Foldable smartphones – I vividly remember seeing Samsung’s first-gen Galaxy Fold for the first time and couldn’t believe that we had come this far in technology and that this was even possible. It’s as if we have sat straight in a time machine and teleported to the future to have a glimpse of it. Fast forward to nearly 5 years later, the Galaxy Z Fold series is already at its sixth generation, while its clamshell foldable counterpart, the Z Flip series is at its fifth.
The latter is the one we are focusing on here, the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6. As futuristic as it is, can this compact foldable convince me, an Apple user who is also an Android veteran, to put my iPhone 15 into the drawer and adopt this Android-powered foldable for good? Read on to find out.
Folding with style
Picking up the Z Flip 6, and one thing I immediately like about it is its looks. The colour-matching outer camera rings might not be everyone’s cup of tea but the Flip 6 still looks very similar to its predecessor, which was already a decent-looking phone to start with.
Foldables alongside candybar smartphones with daring designs like the Nothing Phone lineup are definitely refreshing to see in the sea of, let’s face it, identical and boring-looking phones. Using the Galaxy Flip 6 also attracted quite a bit of attention from my friends and family, due to its unique form factor, foldability, and the ability to capture selfies with the main rear cameras thanks to the cover display.
However, aside from the coloured outer camera rings, changes made to the Flip 6’s design over the Flip 5 are relatively minor. You can even fit the last-gen Galaxy Z Flip 5 into the case of the Z Flip 6, albeit a little loose due to the Flip 5’s rounded frame. The Z Flip 6 is now made to be tougher too, thanks to its IP48 rating, making it not just resistant towards water but also dust, as long as they are larger than 1mm.
Despite having water resistance, the dual stereo speakers on the Galaxy Z Flip 6 were pretty decent. But coming from an iPhone 15, I have to admit that I’m spoilt by those loud, full, and rich-sounding stereo speakers, making the Z Flip 6’s speakers sound a little tinny. This is most probably due to its compact form factor, lacking enough space for a larger speaker chamber.
Has the pioneer of foldables settled?
When the first-gen Samsung Galaxy Z Flip first appeared in 2020, it sported a tiny 1.1″ cover display. Then in 2023, the cover display got expanded to 3.4″ with the Z Flip 5, albeit still surrounded by “bezels”.
Fast forward to a year later, the cover display of the Z Flip 6 doesn’t seem to have grown any larger. This makes it seem like Samsung stopped pushing the envelope in expanding the size of the cover display with its latest flip phone. Well, at least it’s brighter now at 1,600 nits.
I’m saying this because its competitors like the Xiaomi Mix Flip and the Motorola Razr 50 Ultra both have covers that feature edge-to-edge displays, showing what innovation is supposed to look like. Samsung being the pioneer in the foldable smartphone business shouldn’t have held back in this regard.
To make things worse, you can’t do any more things on the Z Flip 6’s cover display as compared to its predecessor’s, i.e. you still can’t run apps here as its competitors mentioned above can, at least out of the box. More on that later.
Let’s talk about things you can do with the Galaxy Z Flip 6’s cover display first. This includes checking notifications and replying to some text messages, adding widgets, as well as using some basic apps. And no, you can’t even open WhatsApp to send someone messages here.
However, as I mentioned earlier, this is at least the situation when you use the Z Flip 6 without changing its default settings. If you want to expand the capabilities of the cover display, you can download the Samsung GoodLock app from the Samsung Store, and from there install the MultiStar app.
The MultiStar app allows you to select apps that you want to access via the cover display, and I’m happy to report that apps run smoothly here with no issues whatsoever. In fact, typing on this small 3.4″ screen using a QWERTY keyboard isn’t as ridiculous of an experience as it might sound, thanks to decent amount of horizontal space. The cover screen only starts to feel tight when running apps that require vertical space such as Instagram. From here onwards, it’s up to you when to draw the line at when to skip the cover screen and open up the main 6.7″ screen instead.
Putting the negatives aside, the Galaxy Z Flip’s compact form factor when folded shut makes carrying it around very easy. Quick activities such as performing text replies or switching between songs via the cover display can also be done with just one hand, as opposed to needing two hands with a regular candy bar phone like my iPhone 15.
