Samsung’s Galaxy Z Flip series has always tempted me more than the Z Fold. Maybe it’s the flip phone nostalgia; maybe it’s the fact that I don’t want to watch a video inside a square; maybe it’s just the Z Flip’s nicer price.
The Z Flip series has been running in tandem with the Z Fold for several years now, but often with specs that put it at the bottom of every flagship family, including the traditionally shaped Galaxy S family. That changes this year, with Samsung addressing some of the Z Flip 5’s biggest flaws: battery life and mediocre cameras.
That’s a good thing too. As we mentioned in our Z Fold 6 review, there’s more competition for foldable devices than ever before. In fact, in the face of Motorola’s latest foldable devices, while Samsung does somethingis it enough?
SAMSUNG
While the design of the Z Flip 6 has remained largely the same, Samsung has made a few upgrades under the hood this year with improved battery life and cameras. It’s the best case for mainstream foldables, but the company can do more, especially when using the secondary front screen.
- Better cameras
- Longer battery life
- Fun generative AI tricks
- More expensive than its predecessor
- The design is almost identical to last year’s
- Limited front screen utility
- Slow loading
$1,000 at Walmart
Design and display
You’d be hard-pressed to visually tell the difference between the Z Flip 6 and last year’s Z Flip 5, with only some minor design changes. The upgraded camera set now has a metal rim around each lens, and the sides are flatter this year, in line with the design of other Galaxy 2024 devices. There is also a largely imperceptible reduction in thickness when the device is closed, likely due to a newer hinge design. Compared to my year old Z Flip 5, this year the crease seems even less visible.
While the dimensions and resolution of the display remain the same, the Z Flip 6’s main screen reaches 2600 nits, compared to 1750 nits on the Z Flip 5’s display. Samsung claims it’s their brightest foldable display yet, and it’s more than enough , to cope with the temperamental summer weather here in the UK. It’s another clear, smooth, beautiful flexible AMOLED.
The Z Flip 6’s flip display is the same size, brightness and resolution as its predecessor. Does it look as good as the Moto Razr 50 Ultra? I don’t think so, but there’s enough screen space to read notifications, frame your photos, and even watch videos.
Also, if you’re worried about the durability of your new foldable’s screen, Samsung’s new Z Assurance program is worth noting. It offers a free one-time replacement of Samsung’s factory-installed screen protector on the Z Flip 6, and even a one-time discount for a screen replacement if the worst happens.
When it comes to utility, despite more gadget support (and room for more of them), the Z Flip 6’s flexible window doesn’t do enough. Notifications are still a single swipe away, and the expansive screen (introduced last year) offers plenty of room to take selfies with the device without unfolding it.
Samsung’s software innovations, such as AI-powered translation, take advantage of the Z Flip 6’s dual screen, showing both sides what’s being said. It’s generally pretty accurate, and the combination of audio and text should help reduce misunderstandings and mistranslations.
Galaxy AI powers new photography features that also tie into the cover display. AutoZoom takes at least some of the guesswork out of framing when you’re setting up the Z Flip to take a time-lapse photo or record video without direct observation, and it works well crowding in friends or cropping out your surroundings to focus on your group. Editing and modifying the Flex Window is still unnecessarily complicated. Other features are buried in the Labs section of settings, and there aren’t enough widgets for a device on its fifth iteration. (Samsung never released the Z Flip 2.)
But when other flip-flops offer a shortened version of your home screen and can (with mixed success) launch most apps, some new widgets aren’t enough. Fortunately, the Samsung Labs settings can launch several apps on the home screen, including YouTube, Netflix, WhatsApp, and Google Maps. It’s a start, but if the lid display can handle streaming video, I can certainly get a Kindle reading app or a stripped down version of Chrome. I wish Samsung had pushed it further. (There are some tools and apps to work around this, many Galaxy Z Flip users swear by Good Lock, but I don’t want to work around this limitation.)
The Z Flip 6 also gets a RAM upgrade this year, up to 12 gigabytes from last year’s 8GB. Like the Galaxy Z Fold 6 and S24, it has a powerful Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processor, and I didn’t notice any performance issues during testing.
Cameras
The main camera sensor on this year’s Z Flip has finally been upgraded to 50 megapixels, putting it on par with this year’s Galaxy S24. It’s better, sure, but it doesn’t quite match the capabilities of flagship camera phones like the Pixel 8 Pro, S24 Ultra or iPhone 15 Pro.
