Samsung is starting to lose the foldable race

Hot on the heels of its Galaxy Unpacked event, Samsung has launched its next generation of foldables with the Galaxy Z Fold 6 and Galaxy Z Flip 6. These new foldables are packed with the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip and plenty of RAM, they have powerful camera systems, and they come in a variety of colors.

But in its sixth year of leading the foldable market, Samsung seems to be losing some momentum. After all, the new Galaxy Z Fold 6 and Z Flip 6 have pretty minimal differences from their predecessors, especially in the case of the Flip.

Though they’re still good phones, Samsung is falling behind compared to its competition. After all, take a look at Motorola’s newest Razr phones and how much better they are than last year’s models. Combine that with Samsung’s price increase this year, and it becomes easy to question whether these phones are still worth it?

Samsung phoned in the Galaxy Z Flip 6

We got our hands on the newest Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 and have already put it through its paces and published our review (see the link above). Though we say that the phone itself is solid and objectively good at everything that it can do, we also struggle to recommend it.

Why? It’s literally the same phone as last year’s Galaxy Z Flip 5, with a slight bump in specs, a less prominent crease, and a colored ring around the cameras. When you factor in the price increase of $100 for barely any change in the hardware, well, it’s a bit tough to swallow.

Samsung changed very little with the Galaxy Z Flip 6, and honestly, it feels like the company just phoned this one in. “Change the colors and slap matching rings around the cameras so people know it’s new!”

Meanwhile, Motorola made significant improvements to its Razr line, especially the base model. Last year’s Razr 2023 had a tiny 1.5-inch cover panel that was barely useful for anything besides notifications and simple bits of data.

But this year, the $700 Razr 2024 has a huge 3.6-inch cover display, which is basically what you got on the Razr Plus 2023, though the refresh rate isn’t quite as high. Hell, Motorola even added an always-on display, which was absent from the 2023 Razr Plus.

And if you want to go even further, the Razr Plus 2024 went to a 4-inch cover display this time, up from the previous 3.6-inch screen. It even has up to 165Hz refresh rate (up from the previous 144Hz), which may be overkill for a small screen, but you really do get your money’s worth.

Then take a look at the Galaxy Z Flip 6. While the Galaxy Z Flip 5 was a huge improvement with the 3.4-inch cover screen instead of a 1.9-inch panel from the Z Flip 4, Samsung didn’t change a single thing this year. Instead, the Z Flip 6 has the same 3.4-inch cover display with no changes to the resolution and the same meager 60Hz refresh rate. It’s honestly quite laughable. And it even still has the ugly folder-shaped screen due to the cameras in the bottom corner of the display.

In 2023, Motorola made it possible to run any app on the cover display of the Razr Plus without any workaround. The Z Flip 5 could do the same, but you had to jump through a few hoops before that was set up properly. In 2024, Motorola once again makes it super easy to run any app on that large cover display while you still have to go through a tedious setup process to do the same thing on the Z Flip 6.

Sure, the inner display of the Galaxy Z Flip 6 is great, with a minimal crease, and it has the faster Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 for Galaxy chip, more RAM, and a slight improvement with the cameras. But is that worth paying $100 more than last year? I don’t think so.

The Galaxy Z Fold 6 is slightly better this year

One of my complaints about the Galaxy Z Fold series is that I don’t care for the tall and narrow display. Due to its dimensions, it is a bit awkward to use, and the keyboard feels more cramped than a typical smartphone keyboard.

Samsung has made some small tweaks to the Galaxy Z Fold 6 this year to make it a bit more ergonomic and usable for more people. Though we’re still in the process of our full review, so far, our impressions of the Galaxy Z Fold 6 are positive. The 6.3-inch cover display is a smidge wider than the 6.2-inch of its predecessor and it has a more natural aspect ratio to quell the complaints of it being too narrow.

I have yet to use the Galaxy Z Fold 6 myself, so I’m not sure how much of a difference it really makes for my personal use. But my colleague, Andy Boxall, seems to think that it’s at least an improvement.

Samsung made other changes to the Galaxy Z Fold 6 to differentiate it from last year’s model. It now features sharper corners on both the body and displays, similar to the Galaxy S24 Ultra. The triple-lens camera system has thicker rings around the lenses, though the specs are the same as before.

On the inside, you have the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 for Galaxy and 12GB RAM again. Battery capacity did not change, nor did the charging speeds. But the Galaxy Z Fold 6 will still cost you at least $100 more than its predecessor.

Samsung is not the only company that makes large foldable phones. There is the Google Pixel Fold and the OnePlus Open, with the Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold on the way. While the Pixel Fold did not age particularly well, the OnePlus Open is my preferred foldable.

Why? The OnePlus Open has a more impressive camera system, with a 48MP main shooter, 48MP ultrawide, and 64MP telephoto, all with excellent Hasselblad color tuning. The Galaxy Z Fold 6 still only has a 50MP main shooter, 12MP ultrawide lens, and 10MP telephoto camera. OnePlus even put 16GB RAM in the Open, which may be overkill for some, but when you want a foldable, the main reason is productivity, and more RAM is always good to have. The anti-reflective layer on the OnePlus Open is also beneficial if you don’t like glare.

The Galaxy Z Fold 6 is a slightly better upgrade this year than the Z Flip 6, but when you compare it to the competition, it still feels a bit lacking.

Samsung is falling behind

Samsung may still be the largely dominant player in the foldable market, especially in the U.S., but with such small, iterative, and boring upgrades this year, it feels like it’s losing momentum.

This is especially true when you consider that the Pixel Fold and OnePlus Open are both the first foldables from their respective companies, whereas Samsung has been in this space for six years. It certainly knows how to refine existing phones and ideas, but it’s failing to do anything particularly exciting.

I hope Samsung has some bigger upgrades next year. If it doesn’t, its competitors will leave it in the dust.