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This month, Samsung revealed a slew of devices, including their latest foldable phones.
After several years of iterative upgrades, where minor improvements between generations made devices only feel incrementally better, the latest Fold from Samsung is a massive leap forward.
The Z Fold7 is so impressive, it feels like the foldable of the future, but we get it now.
Because of its slender form, impressive battery life, and AI tools that are actually useful, this is the first foldable that truly delivers zero compromises over a traditional smartphone.
The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold7: One Paragraph Review
If you've been on the sidelines yearning for a foldable but waiting for them to "get really good," that time has arrived. The biggest complaints about foldables are the high initial price, the bulkiness, and compromises to features to support the form factor (usually poor battery). Aside from a premium phone coming with a premium price, Samsung has ripped away the barriers between foldables and slab phones, making the Z Fold7 the most compelling smartphone you could buy today.
Pros
- As thin as any smartphone
- Incredible versatility
- Excellent cameras
Cons
- Pricey initial investment
- No S Pen support
- Low dust resistance
As you might be able to tell from the introduction, I'm a pretty big fan of this phone. If you're unfamiliar with the latest in the Fold line, here are the most important specs:
- Outer Display: 6.5 inches with a 120 Hz refresh rate
- Inner Display: 8 inches with a 120 Hz refresh rate
- Thickness: 4.2 mm (open), 8.9 mm (closed)
- CPU: Custom Snapdragon 8 Elite Processor
- Memory: 12 GB / 16 GB
- Storage: 256 GB / 512 GB / 1 TB
- Battery: 4400 mAh (24 hours video playback)
With that out of the way, let's dive into the very best features of this futuristic phone.
Galaxy Z Fold7: Style
Looks are subjective, but in my opinion, this is a beautiful phone! I am using the Blue Shadow version (on a reviewer loan from Samsung). It comes in two other shades in stores (Silver Shadow and Jet Black), and there's an online exclusive (Mint).
The most significant physical characteristic of the Z Fold7 is how unbelievably thin it is.
I'm in Canada, and our two-dollar coin is called a Toonie. This thing is thinner than three of those coins stacked on top of each other.
The camera bump sticks out beyond this overall thinness, but holding the phone folded or open, it's ludicrous how thin this thing is.
The biggest complaint about folding phones is how thick they are. But putting the Z Fold7 side-by-side with Pixels, iPhones, and OnePlus devices, it's virtually the same size when folded as these other devices.
Galaxy Z Fold7: Cameras
Samsung has had spectacular cameras since the S21 (in my opinion), and it astounds me how these continue to improve when, for years, they've been better than what most people ever need for photos of their food, pets, and kids.
In the case of the Z Fold7, there are three rear cameras, one outer camera, and one inner camera.
- Rear Cameras: 200 MP, 12 MP, and 10 MP
- Zoom: 3x Optical, 30x Digital Zoom
- Front Camera: 10 MP
- Cover Camera: 10 MP
The front cameras don't have autofocus, so for most of your photography or video work, you'll want to use the rear cameras.
On previous Fold models, the inner camera attempted to be hidden behind the screen. They've ditched that on the Fold7, which further improves the quality of the inner camera.
In testing, this camera was almost never used because it's on the inside of the folded device. However, if you're using your phone bent in an L-shape to record a video, then you would use that inside camera.
You can shoot videos in 8K with these cameras (though that will fill up your storage real quick).
The photography and video experience on the Z Fold7 is excellent, and it gets further enhanced when you start digging into the AI photo editing tools.
Galaxy Z Fold7 AI: AI tools that are actually helpful AND work
AI has been a buzzword for too long and is bolted onto so many things, it has lost all meaning. I was very skeptical about Galaxy AI before using it with the Z Fold7, but now that I've dug into these tools, turned them on, and used them, I am beyond impressed.
For photo editing, the generative tools for removing and filling in objects or moving people around in a photo are seamless and beyond easy to use.
Opening up the fold to edit photos on the large 8-inch inner display is a dream. I feel like I'm actually productive and can tackle tasks on my device that I would normally do on my laptop because I'm an elderly millennial and really subscribe to the "big jobs are done on big screens" mentality.
The Browse Assist AI summaries are something that I initially overlooked, and I'm glad I dug back into them because they're awesome. Using this feature, you can go to any website and use Galaxy AI to:
- Summarize long articles
- Read highlights out loud
- Translate pages to your language
I don't use Translate, but I have really enjoyed Summarize and Read Highlights. It helps you understand if the page you landed on is actually useful before committing to reading the whole article.
There are a lot more AI features, and they deserve their own article. But I likely won't have time to do that before I have to return this reviewer device, which I have on loan. Long story short, Galaxy AI isn't just hype. It's actually useful. This is how you do AI the right way on smartphones.
