Let’s face it, theSamsung Galaxy Z Flip 6looks nearly identical to the previous Galaxy Z Flip 5. The only way you can discern between the two phones from the outside is by checking to see if the metal around the camera modules is color-matched to the phone’s frame, whereas the previous generation was just black.
From the outside looking in, the Galaxy Flip 6 looks like a minor update over the previous generation, but having used the Flip 5 last year and having that contrast between it and the new phone, the Galaxy Z Flip 6 surprisingly feels refreshing. From the screens to the cameras and battery life, I’d argue this year’s Galaxy Flip highlights the benefits of a more focused Samsung.
Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6
Small But Mighty Upgrades
The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 is a stylish, foldable smartphone featuring a dynamic 6.7-inch AMOLED internal display and a durable hinge mechanism. Equipped with the latest Snapdragon processor, it delivers outstanding performance, an enhanced dual-camera system, and Flex Mode for convenient hands-free selfies and video calls.
Price and Availability
The Galaxy Z Flip 6 is available at every major carrier and directly through Samsung’s web store and major online retailers, including Amazon and Best Buy. Storage options start at 256 GB, and a larger variant of 512 GB is available as well. The Z Flip 6 has color options in Silver Shadow, Yellow, Blue, and Mint, and Samsung online exclusive variants in Crafted Black, White, and Peach.
Specifications
Can You Spot the Difference?
This Flip 6 looks and feels just like the Flip 5, but there are a few very nice improvements across the board. Most of this mirrors what we saw with the Galaxy S24 series earlier this year.
The aluminum frame finally has a matte finish like the Galaxy S24, compared to the shiny fingerprint magnet of the last iteration. It also has the new speaker design of the S24 series, which makes it look much cleaner compared to the elongated hole design before.
Just like its book-folding sibling, the Z Fold 6, the Flip 6 also gets a minor update to its hinge design, where this new hinge protrudes slightly less compared to the previous Flip 5 and still retains the near-gapless design between the two folding halves.
Aside from the new colors and new accent color ring around the camera lenses, that just about rounds up the visual changes made to the phone, but the real changes are found in the things you don’t see.
Durability on foldable devices has always been a major concern for their long-term usability, but it’s a crucial area that has often been overlooked, and I’m happy to see Samsung continue to make strides wherever it can. For the first time, we’re finally getting a dust rating on the Galaxy Z series, with the Z Flip 6 sporting a rating of IP48. This rating means it has minor resistance to dust and can be submerged underwater up to 1.5 meters for about a half-hour.
This is, of course, a long way away from matching the durability of Samsung’s regular Galaxy S series phones, which all sport ratings of IP68, and there’s even a chance this rating matches up with the previous Flip 5’s durability and we just have an official numeric standard for it, but it’s great to see here.
Brighter Displays
The Galaxy Z Flip 6 offers a marginal upgrade with its main display, which provides a brighter peak brightness of 2,600 compared to 1,750 on the Galaxy Flip 5’s main display.
The 3.4-inch cover display still lets you quickly skim through notifications, toggle your playlist, or even fire off brief replies to messages. Just like before, under the Labs settings, you can still run apps on it, including YouTube and Google Maps.
New this year is the ability to use Samsung’s new Interpreter feature, which is part of their Galaxy AI suite, which utilizes the cover display to showcase the live translation directly to the other person without them having to look down, which is pretty cool.
The 6.7-inch main display maintains the 120Hz refresh rate and the Flex Mode from previous iterations. The main screen continues to offer an excellent experience for multimedia consumption or multitasking, especially because of its really tall aspect ratio.
An Excellent Camera Experience
The Galaxy Z Flip 6’s camera performance has been an area I’ve been really happy with during my testing. Like the Galaxy Flip 5, this year’s iteration continues to house dual rear cameras with a single selfie camera, which can take great photos and videos, though might suffer from the same limitations and drawbacks as before.
The dual rear cameras consist of a new larger 50 MP main sensor compared to 12 MP on the Flip 5 and what looks to be the same 12 MP ultra-wide camera. The selfie camera also remains a 10 MP sensor, located in a hole-punch cutout on the 6.7-inch main display.
Using these cameras over the past week, I noticed that the Galaxy Z Flip 6 produces some very pleasing results that are consistent and replicable. My biggest issue with last year’s device had to do with sharpness and detail, especially in low-light situations as well as zooming in.
This new main sensor seems to be on par with Galaxy S24, and I think it’s great. Samsung continues to deliver punchy and contrasty photos but does so in a way that doesn’t necessarily go over-the-top as before. The biggest difference between this and Flip 5 is the sharpness across the entire image, which now feels much more usable than it did before.
