Foldable perfection that lures me out of iPhone

The Z Fold 7 has added some significant weight year-over-year, adding a flagship-level main camera and improving performance while sprinkling enough new Galaxy AI and Gemini features to not feel like Samsung is too outboard. The Z Fold 7 also emits in the best blue shade I’ve seen on any phone. (Yes, even prettier than the Pacific Blue iPhone 12 Pro and Ultramarine Onplus 8 Pro.) For six years, during the six years of reviewing the Samsung Z Folds, I used to have to be forced to leave my iPhone just to get an extra tablet-sized screen. There’s not even a better-made book-style folding style like the Pixel 9 Pro Fold or OnePlus Opin, I gave a high score. But the Z-fold 7 attracted me from my second second. The last time an Android phone really made me want to leave Apple’s walled garden was the Galaxy Note 7, which had a sleek, dual curved monitor that held its breath and had such a tight design that the faulty battery really killed it. It would be uncomfortable to leave Apple’s walled garden for my friends and family who choose to live in the Apple ecosystem, but features such as RCS improve messaging interoperability and air conditioning replacement applications such as Localend, such as locally used to send files to Apple devices, making switching easier than before.

You do have to hold the Z-fold 7 to believe its thickness (8.9mm) and weight (215G) with regular flagship bar-style phones. Even with a week of foldable, I still unlock the 6.3-inch cover screen with my fingerprint or face every time and marvel it like a regular phone, or expand it to get an 8-inch screen. Both monitors are very bright, very clear, and support a 120Hz refresh rate. The folding screen still has obvious creases – I hope it will deepen over time – you will still feel the hinge under it whenever your fingers run, but I rarely notice it when I read, watch videos or play games. The crease is an engineering tradeoff that I don’t think the foldable will be able to resolve (although Apple reportedly will try). You just ignore it over time, just like you stop noting gear or hole assault cameras on your non-folding phone.

I agree not to do any drip or bending tests on the Z-fold 7 so that Samsung provides me with an evaluation loan unit, so I have to leave the durability test to YouTubers and Tiktokers seeking attention. However, I did try to bend gently when the device is turned on and it is thinner and I don’t feel that the dosage is usually done. I’m not saying that the accident sitting on the Z-fold 7 doesn’t mean that you’re instantly destroying your $2,000 foldable, but that Samsung at least reinforces the hinge and “armored aluminum” frame, hardens the back of the glass and doubles the thickness of the foldable screen. Unfortunately, the IP rating is the same IP48; it’s nice to see that waterproof and dust resistance will increase, but I think Samsung needs to save on the Z-fold 8 and beyond upgrades.

As you’d expect, $2,000 gives you the best things Samsung has to offer. OK, almost everything. I have no complaints about the main specs: Qualcomm’s latest, most powerful Snapdragon 8 Elite and Galaxy Chip, up to 16GB of RAM and up to 512GB of storage. It’s no surprise that the Snapdragon chipset is a beast on the benchmark, but if I tell you, I’d lie because I can feel a 38% boost in CPU or a 26% increase in GPU performance for regular phone tasks that browse the web, scroll on social media, or send emails. However, faster neural processing units or NPUs do seem to make device AI processing faster. For example, generating summary and wallpapers, or using AI writing and AI photo and audio editing tools is indeed faster than I did last year. The battery has a capacity of 4,400mAh in the Z-fold 6, but even though I use a lot of applications, photography and AI, I don’t have any room for backup, and I have no problem, either.

I was surprised that Samsung didn’t remove wireless charging or reverse wireless charging – a feature that is usually the first time you use when placing a phone on the Atkins Diet. Hell, there’s even a SIM card tray; Samsung can easily switch to ESIM and use extra space for a larger battery. One of the functions of Z folding that did not enter Z folding 7 was the S pen. I am not mourning for the loss of support for the stylus sold separately, but I know that S Pen Loyalists will be lost because it makes sense to hope that a larger screen will write notes or borrow. I won’t hold my breath because Samsung brings it back or builds it into the framework because it says usage is low, especially now, when unfolding the profile is the thinnest (4.2mm) ever.

