone result. Yes, the Galaxy Z Fold 7 will have the benefit of a more power efficient Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset to help it eke out more battery life. But I don't see the Galaxy Z Fold 7 threatening to land on our best phone battery life list any time soon. In fact, the entire battery and charging setup for the Galaxy Z Fold 7 leaves much to be desired. Samsung didn't make any changes to charging speed for the new foldable phone, which still features 25W wired charging. When you're paying this much for a device, that's hard to swallow. Speaking of what you have to pay for a Galaxy Z Fold 7, I hope you were sitting down when Samsung announced the price. The Galaxy Z Fold 7 now starts at $1,999, which is $100 more than the starting price for the Galaxy Z Fold 6. That phone, in turn, saw a $100 price hike from its predecessor. Were you to opt for the 1TB Galaxy Z Fold 7 — and why not since Samsung packs 16GB of RAM into that model — you'd pay $2,419. That's 16-inch MacBook Pro M4 territory. To be fair, a preorder deal at Samsung gives you a free storage upgrade. So you can pick up a 512GB Galaxy Z Fold 7 for the same $1,999 price as the 256GB model. Nevertheless, the higher a price rises, the smaller its potential audience gets. And a $1,999 phone is going to have a very small audience indeed. Only after we complete our Galaxy Z Fold 7 testing will we be able to say whether Samsung's new phone justifies that lofty cost. But at first glance there's a lot to like about the new phone, even if there are few noticeable flaws as well.
Tom's Guide
09-07-2025
- Business
- Tom's Guide
Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 pre-order deals — save up to $1,100 right now
Galaxy Z Fold 7 preorders are here! Samsung's new foldable was just unveiled at the Galaxy Unpacked July 2025 event. The new Galaxy Z Fold 7 costs $100 more than its predecessor, which means you'll be paying $1,999 for Samsung's latest foldable. That's a tough pill to swallow in any economy, but fortunately there are plenty of Galaxy Z Fold 7 preorder deals you can take advantage ahead of its July 25 release. In fact, one of the best deals comes courtesy of Samsung itself. For a limited time, you can get up to $1,150 off the Galaxy Z Fold 7 at Samsung when you preorder and trade in an older device. That's the biggest discount I've seen so far. Even better, you'll get a free storage upgrade. The Galaxy Z Fold 7 is 26% thinner than its predecessor. It's even lighter than the iPhone 16 Pro Max. We also like that the phone's main and cover displays are larger and we're happy to see the phone has a new 200MP main shooter. $1,999 is still a lot to ask for a phone, so below I've picked out all the best Galaxy Z Fold 7 deals. (For more ways to save, check out our guide to today's best Samsung promo codes). Galaxy Z Fold 7 preorder: up to $1,150 off w/ trade-in @ SamsungFree storage upgrade! Samsung is knocking up to $1,150 off Galaxy Z Fold 7 preorders when you trade-in an older phone. Additionally, you'll get a free storage upgrade with your preorder. The phone features an 8-inch AMOLED (2184 x 1968) 120Hz main display, 6.5-inch AMOLED (2520 x 1080) 120Hz cover display, Snapdragon 8 Elite CPU, 12GB of RAM, and 256GB of storage. On the rear you get a 200MP f/1.7 main wide-angle lens, 12MP f/2.2 ultra-wide lens, and 10MP f/2.4 telephoto lens. Selfie cams include a 10MP f/2.2 main display and cover camera. In our Galaxy Z Fold 6 review, we called it the first foldable we'd want to carry and use all day. Galaxy Z Fold 7 preorder: up to $1,100 off w/ trade-in @ AT&TNew and existing customers can take up to $1,100 off the Galaxy Z Fold 7 when you trade in any phone in any condition. Additionally, you'll get Galaxy Watch 8 and Tab A9+ 5G for just 99 cents per month each. Galaxy Z Fold 7 preorder: up to $1,100 off w/ trade-in @ Xfinity MobileXfinity Mobile is offering up to $1,100 off its Galaxy Z Fold 7 preorders (via trade-in). Customers who don't have a phone to trade can still get $500 off. Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7: for $1,999 @ AmazonAmazon is offering a free $300 Amazon gift card when you preorder your Galaxy Z Fold 7. Plus, you'll also get a free storage upgrade from 256GB to 512GB. Galaxy Z Fold 7 preorder: up to $1,100 off @ T-MobileNew and existing T-Mobile customers can take up to $1,100 off Galaxy Z Fold 7 preorders. Plus, you'll get a free storage upgrade to 512GB. To get this deal, you'll need to add a line on T-Mobile's Go5G Plus, Experience More, or Experience Beyond plans. Other discounts are also available for other plans. Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 Price From $1,999/£1,799 Main display 8 inches AMOLED (2184 x 1968, 1-120Hz) Cover display 6.5 inches AMOLED (2520 x 1080, 1-120Hz) Chipset Snapdragon 8 Elite RAM 12GB (16GB for 1TB) Storage 256GB/512GB/1TB Rear cameras 200MP wide (f/1.7), 12MP ultra-wide (f/2.2), 10MP telephoto (f/2.4, 3x optical, 30x space zoom) Cover camera 10MP (f/2.2) Main display camera 10MP (f/2.2) Charging 25W Battery 4,400 mAh Dimensions 158. 4 x 72.8 x 8.9 mm (folded), 143.2 x 158.4 x 4.2 mm (unfolded) Weight 215 grams (7.5 ounces) IP Rating IP48 Colors Blue Shadow, Silver Shadow, Jet-black, Mint Starting at $1,999, the Galaxy Z Fold 7 is $100 pricier than its predecessor. However, there are a lot of welcome improvements. For instance, its thinner than the Z Fold 6 and it also sports bigger displays in the form of an 8-inch main display and 6.5-inch inner display. There's also a better 200MP main camera. Despite its thinner design, the Galaxy Z Fold 7 is made to be tougher than its predecessor. It features a new Armor FlexHinge with a "water droplet design" and "multi-rail structure" for increased durability. It also uses a grade 4 titanium lattice and 50% thicker ultra thin glass for the main display. Powering this beast is a Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset, which is the same silicon Samsung uses in its Galaxy S25 phones. Similarly, the Galaxy Z Fold 7 offers all of the same Galaxy AI features as the Galaxy S25 series. Remember, these Galaxy Z Fold 7 preorder deals are only available for a limited time. Likewise, the free storage upgrade offer will end when the phone officially releases later this month.