While I wish Samsung had added a third telephoto lens to the Flip 6, as it does with virtually every other phone in their lineup, the larger 50MP sensor allows for digital zoom to look much more pleasing.
New with the Flip 6 is the ability to adjust the frame automatically when new subjects enter it. This is possible when the camera is using Flex Mode with the cover display acting as the viewfinder; you essentially prop up the phone to take a picture, and when someone enters the frame, the device uses the ultra-wide to include them in the frame.
While I think this is very practical in theory, I’d much rather use the main wide angle, just because it provides the superior image quality.
Mighty Power and Battery
In terms of software and hardware performance, the Galaxy Z Flip 6 offers a similar experience to the rest of Samsung’s flagship lineup this year, which is to say, very good. The device runs on Samsung’s One UI 6.0 atop Android 14. Just like all the other Samsung flagships, the Galaxy Z Flip 6 comes with a commendable update policy, where Samsung guarantees seven years of security patches and software updates continues to be a great deal if you plan on using it for a long time.
In terms of hardware specs, the Galaxy Flip 6 is equipped with the new Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 for Galaxy chipset and 12 GB of RAM compared to 8 GB on the Flip 5. This means the device has a smooth and responsive software experience that is consistent across both screens. The Galaxy Z Flip 6 also has either 256 GB or 512 GB of internal non-expandable storage, and this is a bump up from the base and maximum storage options from last year’s device, which is great to see.
On Geekbench 6, our Flip 6 scored 1,219 on Single-Core and 5,980 on Multi-core, which really translates to: you’re going to use this phone and not worry about any sort of weird hiccups or hitches when you’re casually browsing the web, consuming media, or playing games.
The Galaxy Z Flip 6’s battery life is a noticeable improvement over its predecessor. The device now has a larger 4,000 mAh battery compared to the 3,700 mAh cell found on the Flip 5. Pairing this larger battery with the more efficient Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset finally makes this foldable feel much more cohesive as a total package compared to regular phones.
Battery life was one of the Flip 5’s weaker spots, so I am glad Samsung was able to increase the cell’s capacity without adding weight or thickness.
AI Everything, Everywhere
When it comes to software, this year’s Galaxy Z Flip 6 is all about Galaxy AI. I’m not going to go over all the features in this software suite—for that, you can read my thoughts on them more extensively in myGalaxy S24 Ultra review. What I do want to cover, however, is how these features integrate with the Z Flip experience, and what that entails.
With the Flip 6, it’s all about using that cover display. As mentioned before, you may now use Flex Mode to use the Interpreter feature for live translations, with the translation being readily available to the person you’re conversing with. I love having the ability to have it propped up on a table, set it in Flex Mode, and carry on a conversation that way.
While this is supposedly great in theory and does actually make you feel more present than just having to constantly look down at your device, it does make the actual translation input slightly worse. That’s because when the device is in Flex Mode, the microphones are facing upwards, not directionally outwards to the person in front of you. The effect of this could be countered up as a marginal difference, but even in a relatively quiet room, I noticed the microphones struggle to pick up on words for accurate translation, especially when the language is not English.
In Samsung Notes, you may now turn sketches into AI-generated art, similar to what we saw with Apple’s iPadOS 18 with Apple Intelligence. While this can be useful to enhance things like class notes or ideas, the truth is, the Flip 6 isn’t really the phone to benefit heavily from it, especially since it lacks S-Pen support.
The other notable AI feature that is coming to the Flip 6 is Chat Assist, which can be accessed directly from the Flex Window when replying to messages. In my experience, it works just as you’d expect ChatGPT to work, but it is quite useful when I’m feeling too lazy to give a thoughtful reply to messages. It’s also worth noting the Flip 6 has Gemini built-in. Everything else that is found in Samsung’s Galaxy AI suite, like speech transcription, photo editing, Circle to Search, and the summarization tools found in Samsung Notes are all also present.
Should You Buy the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6?
TheSamsung Galaxy Flip 6presents a familiar yet refreshing update, focusing on subtle refinements that enhance the overall user experience. While the design changes are minor, the small upgrades to its hinge design, display brightness, and dust rating add a layer of polish and durability to the foldable.
Photographers will appreciate the new 50 MP main sensor, which delivers sharper and more detailed images, although the absence of a telephoto lens remains a minor drawback.
Ultimately, the Galaxy Flip 6’s main selling point this year is Samsung’s Galaxy AI suite, which is coming to last year’s phones anyway. In that light, the Galaxy Flip 6 is a compelling choice for those who want the latest enhancements because they’re coming from a much older phone. If you already own the Flip 5, the upgrade will feel negligible, but for new users or those with older models, the Flip 6 offers a well-rounded smartphone experience, one that is the closest to merging the gap between foldables and regular phones.
