If you’ve been eyeing the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold6 this year, you might be wondering if the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold5 is a smarter choice. Some will appreciate the improvements, while others might want to save some money on the older model, as the two models offer a nearly identical foldable smartphone experience.
So, is the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold6 good enough to justify its hefty price tag? Let’s take a closer look.
table of contents:
First, you can compare the full specifications or continue directly with the editors’ evaluation in the following text.
Size Comparison
Samsung managed to make the Galaxy Z Fold6 significantly more compact than its predecessor: the designers managed to make it 1-2 mm thinner overall without sacrificing the screen diagonal, plus the cover screen is now larger, but we’ll explain more about that later.
The hinge is also a bit smaller, making the device feel more compact when used in the folded position, and while the sharp corners on the frame might not be to everyone’s liking, some may find them useful as they give you a firmer grip.
The Z Fold6 also seems better built. Samsung is selling it with a “reinforced armored aluminum” frame that’s stronger than last year’s. New materials and a new hinge are likely the reason the Fold6 is lighter.
Whereas last year’s Z Fold6 was only waterproof (IPX8), the Fold6’s design is fully waterproof (IP48). A rating of “4” means the device is protected against particles larger than 1mm. To be fair, most dust particles are smaller than 1mm, so this isn’t very impressive, but it should keep the sand at bay.
View Comparison
Contrary to what the specs sheet says, the Fold6 gets a significant upgrade in the display department. We’re not talking about the internal display aspect ratio here, which is a barely noticeable change. The new Z Fold6 gets a brighter LTPO panel with variable refresh rate.
The new Fold hits a respectable 1,600 nits, which is significantly higher than the Z Fold5’s sub-1,300 nits. The Fold6’s outer panel is also quite bright, hitting over 1,500 nits, while the Z Fold5 is stuck with an 1,114-nit panel.
Additionally, the Z Fold6’s outer screen is now wider, adding another 0.1 inch to the diagonal, and while it’s not perfect, the new aspect ratio makes it a little more usable.
Cover Display
Overall, the Z Fold6 easily wins this round thanks to its slightly wider aspect ratio, thinner bezels, and of course, a brighter screen.
Battery life
In our internal screen battery life test, the Z Fold6 scored roughly the same as last year’s Fold 5, but there was a big difference in talk time. We also saw shorter talk time on the Flip, so we suspect the new modem is to blame.
Running tests on the new screen improves things a bit for the new model, with improved runtimes for web browsing and video playback, but the overall active use score remains similar.
Charging speed
And like battery life, the new model charges slightly slower than the old one, and that’s the result of several retests to get the best possible speeds (our initial test results in our Fold6 review were even slower). The Fold5 is a few percent faster at the 15- and 30-minute mark, and a few minutes quicker to reach 100%.
I wouldn’t say the Z Fold5 is a charging speed champion, but it’s disappointing to see the numbers drop over the course of a generation for no apparent reason (not to mention being highly inconsistent from charge to charge).
Speaker Test
The Fold6 is slightly less loud than the Fold5, but the sound quality is noticeably better than its predecessor. The Z Fold6 has a warmer, fuller sound, whereas the Fold5 sounds completely flat in comparison. I’d choose the Z Fold6 over last year’s Fold any day.
performance
As always, the new generation Fold is equipped with Qualcomm’s latest flagship SoC, which improves performance and efficiency: the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 powers the Z Fold6 and is the successor to the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 found in the Z Fold5. Both smartphones use special “For Galaxy” versions of the chipset, with the main CPU cores slightly overclocked.
Memory options are unchanged from the Z Fold5: both devices offer 12GB/256GB memory configurations as standard, but you can choose between 512GB or 1TB. In both cases, the storage standard is UFS 4.0.
Benchmark Performance
According to synthetic benchmarks, the Z Fold6 is about 25% faster than the Z Fold5 in purely CPU-bound tasks, but only shows about a 6% improvement in combined scenarios like AnTuTu 10. In GPU-intensive workloads, the SD8 Gen 3 is just 2% faster than its predecessor inside the Z Fold5.
If we had to draw any conclusions from the tests, it’s that the Z Fold6’s superior performance will likely not be felt by the majority of users, as the performance of the two devices seems very similar, especially if you plan on playing games.
Camera Comparison
The two devices share the exact same camera hardware – no changes at all: the main 50MP f/1.8 camera still plays a key role, and it’s joined by a 10MP f/2.4 telephoto camera with 3x optical zoom and a 12MP f/2.2 ultra-wide-angle camera with a 123-degree field of view.
The two selfie cameras are also unchanged: there’s still a 4MP f/1.8 under-display camera for the inner screen and a 10MP f/2.2 unit in the cutout for the cover screen.
image quality
Despite the hardware being the same, photos look slightly different between the two devices with three cameras on the back, as Samsung has changed its approach to post-processing, lowering saturation slightly and using less sharpening.
Samsung Z Fold6: 0.6x • 1x • 2x • 3x
Samsung Z Fold5: 0.6x • 1x • 2x • 3x
The Z Fold5’s main camera resolves fine details like grass slightly better than the Z Fold6’s thanks to improved sharpness, but the Z Fold6’s photos otherwise have less noise and artifacts.
However, the Z Fold6’s 2x (digital zoom) photos are better, with much less noise.
The Z Fold6’s ultra-wide camera produces better still images overall, with a better balance of detail, contrast, and HDR, and colors are vibrant.
And finally, while the 3x camera rendering is similar, the Z Fold6’s 3x zoom photos are clearer and less blurry.
Nighttime post-processing also showed some notable differences. The Fold6 takes a more balanced, natural-looking approach to night mode, sacrificing a bit of fine detail in the shadows but removing noise. The Fold5’s extra sharpening and overly bright shadows make stills look rendered, even artificial.
Samsung Z Fold6: 0.6x • 1x • 2x • 3x
Samsung Z Fold5: 0.6x • 1x • 2x • 3x
Similar results were seen for the secondary camera, but the differences between the two devices are not that great – in fact, the 2x zoom crop looks the same.
Video Quality
Samsung appears to have not put much effort into the video processing, as it’s hard to tell the difference between the two 4K footage shot with the main cameras, although the Z Fold5 does have stronger contrast.
The same goes for 3x, ultra-wide and low-light footage.
Samsung Z Fold 6: 0.6x • 1x • 3x • 1x
Samsung Z Fold5: 0.6x • 1x • 3x • 1x
verdict
As you can see, comparing just the specs sheets of the two devices can be misleading: the Galaxy Z Fold6 and Z Fold5 look very similar, but they’re in a fierce battle in a number of departments, and the results aren’t always in favor of the newest model.
Some may find that the Galaxy Z Fold5 offers slightly longer battery life, slightly louder speakers, slightly faster charging and better photo processing.
Meanwhile, the Z Fold6 has a better display, better sounding speakers, runs on a faster and more modern chipset, and will get an additional three years of major OS updates, considering that the Z Fold5 has already been on the market for a year and was originally promised a four-year warranty.
That said, some users may not be able to justify the roughly 250 euro difference between the Z Fold6 and Z Fold5, and this price difference may be the deciding factor.
Get the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold6 for the following price:
Better displays (including a larger cover screen). Better speakers. Faster CPU. More natural camera processing. 3 years of extended OS updates.
Get the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold5 at:
Lower price. Longer battery life (talk time). More expressive camera processing.