See Galaxy Z Fold 7 on Samsung.com

The cameras on the Samsung Z fold have been lagging behind those in the Galaxy S series. That’s not the case anymore – the Z Fold 7 has the same 200-megapixel main camera as the S25 Ultra. There is also a 13-megapixel ultra-wide and 10-megapixel 3x telephoto lens. The camera and folding display in the cover are 10 megapixels. The main camera’s photos look great, with vivid details, vibrant dynamic range, and plenty of resolution for 2x and 3x shots of optical quality (crop inserts using a 200 megapixel sensor). The rest of the Z Fold 7 cameras are all good. The ultra-wide lens now has autofocus, allowing close-up macroscopic photos, while the 3x telephoto lens is good enough (10x, 20x and 30x digital zoom magnifications take blurry photos with low resolution details). The camera inside the folding screen has a slightly wider 100-degree field of view, which is conveniently suitable for selfies or group shooting.

In low light, quality is improved, less noise, and the video looks better than before. You can record in 10-bit HDR, which just means your video will show more colors and the content will look brighter. I’m glad to see that fewer movements are smoother and less movements when walking and recording.

One UI 8 from Samsung is one of the best customizations for Android I’ve ever seen. It’s fast and smooth and has the extra level of personalization that I want the pixel phone to have. The only thing I don’t like is how much Samsung starts borrowing from iOS. Of course, Apple is turning to liquid glass (more like frosted glass if the latest iOS 26 developer Beta 3 is browsing), but there are areas of UI 8, such as customization of lock screen clocks and widgets, that look too similar to iOS. Gander is on the slider and tells me they are different. It’s a small thing, but I think Samsung’s tweak to Android 16 is far less than the shameless copy you can find from Xiaomi or Huawei phones.

It’s 2025, which means you can’t buy a new phone (whether foldable or not) without being bombarded by how AI changes the way you use it. Samsung’s usual Galaxy AI features, including generating photo editing, translations, and summary, are returned on the Z Fold 7, with some new ones being described as minor only. With a larger screen, you can compare original photos with edited photos side by side, or use the audio eraser tool to remove background noise such as wind or traffic. They are all advertised by ads and are better than the same or similar AI features on other phones, especially the embarrassing Apple Intelligence feature suite of iPhones, but they aren’t the $2,000 selling point. Multimodal Gemini is not Live either, it allows you to type, talk, or “view” what is on the screen or respond via the camera. As long as Gemini preloads into z-fold 7, there is little to do by installing the Gemini app on another phone. Of course, loading Gemini on the Z Fold’s larger screen is a full screen, as a split view app, or as a floating window, and no keyboard takes up the entire lower half, but I’m not going to say it changes the game. Gemini is still just a chatbot in a window that you can summon on commands. If I saved any time with Gemini on Z-fold 7, I wouldn’t feel too much. I still spend a lot of time watching social media.

Every time I pick it up, I can’t stop pouring in on the Z-fold 7. Some small observations I noticed during the week of using it, for example, the calories in summer may be faster than I experienced on any other bar-style phone. (Too thin, the steam chamber or cooling space is smaller.) The pill-shaped camera bump, while not as large as other folds, makes the phone sway like a crazy table. But none of these small compromises bother me when I can slide the Z-fold 7 into my pocket and my pants don’t sag. I also love that I can read comics without pinching them to zoom in to see text or watch movies without strabismus (although it’s still silly that you’ll turn the z-fold 7 into a “flex mode” of a small laptop). I have always believed in the benefits of showing your phone into a tablet. Just the thickness and weight, as well as the durability and other issues in the United States, it always prevented me from putting my money in my mouth. The Z Fold 7 is more expensive than before, and the $2,000 phone is a lot of money (the repairs aren’t cheap either), but I’m obsessed with it and thank God there are installment plans to break the fees down into monthly payments. I know my iPad Mini (Liquid Glass Developer Beta beta for iPadOS 26 is installed, I miss me all, but I just don’t care. Z-discount 7 is my new gadget love, and I promise, if you can tolerate the price, that will be yours, too.

Check out Galaxy Z Fold 7 on Amazon

See Galaxy Z Fold 7 on Samsung.com