Twice a year Samsung's Galaxy Unpacked event gets Android fans frothing at the mouth about the latest and greatest Samsung phones. Indeed, the last one revealed the best phone of 2024: the Galaxy S24 Ultra. The second event, which has fallen a little earlier in the calendar year than usual, however, is all about Samsung's best folding phones – in particular, the Galaxy Z Flip 6.
I was able to see and sample the latest flip phone from Samsung at the beginning of July, a week prior to the Unpacked big reveal event, to get a taste of what this latest Galaxy is all about. I've already compared the Z Flip 6 to its Z Flip 5 predecessor to highlight the key differences (however subtle), because the rumours were misleading this time around.
Of course the Galaxy Z Flip 6 upgrades on its predecessor, so having used the newer phone in person, here I'll highlight the three biggest upgrades I'm most excited about. That'll include the one big miss I think Samsung hasn't capitalised on in my initial conclusion – ahead of my full and final forthcoming review, ahead of the 24 July on-sale date.
1. A big camera upgrade
Flip phones haven't been known for offering the best cameras by any means. It's taken Samsung quite some time to uprate the main camera in the Galaxy Z Flip, but this sixth-gen model benefits from a 50-megapixel sensor – making it much more resolute than the Z Flip 5's 12MP offering.
This is the one feature that I'm most excited about, as the Z Flip 6's main camera is a direct copy of the one you'll find in Samsung's Galaxy S24 models (albeit not the Ultra, which features a mega 200MP one). That's a needed step to really elevate what this phone is able to shoot.
Furthermore, Samsung's Galaxy AI is on board, which is a raft of artificial intelligence tools. This will benefit not only camera automation, but also post-shoot editing – with editing suggestions, subject removal and the like – and even (not camera related) a host of real-time transcribe and translate features.
While the Galaxy Z Flip 6's main camera gets a boost, however, the ultra-wide on offer remains one and the same: it's still a 12-megapixel snapper, which I think is a bit of a shame – and could do with a resolution boost for greater clarity too. It's interesting to see how the competition has approached this, with Motorola's Razr 50 Ultra ditching the ultra-wide altogether and replacing it with a 2x optical zoom for portraits instead.
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2. Vapour chamber cooling
Now here's an interesting feature that you can't literally see in the Z Flip 6: a vapour chamber for cooling. Far as I know, no other flip phone on the market has ever managed to implement such a system – and I suspect it'll be a highly valid addition, as the small-scale nature of these devices tends to make cooling tricky.
Being able to cool brings obvious benefits: the phone won't get as hot, which is better from a comfort standpoint; but being able to run the processor at a higher clock speed for longer should mean less throttling for a better long-term experience with various apps and games.
I've not dug deep into the potential of this just yet, but with the current top-tier Qualcomm processor on board – the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 designed for Samsung – there's no holding back on the Z Flip 6's potential. When I get one as a review device I'll be using it as my own and gaming aplenty to see how it fares in terms of heat and longevity.
3. A bigger battery
Speaking of longevity, the Z Flip 6 also benefits from a decent battery capacity increase: it's up from 3700mAh to 4000mAh. Sure, that's only around an 8% increase generation to generation, but in a device this small that's a decent achievement.
Add that the Z Flip 6 remains the exact same size and weight as its predecessor – some magic must be afoot here, as I can't work out exactly how that's been achieved – and that's an even greater achievement. In combination with the new vapour chamber for cooling, I reckon Samsung's latest might well offer the best battery life per charge of any flip phone.
While the battery gets a boost, however, the charging does not. It's still 25W wired and 15W wireless, which is fine – but it's not a patch on some of the best Android phones you can buy right now. And with Motorola now going with 45W, Samsung's reluctance to pursue speedier charging is a bit of a shame.
4. No bigger cover display
But the bigger shame – or at least the one design feature to defy the rumours – is that the Z Flip 6's cover display is identical to that of the Z Flip 5. No more screen real-estate here, no enhanced refresh rate, nothing like that.
The 3.4-inch AMOLED display does still look great, and it wraps around the cameras rather than allowing them to get in the way, but when the competition is upping the scale – the Motorola Razr 50 Ultra is at 4.0-inch now – that is going to leave prospective buyers wondering when that next big upgrade is coming.
I think that'll be a next-generation change – which also has me wondering if Samsung will allow its software to be a little more open on the cover display than in its current guise. The Android 14 implementation here does look very neat, and with access to the major go-tos – Calendar, News, and so forth – I do think the Z Flip series continues to avoid the conundrum of being too phone-like up front, giving greater purpose to its folding mechanism.
5. Early verdict
Overall, while the Galaxy Z Flip 6 is a moderate update rather than major overhaul, I still think it's a flippin' great phone. Its predecessor was the best flip phone on the market up until Motorola revealed its Razr 50 Ultra – which is something the newer Z Flip does have to contend with.
Pricing is also a curiosity: in the UK, Samsung is selling the Z Flip 6 from the same at-launch £1,049 ($1,099 / AU$1,799) asking price as its predecessor, sitting it into the four-figure category. Motorola took the leap and cut its day-one pricing down to £999 ($999, AU$1,699), which while 'only £50' does have that psychological play of being not over a grand.
Still, from a design perspective, and with clear feature enhancements to camera, cooling, battery, processor and RAM, the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 is an instantly desirable device. Its upgrades may seem less than anticipated, but it's what's under the surface that I think will really prove this flip phone's worth.
Mike is T3's Tech Editor. He's been writing about consumer technology for 15 years and his beat covers phones – of which he's seen hundreds of handsets over the years – laptops, gaming, TV & audio, and more. There's little consumer tech he's not had a hand at trying, and with extensive commissioning and editing experience, he knows the industry inside out. As the former Reviews Editor at Pocket-lint for 10 years where he furthered his knowledge and expertise, whilst writing about literally thousands of products, he's also provided work for publications such as Wired, The Guardian, Metro, and more.
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