MANILA, Philippines – Samsung’s Galaxy Fold6, when it was unveiled in July, touted its AI features, with improvements from the first version that debuted with the S24 phones launched earlier in January.
In the month or so since the launch, we’ve seen some competitors rise up. We’ll get to those but in the meantime, let’s have a review of what the Fold6 brought to Samsung’s foldable family.
The Fold6’s main push then was that the folding form factor allows you to take advantage of the AI features more. This was the brand’s first foldable with the Galaxy AI features.
For example, Circle-to-Search, which allows you to search for anything being shown on the screen by encircling it with your finger, is easier to use because you have more screen real estate. Live translation is more user-friendly because you can fold the phone in such a way that a conversation partner can see one screen showing the translations.
New features like sketch-to-image actually was a fun feature, after trying it out more. I had funny results at first, but with more use, saw some surprisingly nice results (as far as AI-generated images are concerned) seeing very basic sketches turned into neat cartoon-style images. It’s a party trick, but could potentially be something more useful in the future.
Aside from that, the Fold6 is sleeker than the 5. The screen crease is ever-so-slightly less noticeable, with the phone looking more symmetrical than ever. It’s 14 grams lighter, and the curves are mostly gone, with a flatter and sharper profile.
A key change: the outer display is 6.3 inches compared to the 5’s 6.2. It might seem like a small change but it contributes to the phone looking less tall and long. It now has an aspect ratio of 22.1:9 compared to the Fold5’s 23.1:9. It’s still far from the traditional 16:9 candybar aspect ratio, which I favor, but every bit helps.
This is also the first in the Fold line to finally get a dust protection rating, with an IP48 rating, coming from the Fold5’s IPX8 rating. The level “4” rating in IP48 means that the phone is protected from solid objects larger than 1 millimeter.
The cameras (50MP wide + 10MP tele + 12MP ultrawide) are largely unchanged from the Fold5 to the 6, but as touted by Samsung, the ultrawide does have some slight improvements when shooting in dim conditions. Overall, the quality of the images remain impressive, but currently, it appears that breaking new ground isn’t a focus for the phone in terms of imaging, as opposed to traditional flagships like the latest Huawei flagship for example, or Samsung’s own S phones.
While the battery is the same for the Fold5 and 6 at 4,400 mAh, the newer version, possibly thanks to software optimization, appears to last noticeably longer than its predecessor. But despite that, a bigger battery for future iterations will truly be appreciated.
And more than the battery capacity, the 25-watt fast-charging is slow by today’s standards, taking more than an hour and a half to fully charge the phone. It’s also more expensive this year (P105,990 vs last year’s P98,990)
It’s important to note that, like the S24 phones, the Fold6 is also now getting 7 years of security updates, which is considerably longer than most Android brands, like HONOR with 5 years and Xiaomi with 4 years for their flagship devices.
The foldable field
Overall, the Fold6 is, well, if you’re in the market for a foldable, it’s still Samsung’s unit that people would likely prefer, especially at this price point. It would be more interesting if Apple was in the market, or if Google’s own foldables were locally available, but they’re not, so just in terms of brand cachet, Samsung’s still got the foldable market cornered.
Those brands with foldable phones like HONOR’s excellent Magic V2 (available locally), and the OPPO N3 (not available locally), present really competitive packages but are still building that premium trust among the general populace.
But putting aside brand cachet for the time being, the Chinese brands have been turning in attention-worthy innovations. The Magic V2, and the newer Magic V3 are impressively thin — a fact that the brand has not been shy to point out directly to Samsung, with HONOR posting a photo directly comparing the thinness of the V3 with the Fold6.
It posted a series of 3 generations of Samsung Fold phones all the way to 2022, showing the width, and compared it with the V3, saying “Maybe one day, you’ll be here” referring to V3’s thinness. By the numbers the latter has folded width of 9.3 millimeters (mm) while the Fold6 is at 12.1 mm. The V3 has a considerable weight advantage too, lighter at 226 grams versus the Fold6’s 239.
(An aside: I still think the Magic V2’s case is one of the best innovations ever for a foldable, with a kickstand that works in many orientations, really allowing the phone to perform like an independent secondary screen you can play a video on, while you work on your laptop.)
Huawei, on the other hand, took aim at Apple by launching their new 3-screen foldable just as the American brand launched their new iPhone 16. Will a $2,800 3-screen foldable ever be a serious purchase for many? Hardly. But it shows Huawei presenting itself as a tech and innovation leader, the same way that HONOR is highlighting its width difference compared to Samsung’s Fold phones.
Impressively, the new Huawei Mate XT, despite its three screens, is pretty close to the Fold6 when it comes to width, measuring at 12.8 mm.
And as for Apple? Well, still no foldable — and this time, it’s Samsung poking fun at that, with the brand retweeting a tweet from 2022 that says: “Let us know when it folds”. The new 2024 tweet went: “Still waiting…”
You have to love all these brands getting petty with one another with all these pokes and jabs.
Beyond the Google’s Pixel Fold, the Galaxy Fold still has the strongest AI package. But with the Galaxy Fold now on its 6th generation device with the “chassis” not seeing a true-blue overhaul since the first iteration, and the hardware wizardry that HONOR and Huawei have been showing off, the Fold7 has some pressure to dazzle.
Samsung’s global foldable market share has actually decreased from 80% in 2022 to 50% in 2024 as Chinese brands successfully sell their foldables in their home country. Will these numbers plus HONOR and Huawei’s recent flex be enough for us to see major overhaul going into the next Galaxy Folds? – Rappler.com
