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Samsung has been in the foldable phone game for longer than most manufacturers but last year’s offerings felt a bit like the company was treading water. Now, with the release of the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7, it feels like Samsung is back on form and taking the foldable fight directly to Honor and its superb Magic V3.
The key difference this year is that the Z Fold 7 phone is thinner, and we’re not talking a shaving of aluminium here. We’re talking a difference of 3.3mm – or four credit cards stacked together. That, in the world of smartphones, is a huge, huge difference.
Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7: Specifications
| Processor | Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy |
| RAM | 12GB or 16GB |
| Storage | 256GB, 512GB or 1TB |
| Internal display | 8in Dynamic AMOLED 2X 2,184 x 1,968 120Hz adaptive |
| External display | 6.5in Dynamic AMOLED 2X 1,080 x 2,520 120Hz adaptive |
| Cameras | 200MP (f/1.7); 12MP (f/2.2) ultrawide; 10MP (f/1.7) telephoto; 2x 10MP (f/2.4) selfie |
| Dimensions folded (WDH) | 73 x 8.9 x 158mm |
| Dimensions unfolded | 143 x 4.2 x 158mm |
| Weight | 215g |
| Dust and water resistance | IP48 |
| Battery | 4,400mAh dual battery |
| Colours | Jet black, Silver shadow, Blue shadow |
| UK price | £1,799 (12GB, 256GB); £1,899 (12GB 512GB); £2,149 (16GB, 1TB) |
Design and key new features
The Z Fold 7 measures a mere 8.9mm when folded and an incredibly thin 4.2mm when unfolded. And when you pick it up, that’s a difference you really notice. This phone is barely thick enough to accommodate the USB-C port on its bottom edge; indeed, I’m not sure it is possible to manufacture a phone that’s slimmer than this without removing the USB port entirely, a thought that I’m sure has entered Samsung’s engineers’ heads at some point.
This means it is sleeker than its predecessor by a massive 26% percent and also its main rival, the Honor Magic 3, which measures a comparatively portly 9.2mm when folded – though Honor has an even skinnier phone up its sleeve, showing us the Honor Magic V5 just last week. This upcoming foldable is technically slimmer, measuring 8.8mm thick when folded and 4.1mm unfolded, but the difference is negligible and it certainly doesn’t undercut how impressively built the Galaxy Z Fold 7 is.
It’s astonishingly light for a folding phone, too, at a mere 215g. That makes it the same weight as the Nothing Phone (3) we’ve just reviewed, by the way – a phone with no hinge and only the one screen.
It seems all that engineering effort Samsung put into slimming down the Galaxy S25 Edge earlier this year has paid off, too. Helped by a “grade 4 titanium lattice” reinforcement, the phone feels stiff and rigid, and the hinge – also upgraded – feels solid, too.
All this would be enough of an upgrade for me – just think of the engineering challenges involved in manufacturing a phone like this – but Samsung has piled on the upgrades elsewhere, too. Not satisfied with building an incredibly slim and lightweight folding phone, Samsung has also increased the size of the screens. On the outside, the cover screen is now 6.5in versus 6.3in (with a resolution of 1,080 x 2,520) wider than before, and protected by Corning Gorilla Glass Ceramic 2.
That also translates into a larger 8in interior display (2,184 x 1,968) that is 11% bigger in area than the one on the Z Fold 6. Both screens are, naturally, Samsung’s own Dynamic AMOLED 2X panels, reaching up to 2,600 nits of brightness and should be a wonder to view content on.
If that wasn’t enough, there’s also the matter of upgraded silicon, with a Snapdragon 8 Elite powering affairs, accompanied by either 12GB of RAM and either 256GB or 512GB of storage, or 16GB and 1TB of storage. It would be asking a bit too much to increase the size of the battery, given the restrictions imposed by the dimensions here, but the 4,400mAh cell is somehow still the same size as the one in the Z Fold 6 and Samsung says it delivers better battery life thanks to the increased efficiency of the Snapdragon chipset.
And if you thought the improvements were over, then think again, because Samsung has also managed to squeeze in the 200MP (f/1.7) main camera from the Galaxy S25 Ultra, alongside a 10MP, f/2.4 3x telephoto zoom lens with 30x “Space Zoom”, a 12MP, f/2.2 ultrawide shooter and a pair of 10MP 100-degree field-of-view selfie cameras. The three main cameras are housed in a rather prominent triple turret arrangement on the rear that almost doubles the thickness of the main body of the phone.
Finally, there’s the usual smorgasbord of software enhancements, most of which are related to AI in some shape or form. There’s a new feature in the camera app called suggested erase, which highlights suspected photo bombers and other distracting objects in your photos and provides the opportunity to remove them in a single click. For video recordings, a new “Tap Auto” button proactively detects and removes unwanted background noise, as it flares up.
The introduction of Gemini Live means you can keep the AI assistant on while you browse, asking it about the contents of your screen as you go. There are various optimisations for the Gemini window that means it doesn’t occupy the full 8in of screen real estate – you can display Gemini results in a floating window or split screen so you can drag and drop results between apps. And you can now use the Circle to Search feature during gameplay, so finding out how to beat that particularly gnarly boss, will be that much easier.
The best thing about Samsung’s software, however, is not the steady onslaught of new, shiny AI baubles, however. It’s the fact that, like the company’s S25 range of handsets, the Z Fold 7 gets seven years of both OS and security updates, keeping the phone relevant, potentially, until 2032.
Samsung Z Fold 7: Early Verdict
This is a pretty significant update for Samsung’s flagship folding phone and from what I’ve seen already I can tell our reviewer is going to absolutely love it. It’s the thinnest Fold yet and somehow Samsung has managed to keep build quality high while squeezing in some pretty enticing upgrades.
Alas, Samsung is keeping the price ludicrously high, so this will remain a phone for the few, which is a shame. The base model with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage is still £1,799, with 12GB and 512GB it rises to £1,899 and the top-end phone with 16GB and 1TB of storage is £2,149.
But, perhaps, now that the manufacturing processes behind these exotic handsets has fully matured, and on this evidence it certainly seems as if it has, the next few years will see that price steadily come down. Here’s hoping.
We’re expecting review samples to arrive from Samsung in the coming days so expect the full review of Galaxy Z Fold 7, in full, very soon – so check back in soon to see if it can surpass the high bar set by the Honor Magic V3.