Galaxy Z Fold7: Battery Life
Another complaint about foldables, in general, is battery life. You're dealing with a weird form factor, so manufacturers have to get creative with their batteries. This often means smaller capacity to power more screen real estate, which is not a great user experience.
With the Z Fold7, I was bracing myself for poor battery life. But that hasn't been the case. Even with heavy use throughout the day, I still find that I have about 20% battery remaining before I charge this thing up at bedtime.
Battery life is most impacted by how often you're using the device's inner 8-inch display. For me, I'd say it's about 20% of the time compared to using this like a "regular phone."
Everyone's usage will be different, and that impacts battery, but in my case, getting through a full day is no problem.
Galaxy Z Fold7 Biggest Complaints
I don't think I've ever met a perfect smartphone, but it's been an awfully long time since I felt the giddy wonder and excitement I've had while testing out the Z Fold7. Having said that, there are a few drawbacks to this device that are worth considering.
No S Pen Support: The little stylus that was introduced alongside the Galaxy Note devices way back when was previously available with the Fold6 but is no longer supported with the Fold7. I remember being very excited when I tested the S21 Ultra because the S Pen was "back." I also remember that after initially taking it out to use as a remote control for the camera, I never used it again. While I suspect, for most people, dropping S Pen support on the Fold7 is going to be no big deal, for a passionate niche of users, this is bad news.
Price: With new tech, it starts out expensive and only the diehards are willing to shell out the cash. Eventually, as hardware adoption increases, mass production decreases overall costs, and people working with "normal" budgets (whatever that means), enjoy the trickle-down effect a few years later. While foldables have been around for a while, the price is still steep. At least in the case of the Fold7, if you've been holding out for ages for foldables to get thinner and cheaper, half of your wish has come true.
Crease: This is a big complaint—usually from people who don't have a foldable and use it as a reason not to buy one—the crease. The point where the inner screen hinges has a line that's particularly visible when the display is black and is barely noticeable when there's anything else on the display. For me, this is a totally acceptable compromise since we're dealing with a screen that—folds in half. But for critics who are hoping that somehow the Fold7 defies the laws of nature and has a perfectly flat, uncreasable, bending screen, sorry. You will be disappointed.
Wobble: This is the phenomenon where if you lay a phone flat on a table, it wobbles because of the camera module. With a phone this thin and a camera module so tall, the wobble is more pronounced than on the average smartphone. The solution is to place the phone screen-down on flat surfaces. However, do you really want your naked screen on every coffee table, desk, park bench, etc.? Because of this, I think the most essential accessory you can buy for your Z Fold7 is a screen protector for the outer display. This is even more important than buying a case. You can get by with that minimal look of staying case-free if that's your vibe. But if that's your plan, I wouldn't recommend doing it without a screen protector.
Dust Rating: While the Z Fold7 is rated IP48, which means it's water-resistant, but smaller specs of dirt and dust could cause damage to the device. Because foldables, well, fold, it's difficult to rank high on Ingress Protection (IP) ratings. So, just be mindful when you're at the beach. You can drop it in the lake for a little while, but try not to drop it in the sand.
Overall, the takeaway from my experience with the Z Fold7 is that nothing meaningful has been compromised to deliver the thinnest, slickest foldable Samsung has ever released.
Galaxy Z Fold7: Is it worth it?
The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold7 has quickly become my favourite smartphone of 2025. And I've used a lot this year.
While I don't use a foldable in tablet mode often, there's something so lovely about having that freedom of a larger display for reading an e-book or an online article, editing photos, or multi-tasking between my banking and budgeting apps.
The drawback used to be that, in order to have that flexibility, you'd have to tolerate a thicker-than-necessary phone for the few times you want to fold it open to be a tablet.
But with the Z Fold7, this thing is as skinny as any other smartphone while folded. So it's not taking up extra space or weight in your purse or pocket.
The trade-off I expected would be that thinness would come at the cost of battery, features, camera, or something else significant.
Incredibly, the Z Fold7 delivers every feature you'd want in a smartphone, with the benefits of also being a small tablet, without compromise.
This is an expensive phone. But if you're able to justify the price tag, this phone is worth it. I do not think there's physically any way to make a thinner foldable until we ditch USB-C ports, and I think we're still a few years away from that.
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For its sleek form and feature-rich experience, the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold7 is the foldable currently available in 2025. It comes in four colours (one exclusive to Samsung's online store) with three different storage options.
Therefore, I would expect this form to be the new baseline for Samsung's future foldables. So, if you upgrade now, it's unlikely you'll feel out-of-date next year, or even the year after, as subsequent models are released.
The Z Fold7 just reset the standard by which all folding phones will be compared from this point onward.
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