When you do open up the Galaxy Z Flip 6, an action that often requires both hands, you will find a vibrant 6.7” Full HD+ foldable Dynamic LTPO AMOLED 2X display with a smooth 120Hz refresh rate, laid out in a tall 22:9 aspect ratio. Like with other Samsung flagship displays, this one doesn’t disappoint at all. The crease is now less prominent too, at least when looking straight at it.
The only complaint I have with the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6’s main display is its Full HD+ resolution. A RM5,000 phone should come with an even higher resolution display. But this is certainly me nitpicking here.
Here’s a quick spec rundown of the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6’s main display. Spanning 6.7″, the foldable Full HD+ (1080×2640 resolution) Dynamic LTPO AMOLED 2X display with a smooth 120Hz refresh rate. At the front of the phone is a 3.4″ HD (748×720 resolution) Super AMOLED cover display with a 60Hz refresh rate.
Fast but no longer furious
Sitting underneath the hood of the new Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 is Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip. It now sports more RAM at 12GB too, which is 4GB more than before. Storage-wise, the Flip 6 is offered with either 256GB or 512GB of storage, with our review unit here being the former option.
I mainly used the Z Flip 6 for activities such as typing out documents, texting, social media, and the camera for photos and videos. I also played some games such as Real Racing 3, Asphalt Legends Unite, and NBA Live Mobile, and I can confidently say that performance isn’t an issue here.
Its thermal performance has also improved over its predecessors thanks to the addition of a vapour chamber, a first in the Galaxy Z Flip series. The Galaxy Z Flip 6 is certainly fast but is no longer furious like its predecessor, even when gaming. It does get a little warm sometimes, but not at a level that causes me to be worried.
This certainly wasn’t the case with my iPhone 15, which heats up very often even when running social media apps. It is interesting how a foldable can have better thermal performance than the non-foldable iPhone 15, just give that a thought.
Wanna take a selfie? Just use the new 50MP rear camera
Camera lovers will be happy to hear that Samsung took the 50MP sensor from the S24 and slapped it onto the Z Flip 6, although the 12MP ultrawide sensor here is carried over from the Z Flip 5. The 50MP sensor can pixel bin to 12MP, which is the default photo resolution setting out of the box. This can also help deliver better low-light shots.
But of course, the 50MP mode is still there whenever you need to capture more details. This main sensor is also capable of delivering 2x digital zoom which Samsung says has an “optical-like” quality.
If you often capture images and post them on social media, the Galaxy Z Flip 6 is certainly a phone you should look at. As per many Samsung flagships from recent years, the Z Flip 6 delivers vibrant and contrasty-looking photos.
Compared to the Z Flip 5’s 12MP main shooter, images taken with the Z Flip 6 are less oversharpen, more vivid, and deliver more natural colours. Zooming into the Z Flip 6’s images, details look clearer with less noise too.
When pitted against the iPhone 15, the Galaxy Z Flip 6’s photos had better contrast but with less dynamic range. The Samsung also tend to take brighter photos than the iPhone.
Due to how the Z Flip 6 oversharpens its images, the iPhone 15 does deliver more natural-looking photos. And when faced with high-contrast situations, the iPhone 15 did perform better than the Flip 6 which churned out more noise in the darker parts of the image.
Overall, the Z Flip 6 takes good photos, and I as an iPhone 15 user did not miss my phone too much when snapping photos with the foldable, even when filming videos.
Speaking of videos, iPhones have had a reputation for their ability to capture buttery smooth videos for the longest time in a reliable fashion. When I first picked up the Z Flip 6, I did not expect this foldable to be able to come close to the iPhone at all in that regard. Boy was I wrong. The Galaxy Z Flip 6 captures videos that not only look vibrant but are stable and smooth too.
Thanks to the Z Flip 6’s clamshell design, I can take selfies using the outer camera in high quality, as mentioned before, thanks to the cover display acting as a “viewfinder”. This allowed me to skip the 10MP front camera most of the time unless when making video calls, even though the front shooter is capable of delivering decent shots.
When it comes to selfies, the AI Zoom feature was handy in making sure that me and my friends are in the frame by zooming in and out or even switching to the ultra-wide angle camera when needed. Neat!
The Galaxy Z Flip 6’s ability to fold in half also allowed me to place the phone on a table and have it on flex mode to take pictures or videos as if the phone were on a tripod.