Tom's Guide
09-07-2025
- Tom's Guide
Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 hands-on: It's shockingly thin and light...and $2,000?!
Now that we're several generations in, I feel like Samsung couldn't just phone it in with the Galaxy Z Fold 7. That's sort of what they did with last year's iterative Galaxy Z Fold 6, and look what happened. The competition caught up and Samsung lost the No. 1 spot on our best foldable phone list. That simply couldn't be the case this time around — not with a possible iPhone Fold on the horizon. So what did Samsung do? It made its thinnest book-style foldable yet — 26% thinner than the Galaxy Z Fold 6. And this thing is even lighter than the iPhone 16 Pro Max. To me, that's a game changer. Samsung also made both the main and cover displays way bigger while giving the Fold 7 a proper Ultra camera setup with a 200MP main shooter. You know what Samsung also gave the Z Fold 7? A $100 price hike in the U.S. Yup, this foldable is $2,000. (In the UK, the phone remains at £1,899.) And that's on top of another $100 price bump for the Galaxy Z Fold 6 last year. I had a chance to go hands on with the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7, and here's my pros and cons so far. Galaxy Z Fold 7 preorder: up to $1,150 off w/ trade-in @ SamsungFree storage upgrade! Samsung is knocking up to $1,150 off Galaxy Z Fold 7 preorders when you trade-in an older phone. Additionally, you'll get a free storage upgrade with your preorder. The phone features an 8-inch AMOLED (2184 x 1968) 120Hz main display, 6.5-inch AMOLED (2520 x 1080) 120Hz cover display, Snapdragon 8 Elite CPU, 12GB of RAM, and 256GB of storage. On the rear you get a 200MP f/1.7 main wide-angle lens, 12MP f/2.2 ultra-wide lens, and 10MP f/2.4 telephoto lens. Selfie cams include a 10MP f/2.2 main display and cover camera. In our Galaxy Z Fold 7 hands-on, we called it the first foldable we'd want to carry and use all day. Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 Price From $1,999/£1,799 Main display 8 inches AMOLED (2184 x 1968, 1-120Hz) Cover display 6.5 inches AMOLED (2520 x 1080, 1-120Hz) Chipset Snapdragon 8 Elite RAM 12GB (16GB for 1TB) Storage 256GB/512GB/1TB Rear cameras 200MP wide (f/1.7), 12MP ultra-wide (f/2.2), 10MP telephoto (f/2.4, 3x optical, 30x space zoom) Cover camera 10MP (f/2.2) Main display camera 10MP (f/2.2) Charging 25W Battery 4,400 mAh Dimensions 158. 4 x 72.8 x 8.9 mm (folded), 143.2 x 158.4 x 4.2 mm (unfolded) Weight 215 grams (7.5 ounces) IP Rating IP48 Colors Blue Shadow, Silver Shadow, Jet-black, Mint This is not a typo. The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 starts at $1,999 in the U.S. and £1,899 in the UK. For those in the States, that's $100 more than the Galaxy Z Fold 6 and by far the most expensive flagship phone you can buy. That starting price gets you 256GB of storage; 512GB and 1TB versions are also available if you're willing to pay more. The Galaxy Z Fold 7 is available to pre-order starting today, and it has a release date of July 25. The best thing I can tell you about the Galaxy Z Fold 7 is that the 'penalty' for carrying a foldable phone is essentially gone. This phone is astonishingly thin and light, so much so that you may forget that you're carrying or holding a foldable. Measuring 8.9mm when folded and 4.2mm when unfolded, the Galaxy Z Fold 6 is 26% thinner than the Galaxy Z Fold 6 and 48% thinner than the original Galaxy Fold. By comparison, the new Honor Magic V is 8.8mm thin when folded and 4.1mm open, so it's a touch thinner. But you can't buy that phone in the U.S. In my hand, the Fold 7 feels slim and sleek, though the camera bump is bigger compared to the Z Fold 6. Despite slimming down, the Galaxy Z Fold 7 is designed to be tougher than its predecessor. It features a new Armor FlexHinge with a 'water droplet design' and 'multi-rail structure' for increased durability. In addition, the Fold 7 uses a grade 4 titanium lattice and 50% thicker ultra thin glass for the main display. How about the front? The cover display uses Gorilla Glass Victus 2 for better protection from drops and scratches. There's three main color options for the Z Fold 7, and two of them are boring. I'd skip over the Jet Black and Silver Shadow and go right for the bold and vibrant Blue Shadow. Samsung has enlarged both the cover and main display for the Galaxy Z Fold 7, which is pretty impressive given that you're getting a more portable device. The front display has grown from 6.3 to 6.5 inches, while the main display is now a whopping 8 inches. That's