Samsung's Galaxy Z Fold 6 is here, and it comes with big improvements at an even bigger price. Let's dive in. I've used every generation of the Galaxy Z Fold, and I have to say Samsung really did achieve its goal of making the Z Fold feel more like a regular phone. When it's closed, everything from the lighter design to the fact that the crease is less noticeable, and the new larger cover screen with more symmetrical borders really make this feel a lot easier and more natural to use. Plus, there's a new processor, some more AI features, and a better ultrawide camera. But at $1900, the Galaxy Z Fold 6 is painfully expensive. It feels like a step backwards in terms of making foldable phones more accessible, despite the fact that Samsung did make some important steps forward when it comes to design. The Galaxy Z Fold 6 is available for pre-order now and launches on July 24th. So, my favorite thing about the Galaxy Z Fold 6 is its new design.

may sound like a broken record, but this thing is just so light compared to the previous generation. It really does kind of feel like a regular phone. And not only is this slightly bigger, so this screen is 6.3 in, whereas the Galaxy Z Fold 5 was 6.2 in, but the borders framing the screen are also more symmetrical. So again, this really does feel like a regular phone when it's closed. If I was looking at it just from the front, I might not even know that it's a foldable phone. And that's really the goal here. On top of that, the hinge has been improved a little bit, and there's also some improved, uh, layers in the display that make the crease less noticeable. Unfortunately, the crease is still there. You can still see it, especially when light hits the screen at a certain angle, but it's a lot less noticeable, and I don't really feel it as much when I'm scrolling around the display as I have in the past. So it's not just the design.

and hardware that's new. There's a few new AI features on this phone as well. They're a lot of fun to play around with. A couple of them that come to mind are sketch to image, which as the name implies, creates an image based on a rough drawing, and portrait studio, which takes an image of a person and stylizes it in a different art style. So that could be watercolor sketch, things like that. So these features are a lot of fun. I don't know how useful they will be in everyday life, but I am a really bad artist. So I was really interested to see what Samsung would make for my really bad sketches, especially since I don't have an S Pen and I'm just drawing with my finger. So sometimes it surprised me pleasantly. For example, when I tried to sketch the Eiffel Tower, I really just drew a few curved lines and that's about it, and it was able to get that I was trying to draw the Eiffel Tower. Other times, the results were a little weird.

for example, you can also do this on images. By the way, so I tried to draw a little hat on top of a photo of my cat. And instead of making a hat, it put a book there, which felt like an odd choice. Even if my drawing was really bare bones, I was hoping that maybe it would get that since it's on the cat's head, it would be a hat. I don't know. Either way, it's still a lot of fun. But beyond that, I think my biggest criticism is that these new AI features don't feel like they were specifically designed for foldable phones in mind. I there's no reason in theory why Samsung couldn't bring this to the Galaxy S Series. And I was hoping to see more that really took advantage of the inner screen and the outer screen. But there is one new feature that does that. And that's the new conversation mode in The Interpreter app. So right now, we're trying out the conversation mode in Samsung's interpreter app. So basically, what this does is it will show the conversation.

what I'm saying in Spanish on the outer screen, and then when my Danny responds to me in Spanish, I will see it in English on the screen facing me. So, um, we're going to try it out and see how it works. What's the nearest train that will take me to Times Square? Great, thank you so much. Are you from here? So what I'm seeing is a little bit of a mix of my actual words and his response, so it's a little bit hard to understand. And it doesn't look like all of it has actually been translated to English. So maybe this is just something that I have to get a feel for, but I do feel like the translation also wasn't as instantaneous as I expected it to be. So it took me a minute to respond to your initial question because I was waiting for the translation to catch up to what your first response was. I felt the same way, waiting for the text to pop up on my side in Spanish, right? The Galaxy Z Fold 6 has a 50-megapixel main camera, a 10

megapix telephoto camera, and a 12-megapixel ultrawide camera that's been updated with a new sensor that's better in low-light scenarios. So, for the most part, these are the same cameras as the ones on the Z Fold 5, except for that new sensor on the ultrawide. And I did test this against last year's phone, and I did see a difference when I took photos in a really dim underground tunnel. I did notice that the Z Fold 6's pictures were brighter and had a bit more detail than the Z Fold 5's. In general, though, this camera system is very similar to what we've seen on other Samsung flagship phones. The cameras on the Z Fold 6 tend to really punch up the color, which I think worked in this phone's favor when compared to the Google Pixel Fold and the OnePlus open. In most cases, I did prefer Samsung's photos and how they were able to capture more lively color, but I will say the Pixel Fold does still excel over the Z Fold in certain areas.

Um, for example, with the ultra-wide camera and with low-light photos. There's also a 4-megapixel camera on the inside of the phone, which is the same as it's been in years past. It's a very low resolution compared to what we're used to in the selfie camera, but I did find that Samsung's post-processing does take care of a lot of the noise. The Galaxy Z Fold 6's battery life is good enough to last for a long day, but it will depend on how often you're using the big screen on the inside versus the outer screen, and how bright those screens are. So, for example, after about 15 hours, I typically had about maybe like the mid-30s to high 30s percentage in terms of battery life at the end of the day. But on other days, when I spent more time outside and I really had to pump up the screen brightness, and I was using the inner screen more to look up directions, it was a bit lower. I would say after 14 hours.

it dropped down to like the high 20s, low 30s. So again, battery life will always vary depending on how you're using your phone, but this should last a full day. In terms of performance, the Galaxy Z Fold 6 runs on Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processor that's been optimized for Samsung's Galaxy phones. So, that is the same processor that's in the Galaxy S24 series, which isn't a surprise. Samsung usually puts the latest generation chip in its new foldables. So far, performance has been pretty fast and smooth, whether I'm multitasking and using split-screen mode, playing a game, processing edits to photos, things like that. I haven't noticed any lag, but again, that is to be expected for a phone of this price. So, let me spell out exactly what I liked and didn't like about this phone. For one, I really love the new cover screen with the slightly larger display area and more symmetrical design. I also like that Samsung's providing 7 years of software updates for this phone and the new

ultrawide camera also does live up to Samsung's promises. In terms of what I didn't like, that $100 price increase is really hard to swallow. Plus, there haven't been major improvements to battery life or charging speeds. And also, a lot of these new AI features don't feel like they were specifically tailored to foldable phones. But for more details and my full thoughts on the Galaxy Z Fold 6, don't forget to check out my written review on CNET. Thanks for watching and I'll see you next time.

Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 Review: Big Upgrades at a Big Price

CNET is the premier destination for explaining and navigating the changing world around us. Through news, product reviews, price comparisons, and more, we’ll tell you what’s new in the parts of modern life that increasingly matter more — from health, home, and money to tech, culture, and climate — and how to get the most out of them.