Longer battery life but with slow “fast” charging
Previous Samsung Galaxy Z Flip phones were known to have lacklustre battery life. However, with the Z Flip 6, Samsung has given it a 4,000mAh battery, 300mAh larger than its predecessor. With normal usage, this gave me close to 5 hours of screen-on time with the always-on display turned on, and I could get an extra 30 minutes with the feature off.
Charging, however, does take a little bit longer with the Z Flip 6 due to it only supporting up to 25W of wired charging. For a phone that’s priced close to a premium flagship, this is pretty unacceptable.
Yes, it does support 15W wireless charging and even 4.5W reverse wireless charging for your accessories or whatnot. Still, 25W charging for a flagship-tier phone in 2024 is just bonkers, honestly speaking.
Foldable One UI meets Galaxy AI
Now let’s get to the nitty gritty stuff – the software. The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 runs on the Korean brand’s One UI 6.1 skin on top of Android 14. But the main update here that Samsung wants you to know is the addition of the full Galaxy AI suite. This includes features like Sketch to Image, which allows you to draw on existing images to generate new elements as if they have been a part of the image the whole time.
You can even draw on the Samsung Notes app from scratch and have Galaxy AI generate a full-blown image. This not only saves you time but can also be a lifesaver if you lack artistic talent and need to have a full-blown image done in no time.
The Sketch to Image feature is certainly and undeniably useful, but don’t expect it to be perfect as the phone can’t read your thoughts literally. It is a trial and error kind of situation, and the user’s drawing skills matter too.
Galaxy AI also comes with a series of Grammarly-like features to help enhance your writing via Chat Assist. Built into the Samsung keyboard, this AI writing suite comes with features such as chat translation, a text composer, writing style, as well as a spelling and grammar checker.
Features like text composer and writing style allow you to choose the type of tone to make sure that your text is fit for the occasion. With the Samsung Notes app, Galaxy AI can also help summarise texts into point forms.
Next up is the Interpreter feature, where you can speak into your phone’s mic and have the app translate into another language. It’s to be noted that Bahasa Melayu isn’t supported here, at least just yet, even though there’s Bahasa Indonesia.
To make it easier to use when let’s say travelling, you can have the cover display the translated text as well so that it’s easier for the person you’re talking to to read what you’re trying to say.
However, the translation here is far from perfect but is undeniably useful during desperate situations. Sometimes having a bad translation is better than having no translation at all, right?
Taking the crown among the Galaxy AI in my opinion is the Circle to Search feature, where you can simply hold down the home button, and on any screen, draw a circle around the object you wish to know more about. This even works when in the camera app. Galaxy AI will then give you the answer on what that object is about via Google search.
Aside from AI, the Galaxy Z Flip 6’s ability to fold in half also helps with productivity. You can put the phone in “flex mode” and use it like a laptop. You can also engage the “flex mode panel” on the bottom half of the screen which gives you tools such as a touchpad and a scroller for easier navigation.
Verdict: Charming as ever, but requires more cash and innovation
So, all in all, has the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 convinced me to get an Android-powered foldable? Well, yes, at least for the most part. I love how the phone’s flexibility helps make it a more convenient device to use, and overall the amount of freedom Android grants me over my phone over an iPhone does, which usually prefers to dictate how a phone should be used.
However, due to its starting price of RM 4,999, a RM 500 hike from before, I would rather save some cash and go for the Galaxy S24 or S24+ which cost RM 100 and RM 900 less than the Z Flip 6 respectively. In fact, the iPhone 15 can also be had for RM 100 cheaper than the Z Flip 6. Of course, you can’t fold these phones like you can with the Z Flip 6, but they are certainly more durable, giving you peace of mind, and also come with a better camera setup (at least with the S24 phones) and come with better battery life as well.
So with that said, should you get the Samsung Galaxy Flip 6 over the regular non-foldable flagships? Well, if you like how it looks, are a fan of its foldable tech, and love taking selfies and “groupies”, then yes. I believe you will very much enjoy the Z Flip 6 as it’s a smartphone with some unique character.
We should also remember that by being foldable, the Galaxy Z Flip is still one of the most advanced smartphones in the market right now. That is already way ahead of what Apple is capable of doing until it creates its own foldable iPhone someday.
Still, Samsung could have easily flexed its innovation muscles a little bit more by at least giving the Galaxy Z Flip 6 a larger and more useful cover screen, faster charging, and so on. With its nearly RM 5,000 starting price, these features should’ve come as standard in 2024.