a pretty big jump from 7.6 inches on the Galaxy Z Fold 6. I put the Z Fold 7 side by side with its predecessor, and I noticed a huge difference in real estate when watching the trailer for Superman. As the Man of Steel battled a fire breathing beast, the action just felt more immersive. At the same time, the front display is taller and wider, so I felt less cramped when typing urls in Chrome. That's another foldable 'penalty' you used to have to pay with Samsung's devices. As for the crease that can appear where the phone folds in half, it's still there in the main screen. It's just less noticeable than it was for the Z Fold 6. One major downside (at least for some) is that the Galaxy Z Fold 7's display no longer supports S Pen input. That's likely due to the thinner design. Finally, flagship-level cameras have graced the Galaxy Z Fold line. The Fold 7 packs a 200MP main sensor, a 10MP telephoto with 3x zoom and 12MP ultra wide (now with autofocus). Samsung backs this all up with its improved ProVisual engine, which promises better image quality and especially video quality in low light. You can see a Fold 7 vs Fold 6 example below. And the Z Fold 7 now shoots in 10-bit HDR video by default. I tried out the cameras briefly, and I was actually most impressed with the upgraded 10MP selfie camera. You now get a wider 100-degree field of view, vs 85 degrees on the Z Fold 6. So you can fit a lot more in the frame. The main cameras seemed sharp enough in Samsung's hands-on area, especially when I shot a nearby wall with colorful graffiti. However, the max zoom seemed to be 30x. So you don't get the 100x Space Zoom that the Galaxy S25 Ultra supports. The Galaxy Z Fold 7 offers all of the same Galaxy AI features as the Galaxy S25 series. But there's some welcome optimizations for this foldable's big screen, thanks to Samsung's One UI 8 software that runs on top of Android 16. For example, when using the Generative AI feature I turned a cat into a fish eye lens illustration, I could see the before and after side by side. Gemini also gives you more flexibility on the Galaxy Z Fold 7. Long press the side button and you can summon the assistant and put the AI result view anywhere on the screen. And because Gemini is multi-modal (unlike Siri) you can share your camera view and ask questions live about what you're seeing — like what kind of plant was in front of me. Other noteworthy Galaxy AI features on the Fold 7 include the ability to use the popular Audio Eraser feature in more apps (like Voice Recorder and phone call recordings) and using Circle to Search while you're playing games to get timely tips when you're stuck. Just as you'd expect for a phone that costs two grand, the Galaxy Z Fold 7 is powered by the Snapdragon 8 Elite chip. That's the same silicon Samsung uses in its Galaxy S25 phones, which regularly outpace other devices for CPU and GPU performance. The benchmarks will have to come later, but I will say that the Fold 7 felt very fluid during my hands-on time with the device. I ran two apps side by side without any hiccups and also removed people from an image and got a stunningly realistic result in several seconds. The good news is that the Galaxy Z Fold 7 battery is the same size as the Galaxy Z Fold 6's power pack at 4,400 mAh. That's pretty remarkable given how much thinner this foldable is than its predecessor. The bad news is that we may not see much of a jump in endurance, although Samsung is promising 24 hours of video playback on a charge. That's an hour more than the Z Fold 6, so maybe the Snapdragon 8 Elite chip is eeking out some efficiencies there. Once again the Z Fold 7 offers 25W charging, which is a bummer as I'd like to see 45W for a phone this pricey. Samsung has made a statement with the Galaxy Z Fold 7. While it might not be the thinnest and lightest foldable in the world, it's darn close, and you'll immediately notice the difference when you pick up this foldable. It's staggeringly thin and light for a phone that unfurls to an 8-inch display. Also staggering is the price. $2,000 is a lot of money to spend on a phone. But you are ostensibly getting an iPad mini-style tablet and flagship phone in one gadget — without feeling like you're lugging around two devices. And Samsung has finally added flagship-quality cameras to the Fold 7, making the Ultra-premium a bit easier to swallow. For now, I'm super impressed with this design despite the price hike — so much so that I'd like to live with this as my everyday phone just to see what tuned for my full rated Galaxy Z Fold 7 review.
