Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 Samsung's Galaxy Z Fold 7 might be headed the wrong way on price, but it's going in the right direction for everything else. It's both slimmer and more powerful than any Fold before it, fitting the same battery and a new chipset into a body that's barely over four millimeters when open. I'd love to see one or two S Ultra-tier improvements, but there's no denying this is the foldable Samsung has wanted to make for years.
I’ve been on board with foldable phones since the start, but I’ve always preferred flip phones. To me, it’s always made so much more sense to reach for a tiny phone that opens into the size of a regular phone, than a regular phone that folds out into a pseudo-tablet. I’d fight for the chance to review Galaxy Z Flips and Motorola Razrs, and I’d always keep a close eye on the likes of the OPPO Find N Flip and other non-US releases just to see what the rest of the world is cooking up. And while I’ve liked some book-style foldables over the years, I’d never tested one that convinced me I’d want to use one over a clamshell.
Then, the Galaxy Z Fold 7 came along.
At first, I was underwhelmed by the idea of trying another one of Samsung’s brand-new book-style foldable phones. I figured it would be more of the same, with an inconvenient cover screen and an inner display I could never find the best use for. But, to be open-minded, I decided to take it on anyway. I’m glad I did, because this thing is a marvel in (almost) every way.
If feeling is believing, then I’m a Believer As I said above, the book-style form factor never really made sense to me when it came to foldable phones. I couldn’t wrap my head around a much too narrow cover display that opened into a not quite wide enough internal display and expected me to use it like a pocket-sized tablet. Sure, a few foldables have slightly shifted my perspective, like the excellent Pixel 9 Pro Fold and the aging, but once great OnePlus Open, but I’ve still always made my way back to either a small Android phone or a flip phone — sorry, not sorry.
But now, the Galaxy Z Fold 7 finally feels like it’s found the right balance. It has a cover display that feels like a normal-sized Android phone, swapping the Fold 6’s weird 22.1:9 aspect ratio for a much more comfortable 21:9. I know, it barely sounds like a change, but the result is a slightly shorter, slightly wider display that’s so much more comfortable to type on and use in my day-to-day life. If they say that the best phone is the one you have on you, this singular change has done more for the Galaxy Z Fold lineup than any other, in my opinion.
Of course, it’s not just the shift in aspect ratio that makes the Galaxy Z Fold 7 feel better. I’ll come back to the upgraded pair of displays in a second, but first, I have to talk about just how incredibly thin this foldable phone is. It toes the line between engineering marvel and recipe for disaster, and I’ve swung back and forth on just how I feel about Samsung’s ambition.
On the one hand, yes, it’s incredible. When unfolded, the Galaxy Z Fold 7 is more than a millimeter thinner than Samsung’s Galaxy S25 Edge, and it almost has to be felt to be believed. I’ll occasionally find myself sitting and looking at the side profile of the Fold 7, simply wondering how Samsung made it happen. However, with that great thinness comes great responsibility. I just as often find myself scared to open the Galaxy Z Fold 7 because it’s almost too thin. I wasn’t blessed with nimble fingers, so I frequently fumble while opening the phone. To my credit, I’ve only dropped it once, but I’m starting to see why other users have put grip tape on the edges to have something to hold onto.
Thankfully, despite the brief dance with doom, my Galaxy Z Fold 7 shows no signs of wear. Its Advanced Armor Aluminum frame brushed off my clumsiness, and the combination of Gorilla Glass Ceramic 2 on the cover display and Victus 2 on the back panel looked like nothing had happened. And, with how thin this foldable phone is, I couldn’t be more relieved.
Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 7 has reached a point where I’m convinced that any proper tumble would spell doom for more than one side. It barely has bezels around the 6.5-inch cover display, and the frame is barely thick enough to house its USB-C port or volume rocker and power button, so all it would take is one tough fall to beat up the phone front, back, and sideways. At the very least, the Fold 7’s IP48 rating against water and dust should have my back in case my next hypothetical accident happens at the beach, though I’ll have to hope it happens in the water rather than on land.
... continue reading