Slimmer, lighter and cooler new Samsung Galaxy Z Fold6 revealed at Galaxy Unpacked Paris 2024
In a packed hall filled to the rafters at Samsung Galaxy Unpacked Paris 2024, the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold6 and its lifestyle-oriented sibling the Galaxy Z Flip6 made their global debuts along with a slew of other wearables including the Galaxy Watch7 and Galaxy Buds3 series watches. Even with the slew of new gear being showcased, the Galaxy Z Fold6 remained the centrepiece of the show.
What’s new with the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold6?
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Compared to its immediate predecessor the Galaxy Z Fold5, the new Galaxy Z Fold6 retains the same book-shaped form factor with a front cover display and inner folding display but refines the concept even further to its fullest potential with Samsung’s latest technology to make it more durable, slimmer and lighter too.
At a glance, the Fold6 looks very different from the Fold5 with a squarer chassis and pronounced black camera rings across the rear vertically oriented triple camera array.
Weighing in at 239g, the new Galaxy Z Fold6 is lighter by 14g than its predecessor and a surprising 23g compared to the Fold4, making it the lightest Galaxy Z Fold series foldable currently in service.
That’s not all, Samsung has also improved the hinge this time with what they refer to as a Dual Rail hinge which has better resistance to pressure and sharp objects, thus making it last better and longer over time. When viewed from the side, the new flagship foldable has no gap from end to end with each half folding neatly into each other.
When folded down, the phone is 12.1mm thin and just 5.6mm thin when fully unfurled in tablet mode while being 0.5mm thinner, 2.7mm wider and about 1.4mm shorter compared to the older Galaxy Z Fold5.
Samsung has even managed to improve its dust resistance too. Where its predecessors had no dust resistance rating, the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold6 now has a respectable IP48 rating, meaning that it can resist dust ingress while retaining the ability to survive immersion in up to 1.5 metres of fresh water for 30 minutes at a time. The chassis itself retains the use of Samsung’s own patented second-generation Armor Aluminum which has superior scratch and drop resistance while Corning Gorilla Glass Victus 2 protects the backplate and front cover display.
On top of a lighter chassis, a tougher hinge and better dust resistance, Samsung has managed to refine the design even further by creating a slightly larger front cover display that’s bigger by 0.1-inches or without affecting the ergonomics. Measuring in at 6.3-inches, the slightly squarer front cover display is a Dynamic AMOLED 2X panel with a 120hz refresh rate and HD+ resolution sheathed in nick-and-scratch-resistant Corning Gorilla Victus 2 much like its predecessor.
Samsung Galaxy Z Fold6 displays
Popping the Galaxy Z Fold6 open reveals a similar 7.6-inch foldable QXGA+ Dynamic AMOLED 2X Infinity Flex display with 2,160 x 1,856 pixels resolution and a 1-120hz adaptive refresh rate that’s essentially unchanged from its predecessor.
As mentioned earlier the front Dynamic AMOLED cover display is slightly larger at 6.3-inches with HD+ resolution (2,376 x 968 pixels) and a 120Hz refresh rate sheathed in Corning Gorilla Glass Victus 2. The 0.1-inch increased width for the cover display helps to address the common pain point of the front cover display being too tall and narrow for many users.
Samsung Galaxy Z Fold6 processor
Under the hood, the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold6 has the requisite upgrades with the phone getting the new Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 for Galaxy processor that’s clocked faster than the stock models in competing phones, 12GB RAM with up to 8GB virtual RAM Plus, your choice of 256GB, 512GB and 1TB storage options.
The phone gets Android 14 with OneUI 6.1 and gets upgraded Galaxy AI features especially for live translate modes. In Flex mode, the front cover screen turns on and allows another person to see written translations in addition to input for the user on the main display.
The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold6 also gets the option to generate art from prompts or from sketches. Needless to say this works best with an S Pen but the phone doesn’t come with one out of the box as you’ll need to buy the optional S Pen case for it to work like last year’s Fold5. The phone also gets 7 years of OS and security updates.
Samsung Galaxy Z Fold6 battery size
The capacity of the battery for the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold6 remains unchanged with a 4,400mAh battery running the show with 25W wired fast charging and 15W wireless charging remaining unchanged.
According to Samsung, the phone will have better battery life with about an extra 2 additional hours of video playback on account of better optimisation. Of note here is that Samsung has also added a larger vapour chamber that’s 1.6x times larger than the one in the Fold5.
Samsung Galaxy Z Fold6 Cameras
On the imaging front, the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold6 retains the same setup as its predecessor. You get a 10MP F/2.2 selfie camera on the front cover screen, a 4MP F/1.8under display camera on the main folding screen and a rear triple camera with a 50MP F/1.8 main camera with Dual Pixel autofocus and OIS, a 10MP F/2.4 telephoto camera with 3x optical zoom as well as OIS and a 12MP F/2.2 ultrawide angle camera.
How much is the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold6?
At its global debut, the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold6 comes in your choice of three colourways – Pink, Navy and Silver Shadow along with online exclusive colours that consist of Crafted Black and White.
At the global Unpacked launch, Samsung announced that it will retail from US$1,899 which works out to about8,928 but this is, of course, not indicative of actual prices in Malaysia.
There’s no official word yet on how much it costs in Malaysia yet but it will be available for preorder from today 10 July 2024 and will be available on store shelves from 24 July 2024 onwards! For updates, stay tuned to Samsung Malaysia’s official page at www.samsung.com/my
[UPDATE] Samsung Malaysia has announced preorder and pricing details for the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold6 in Malaysia. Prices start from RM7,299 for the 256GB model with the 512GB costing RM7,899 and the 1TB model costing RM9,099. For more details check out our Galaxy Z Fold6 Malaysia pricing and preorder feature here.