Samsung Galaxy Z Fold6 First Impressions – Squarer, Slimmer Flagship Foldable Unboxed

At the gala Galaxy Unpacked 2024 event in Paris, Samsung revealed their latest flagship foldables, the lifestyle-oriented Galaxy Z Flip6 and their premier powerhouse foldable, the Galaxy Z Fold6.

Alongside these two flagship foldables, they revealed a slew of accompanying accessories including the Galaxy Ring, the Galaxy Watch Ultra and Galaxy Watch7 smartwatches as well as the Buds3 Pro and Buds Pro earbuds. For Malaysia, almost everything showcased at Galaxy Unpacked 2024 will be arriving to our shores though the Galaxy Ring , alas, won’t be available.

For this new generation of foldables, Samsung has implemented several meaningful updates in terms of their materials, design and the hardware running under the hood We managed to get our hands on their flagship foldable for testing and ahead of our in-depth review, here’s our Galaxy Z Fold6 first impressions and our take on their newest and most powerful foldable to date. 

Samsung Galaxy Z Fold6 First Impressions – Build and Design

At a glance, the Galaxy Z Fold6 resembles its predecessor with the same basic design that consists of a tall, narrow front cover display, a wider, squarish-shaped main folding display and a vertically aligned triple camera array. 

Closer inspection reveals a number of subtle yet critical refinements to the design but the differences are more apparent when the Galaxy Z Fold6 is compared side by side with its predecessor.

The Fold6 has a more squarish look about it with more squared off corners and a flatter yet more durable dual-rail hinge design as opposed to its predecessor which had a larger, more prominent hinge that juts out from the frame and more rounded corners.

The Galaxy Z Fold6 also has more prominent camera rings protecting its rear triple camera array. While they are certainly sized larger, they don’t get in the way and offer additional protection to the camera arrays from bumps and knocks

In Malaysia, you can acquire the Galaxy Z Fold6 in pink, silver shadow and in the case of our review sample, a matte blue shade of Navy. Ordering at Samsung’s online store gets you two exclusive finishes – Crafted Black and White. Regardless of whichever colourway you acquire, the camera ring housings are all coloured black on the Galaxy Z Fold6 whereas the Flip6 has colour-matched rings. 

When measured, the Galaxy Z Fold6 is actually 1.4mm shorter and 2.7mm wider to create a squarer design with the end result being a slightly larger front cover display, bumping up the prior 6.2-inch cover display in the Fold5 to a wider 6.3-inch Dynamic AMOLED 2X display to offer better functionality based on feedback from owners of prior Galaxy Z Fold series phones. 

The large 6.3-inch front cover display also has an upgraded 1-120Hz dynamic refresh rate while retaining its predecessor’s 100% DCI-P3 colour gamut and slightly more resolution at 968 x 2,376 pixels. The display as well as the backplate also retains the use of tough Corning Gorilla Glass Victus 2.

Opening the Fold6 reveals a 7.6-inch Dynamic AMOLED 2X Infinity Flex main display that is the same size as the older Fold5 with a 1-120Hz dynamic refresh rate as well as 1,856 x 2,160 pixels resolution; a smidgen more increase in resolution  from the Fold5. 

Also retained in the Galaxy Z Fold6 is an identical camera setup with no major changes on any of its cameras – you get a front-facing 10MP camera on the cover display, a 4MP under display camera in the main folding display as well as a triple camera setup akin to last year’s Galaxy S23 with a 50MP main camera and 10MP telephoto camera with 3x zoom, both of which have optical image stabilisation as well as a 12MP ultra wide angle camera.

Weighing in at 239g, the Galaxy Z Fold6 is actually lighter by 14g compared to its predecessor and a whopping 24g lighter than the Fold4. It doesn’t sound all that much on paper but as a regular Fold user, every gram counts especially if you’re hauling it around in your pockets all day. The phone also uses an improved version of Samsung’s Armor Aluminium alloy that makes it as drop and scratch resistant as its predecessor.

The biggest, most important update to the Galaxy Z Fold6 is less obvious as the whole design now has an IP48 rating, meaning that it is the first ever Galaxy Z Fold and arguably the first foldable in the market to have both dust and water resistance. To be more specific, an IP4X rating doesn’t mean complete resistance to dust ingress but the Fold6 is protected against solid objects greater than 1mm in size which means all but the tiniest motes of dust will affect it.

As first impressions go, the Galaxy Z Fold6 hits all the right spots, feeling lighter and slimmer while the wider cover screen adds a bit more functionality. When held, it offers excellent tactility with an even heft and grip. The tiny addition to width is for the better, making it feel more like a traditional candybar form factor phone than its predecessor.

Another pleasant bonus is that the matte finish on all of the new colourways repels fingerprints wonderfully while looking particularly stylish with the dark blue Navy finish on our review sample looking particularly posh. While the host of improvements implemented in the Galaxy Z Fold6 isn’t a radical reimagination of its DNA, it offers welcome improvements to a successful design. 

Samsung Galaxy Z Fold6 First Impressions – Hardware improvements

Under the hood, the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold6 gets an impressive array of hardware upgrades, key among them the obligatory processor update to this year’s most powerful Qualcomm chipset – the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 for Galaxy processor.

Clocked to be faster than a stock Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processor, the ‘for Galaxy’ SoC is the same hardware powering this year’s Galaxy S24 series. Tto ensure consistent sustained performance especially under heavy loads, the Fold6 also gets a 60% larger vapour chamber to more efficiently vent heat from the processor.

For this generation, the Galaxy Z Fold6 gets 12GB LPDDR5X RAM and your choice of 256GB, 512GB or 1TB of UFS 4.0 storage. The phone also gets the latest Android 14 with their own OneUI 6.1.1 with a slew of Galaxy AI related updates especially for image generation and live translation. As expected of a leading flagship phone, the Galaxy Z Fold6 gets an industry-leading 7 years of OS and security updates which means you will get updates all the way to 2031.

Transferring over from an older Fold5 is as easy as it gets with Samsung’s own Smart Switch app and was completed in about an hour though transferring over Whatsapp chat logs needs to be done manually before we took it around for a whirl. We’ll keep you posted on any updates but in the meantime, stay tuned for our full Galaxy Z Fold6 review.

Ahead of our Galaxy Z Fold6 review, the phone is currently on preorder in Malaysia with up to RM2,329 in freebies and gifts if you preorder before 30 July 2024 at 11.59PM Malaysia time. In terms of pricing, the 256GB model retails for RM7,299, the 512GB for RM7,899 and the 1TB for RM9,099. To preorder, check out their official link at: https://www.samsung.com/my/smartphones/galaxy-z-fold6/buy