The best thing about Samsung’s new Galaxy Z Fold 6 is that it starts to resemble a regular bar-shaped smartphone. smartphoneThe company’s new book-type Foldableteeth, July 10th Unpacking EventIt has a larger front screen and a lighter structure, two seemingly small changes that could go a long way in making the Z Fold easier to handle and feel more natural.
But these changes, along with an upgraded processor, some new software tricks, and a better ultra-wide camera, come at a cost: The Galaxy Z Fold 6 starts at $1,900, $100 more than last year’s model. Galaxy Z Fold 5Both the Z Fold 6 and Z Flip 6 will be available for pre-order from July 10th, with general availability starting July 24th.
On the Galaxy Z Fold 6 and Z Flip 6, Samsung It aims to achieve two specific goals: to prove that there are fewer compromises between phones that bend in half and those that don’t, and to demonstrate how generative AI can make phones more intuitive. Part of overall mobile phone shipmentsand rival Huawei It recently overtook Samsung Becoming the largest foldable phone manufacturer. The tech world has been fixated on generative AI. Chat GPT It has captured people’s imaginations in the second half of 2022, prompting Samsung and other tech giants to reposition their products around the technology.
It’s hard to know if Samsung has succeeded on either front until we spend a fair bit of time with the Z Fold 6 and Z Flip 6. Still, judging from what I’ve seen so far, Samsung’s design changes suggest that the Z Fold series is moving in a promising direction. At the same time, I’m hoping for more dramatic software changes that will truly set foldable phones apart from traditional bar phones.
read more: Apple and Samsung have different visions for AI on phones
Look at this: Everything announced at Samsung Galaxy Unpacked 2024
Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 gets design upgrade
The Galaxy Z Fold 6 has a larger cover screen.
The first thing you’ll notice about the Galaxy Z Fold 6 is how light it is. At 239 grams, it’s only slightly heavier than the Galaxy Z Fold 5 at 253 grams. Galaxy S24 UltraSamsung has also given the Galaxy Z Fold 6 sharper, boxier edges similar to those seen on the Galaxy S24 Ultra, a fitting similarity between Samsung’s two most expensive phones.
More importantly, Samsung has increased the size of the Galaxy Z Fold’s cover screen from 6.2 inches on the Galaxy Z Fold 5 to 6.3 inches on the Z Fold 6. This may sound like a small difference, but it makes a big difference on such a small display.
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Other physical changes include a stronger hinge and a refined inner screen layer to reduce creases, though horizontal lines are still noticeable, unfortunately. But the lighter construction, more angular design, and slightly larger cover screen make this feel like the sleekest Z Fold yet. These updates may seem superficial, but they mean a lot for a phone like the Z Fold, where earlier generations felt like two phones sandwiched together. This new, more compact feel could have a big impact on how easy the Z Fold is to use, making it more appealing to people who previously disregarded foldable phones.
Samsung to equip Z Fold 6 with Galaxy AI
The Galaxy Z Fold 6 comes with Galaxy AI, which includes several language translation features.
Samsung has been vocal about its AI ambitions since it unveiled the Galaxy AI alongside the Galaxy S24 series earlier this year, and that continues with its new foldable smartphone.
Photo editing, productivity, and language translation remain the three areas Samsung is focusing most on when it comes to AI features. One standout new feature is Portrait Studio, which creates versions of your photo in different styles, including watercolor, cartoon, and comic book. Samsung’s work didn’t do a great job at creating a stylized portrait that looked like me when I tried it out with a quick selfie, but I only had a few minutes to try it.
You can also sketch on an image and Samsung’s AI will incorporate it naturally into the photo. I doodled a balloon in the background of a photo taken outdoors on a Samsung demo phone, and it added a white balloon to the image. The announcement came after Apple unveiled its new image-generating tools. Apple Intelligence Last month’s feature.
Look at this: Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 and Z Flip 6: First impressions
Samsung also wants to make better use of the Galaxy Z Fold’s dual screens when it comes to language translation. A new conversation mode in the Interpreter app will let you use the front and inner screens at the same time, allowing your interlocutor to see what you’re saying in their native language and vice versa. If that sounds familiar, it’s because Google previously introduced a very similar feature on the Galaxy Z Fold. PixelfoldThis seemed to work well in a demo conducted by two Samsung employees, but it raises the question of whether it would cause awkwardness when trying to implement it in the real world.
Samsung is positioning the Z Fold as a productivity device thanks to its large 7.6-inch internal screen, so there are some new features aimed at reading and writing. Samsung says that when translating a PDF file, the translation should match the original text exactly. Building on the AI writing tool introduced earlier this year, Samsung’s keyboard will suggest words as you write emails, texts, and social media posts.
We hope to see more AI features specific to the Galaxy Z Fold in the future. Written in the pastThe most appealing thing about a foldable phone isn’t that it folds in half, but that it has two screens that can be used for different purposes. This opens up the possibility for Samsung to do some very interesting things with the Galaxy AI, but so far it doesn’t seem like they’ve explored much beyond language translation. Instead, the focus has been on using the internal screen as a large canvas for tasks like transcribing recordings, editing photos, and using the Google Gemini assistant in multi-window mode.
Z Fold 6’s latest hardware update
Galaxy Z Fold 6 camera.
The Galaxy Z Fold 6 also includes some of the regular upgrades we’ve come to expect from a new phone, especially when it comes to the processor and camera. The Z Fold 6 comes with the following features:
- Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processor for Galaxy, the same as the Galaxy S24 series
- Larger vapor chamber to cool your phone while gaming
- Brighter 2,600 nits screen
- 12MP ultra-wide-angle camera sensor with excellent low-light capabilities
- 7 years of software upgrades for both the Z Fold 6 and Z Flip 6
With the Galaxy Z Fold 6, it feels like Samsung is getting closer to striking that balance between offering a phone that can double as a tablet without sacrificing the elements of a great phone. The downside is that you’ll have to pay more to get that experience. Either way, with the hardware having improved, I expect to see more of an emphasis on software going forward.
