Galaxy Unpacked 2025 – The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold7 is the flagship foldable we’ve been waiting for – slimmer, larger screens and a 200MP camera

The centerpiece of the latest Samsung Galaxy Unpacked 2025 event in the United States, the new Galaxy Z Fold7 was launched alongside the new Galaxy Z Flip7 and Galaxy Z Flip FE as well as the new Galaxy Watch 8 series watches. For those who have been on the fence for some time, the new Galaxy Z Fold7 is a completely different beast altogether from its predecessors like night is to day.

To say that Samsung has been conservative when it comes to its foldables would not be too far off the mark. Their most recent offerings, the Galaxy Z Fold5 and its successor the Galaxy Z Fold6 from last year saw minor refinements with the Fold6 shaving militemetres off its screen bezels and carving out minor savings in weight and thinness along with the obligatory annual chipset upgrades though the cameras were otherwise similar enough such that persuading a Fold5 user to upgrade to the Fold6 would have been a tough sell. Its near-peer competitors have closed the gap, with slimmer, sleeker foldables with better cameras.

Samsung hasn’t been lying idle though and they’ve listened to customer feedback. The Galaxy Z Fold7 is the Samsung foldable that we’ve been waiting for with almost all the upgrades that fans have been clamouring for – larger front and main displays, a slimmer and tougher chassis as well as better cameras too though some aspects have not moved much which we’ll get into later.

Samsung Galaxy Z Fold7 – Design

Out of the entire line-up of new foldables at Unpacked 2025, the Galaxy Z Fold7 shows the most radical upgrades. At first blush, the Galaxy Z Fold7 goes is much thinner with a flat front and rear and more rounded corners which lends it a sleek appearance while retaining Samsung’s design language including a vertically aligned camera island on the rear.

On closer inspection, the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold7 weighs 215g, making it lighter than the average 8oz cup of coffee and lighter than the titular Galaxy S25 Ultra released earlier this year that weighs 218g. It’s also significantly lighter than the Fold6 by a whopping 24g.

The Galaxy X Fold7 is also much slimmer, measuring in at just 4.2mm when unfolded and 8.9mm when folded down, just barely losing out to the thinnest variant of the Honor Magic V5 by an infinitesimal 0.1mm for world’s thinnest foldable. Its predecessor the Galaxy Z Fold6 feels almost elephantine as it is 12.1mm thin when folded, an almost 26% difference in thickness in just one generation.

Slimmer and wider silhouette and weight savings aside, the new Galaxy Z Fold7 also adopts what Samsung refers to as an Armor FlexHinge mechanism for the hinge hat uses a new water droplet design and multi-rail structure to evenly disperse stress and protect display integrity with the use of what they refer to as a Grade 4 Titanium Lattice for greater structural integrity, the integration of new adhesives and 50% thicker ultra-thin glass  for protection to make the Fold7 tougher than ever before. The chassis is also rated for IP48 for dust and water resistance.

The backplate itself uses a new Advanced Armor Aluminium which is, we’re given to understand, an upgraded version of second-generation Armor Aluminium with the front cover display using Corning Gorilla Glass Ceramic 2 and Gorilla Glass Victus 2 for the backplate making for a rather robust, scratch-resistant design.

When compared to the prior Galaxy Z Fold6, the new Fold7 is wider at the front at 64.9mm whereas its predecessor maxed out at 59.9mm to accommodate the larger 6.5-inch FHD+ (2,520 x 1080 pixels) Dynamic AMOLED 2X front display, making it 11% larger than the Fold6’s Cover Display with a 21:9 aspect ratio. and main 8-inch QXGA+ (2,184 x 1,9,68 pixels) Dynamic AMOLED 2X inward folding display.

Both panels offer a 120Hz refresh rate. Flanking the display are a set of stereo speakers, tuned by Dolby Atmos. In effect, the larger cover display gives it dimensions better resembling a regular phone while retaining the capabilities of a foldable that has a display that’s now as large as a conventional tablet which is quite a feat of engineering on their part.

One notable omission though to achieve this level of thinness is that the front and main displays do not feature any stylus support which is a bit of a mixed trade-off. Connectivity is current generation with 5G as well as WiFi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4 with UWB to connect with selected items of gear.

Samsung Galaxy Z Fold7 – Processor and Cameras

Powering the phone, as expected is the Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy chipset – the same powering the Galaxy S25 series this year – paired with 12GB LPDDR5X RAM and UFS 4.1 storage in either 256GB or 512GB capacities with an online exclusive version which has 16GB LPDDR5X RAM and 1TB storage.

Interestingly, there was no mention of any upgrades to the vapour chamber or thermal interface material so it would be logical to assume that Samsung retained a mostly similar solution for cooling as to the Fold6 due to the milimeter thin margins in the phone.

Running under the hood of the Galaxy Z Fold7 is their new OneUI 8 as well as Android 16, one of the first phones to do so out of the box with a guaranteed 7 years of OS and security updates thrown in for good measure to keep it safe and secure all the way to 2032. 

Oddly enough, with all the bold upgrades on hand for the chipset, displays and other hardware, Samsung did remain conservative and understandably so in one area – the battery as the Galaxy Z Fold7 sticks with last year’s 4,400mAh battery with 25W wired charging as well as wireless and reverse wireless charging support. Samsung claims that optimisations in the firmware will ensure equivalent and superior battery life to its predecessor even with the Fold7’s larger displays.

On the camera side of things, Samsung isn’t skimping this time around and they’ve finally managed to integrate a 200MP camera akin to that used in the Galaxy S25 Ultra paired with a 12MP ultra wide angle camera as well as a 10MP telephoto camera with 3x optical zoom. 

Interestingly enough, Samsung has decided to eschew their experiment in invisible-looking under-display cameras and just went for a larger, bigger 10MP camera in a punch hole for the main folding display and a similar 10MP camera on the cover screen.

In terms of possible colourways, Samsung will be issuing the Galaxy Z Fold7 in four colourways – a dark Blue Shadow, a matte Jet Black, a pearlescent Silver Shadow as well as a Mint colourway as an online-exclusive. 

Also currently exclusive to the Fold7 as well as the new Galaxy Z Flip7 is the introduction of a new Samsung Care+ package which offers 3 years of unlimited repairs for the phone for a modest additional sum. At the time of writing, Samsung hasn’t provided specific prices or configurations available for Malaysia just yet but we’ll keep you posted!

[UPDATE – Malaysia prices have been revealed. Check them out in our feature here.]