Pitting the Z Flip 6 against the Z Flip 5, I was surprised at how often the images almost matched each other. Predictably, if I chose to shoot on the Z Flip 6 in full 50MP shots, it offered more precision than the Z Flip 5. If I shot at 12MP on the Z Flip 6, there was often little difference between the two flips. The newer phone was less prone to blowing out an entire image when everything was brightly lit. At the same time, it’s more reliable in low-light situations, especially when you choose the 12MP setting, allowing the phone to process those extra pixels for a more detailed photo. The Z Flip 6 seemed better able to pick out finer details, whether it was blades of grass or the soft outline of that patient dog.
A bigger advantage of this larger sensor is that the Z Flip 6 can crop a 50MP image up to 12MP. You can capture a nice image at 2x and even 4x zoom without a dedicated telephoto lens.
Unsurprisingly, thanks to Samsung’s processing, the higher-resolution sensors in the Z Flip 6 perform better in low light than last year’s model. Samsung’s image processing occasionally got too aggressive, with clothes and silhouettes often marred by wrinkled lines and artifacts. It’s not really a leap beyond the Z Flip 5’s cameras, but it wasn’t a terrible imaging setup in the first place. This form factor ensures that you use these high-resolution cameras for any selfies or video calls, which means that nothing else comes close in quality.
Galaxy AI features are coming to foldable devices
Samsung’s Galaxy AI software landed on foldable devices this year, and the company continues to add and refine it. Along with Chat Assist for texting and emailing, the fantastic Google Circle to Search is here, making it easy to investigate practically anything you’re looking at on your phone. These are the camera features I was most impressed with – and they were pretty much the only Galaxy AI tricks I used regularly.
Samsung’s AI-enhanced photo editing tools are easy to use and right where they should be. After opening a photo, tap Samsung’s AI sparkling icon and select objects by circling them. You can then delete your selection or move it to a better position, and with another tap of the AI button, let Samsung’s AI fill in the gaps.
In stark contrast to the cumbersome menus and widget settings for the front display, it’s so easy to use and does what you want. After your AI captures and arranges, there’s a “view original” button to compare your images.
Then there’s Sketch to image, a nice distraction. Draw a few sketchy lines or try to draw something specific, and Galaxy AI will generate an object and apply it to your photo, often in a photorealistic way. Sometimes it even nails it.
Galaxy phones will add an “AI-generated content” watermark, but the bigger signs of AI objects and editing are scale (hello, giant goose), blurry outlines, or the rules of physics.
I was surprised at how capable Sasmung’s image generation was. Sketching a ghost (successfully!) behind a mesh barrier generates my ghost behind the barrier. It will also apply proper light shading and shadows for some unusually accurate results. The photo of the dog earlier? There was no ball there. Also: loads of photorealistic white hats. Too bad I couldn’t change the color of these elements or offer some textual guidance to recognize my scribbles. It’s a gimmick, of course, but it’s a good one. I still use it a lot, days later. It is very funny.
Not all AI features are so successful: Portrait Studio will automatically detect images of people and offer a host of AI-generated drawings/sketches and 3D renderings, all of which make me look like all the other white male tech journalists who wear glasses. Which is harsh, but fair.
Battery life: Better, not great
The Z Flip 6 has a larger 4000 mAh battery, and the biggest weakness of the Z Flip series is that it lasts all day, especially with heavy use. Z Flip 6 passes here. Using it as a primary phone, it always lasted a full day of heavy use, with about 10 percent remaining around 10 p.m. I continue to keep a charger with me, worried that I might not make it through the evening.
In our video exhaustion test, it lasted over 13 hours of playback on the main screen. Unfortunately, the frustratingly slow loading speed is still here. The Z Flip 6 can charge up to 25W, and after years of higher charging rates, I felt like it took a while to recharge. From empty it took two hours to fully refill. By comparison, the S24 Ultra can charge up to 45W and the Pixel 8 Pro can charge up to 40W. I think this would also be less of an issue if I wasn’t worried that the Z Flip 6’s battery would ran away
Foldables have generally used lower power over the years, possibly due to the way the battery cells are arranged inside the foldable. However, if the 2024 Motorola Razr+ can handle 45W, why can’t the Z Flip 6?
Summary
Samsung’s Z Flip series remains the most realistic flagship option when going up against the smartphone status quo. The latest model is satisfactory to use and satisfying to fold and pocket. The Z Flip 6 also has better cameras, improved battery life and comes with all the Galaxy AI features that are shaping up to be Samsung’s smartphone USP.
Perhaps this focus on AI meant the lid display barely evolved from last year’s Z Flip – especially disappointing when the Z Flip 6 costs $100 more than its predecessor. While you can use experimental features to enable YouTube playback and access to Google Maps, it’s a little underwhelming, especially when rivals like Motorola have proven that more is possible on the foldable’s secondary screen.
