Galaxy Z Fold 7 After One month: My New Number 1?
One of the hardest parts of my job is knowing when my internal biases are influencing me. To that end, I’ve been thinking a lot over the last month about the Galaxy Z Fold 7 and whether or not this new foldable from Samsung has done the unthinkable: Become my new favorite folding phone.
Pixel Fandom
For the last almost three years I have loudly and proudly proclaimed my love for the Pixel Folds. While I will forever prefer the form factor of the original, the version of Android that Pixel phones run is such a joy to use that the 9 Pro Fold has been my number 1 foldable since it came out. It has rock solid cameras (despite the hardware being iffy), solid battery life and a million little features like best-on-planet-earth voice typing, Gboard’s Proofread feature, Pixel Studio, Call Screening, Secure Face Unlock and Magic Editor’s ability to zoom out photos is sneaky useful. I could go on, but I won’t.
Somehow, despite everything I love about the Pixel Fold, I have to face facts. The Galaxy Z Fold 7 has done what the Fold 6 couldn’t. It is my new favorite folding phone. One harsh fact of reality that I must account for is the fact that my love for Pixels has been damaged quite badly by not one, not two, but three hardware failures that required my Pixel Fold to be replaced. My first gen Fold screen cracked twice and my 9 Pro Fold lost the ability to read a SIM with any reliability. Those three replacements have absolutely impacted this shift.
How much? I honestly don’t know.
Here’s the thing though - it’s not just that. I had the Oppo Find N5 and I was still switching back to my Pixel 9 Pro Fold every other day because I missed it. The Find N5 is great, but it just wasn’t enough. With my Fold 7, I have had exactly zero desire to move my SIM to anything else. Including the Honor Magic V5 that has sat on my table for two weeks. I’ve been more than happy to complete my full one month for this article. For a guy like me that moves their SIM like most people change pants, that's an impressive feat.
What’s So Great About It?
So, what is it about the Fold 7 that has won me over to this degree? It’s the little things.
There’s just nothing wrong with this phone. Both screens are finally a size and shape that I like and I find myself being happy to use either, depending on the use case. With Z Folds of the past, the cover display always felt like just that. Something to quickly check a notification or return a text on, but if wanted to use the phone, I needed to open it. Now, it truly feels like I have a phone and I have a tablet. To me, that’s always been the dream. Samsung has finally gotten there.
Unlike prior years, the phone is also no longer thick and heavy. After years of small progress, Samsung has made a phone that no other foldable I’ve touched can match in terms of hand feel. The crease is less noticeable and both screen are as bright as any foldable around. Somehow Samsung has done all this with a hinge that is good for 500,000 folds too. And by the way, don’t listen to these OEMs claiming 10,000 nits or whatever. They’re lying.
The speakers could be louder, but they’re more than loud enough and they actually sound good unlike the speakers on the other Folds that approach this level of thickness. Even the battery life has been.. hold your breath on this one.. totally fine. On light processing mode, I make it through a day of mixed use with some cellular sprinkled in without much issue. I can squeeze out 6+ hours of screen time the way I use a phone reliably. Is it the best around? Nope. Is it a problem? Nope.
I know I’ll be catching words for that bit.
Bigger is Better
With the Fold 7, Samsung upgraded the primary camera in a big way. The phone now has a new 200 megapixel primary sensor, which is physically larger than its predecessor. This larger sensor and higher resolution lead to larger super pixels, which means better low-light performance. The ultrawide sensor also has larger individual pixels, allowing it to gather more light and perform better in low-light conditions. The 3x telephoto is the closest anything is on this phone to being a problem. While it’s beginning to show its age, when you stack it up against other phones for which there was no outrage over the tele sensor.. is it actually worse?
Video performance on the Fold 7 is on par with the S25 Ultra, making it a viable option for shooting high-quality B-roll. The level of noise and grain in challenging lighting has been improved to the point that no other foldable I own can approach the video performance. I know that’s it’s really easy to look at the megapixel count on a camera and assume you know if it’s good or not, but that isn’t how it actually works.
Fast and Thoughtful
When it comes to performance, this phone is just snappy. The animations are as smooth as any phone I have ever touched. It just feels fluid and fast no matter what you are doing, from swiping through home screens to jumping between apps. Now, I know some folks get hung up on benchmarks, and with one core disabled on the Snapdragon 8 Elite, it is not going to win any raw number-crunching competitions. Here's the thing though, in the real world it does not matter. This chip is significantly faster than the one in the Fold 6 and it has a ton more horsepower than the Pixels. Apps launch quickly, complex websites load in an instant and the games I’ve tested run without a hitch. Maybe even more importantly, the 8 Elite is more efficient than last year’s chip too. Despite being razor thin, the device doesn’t seem to overheat with my use and this has certainly aided battery life.
Samsung already had one of the best multitasking software suites around and it’s only gotten better on the Fold 7. You can split screen six ways to Sunday and they’ve even added a new 90/10 split mode that is a mostly complete rip from the OnePlus Open/Oppo Find N5. DeX is still around, even if it’s running on a new foundation and Samsung’s floating windows are still best in class.
And that doesn’t even begin to discuss the rest of the software experience in One UI 8. While I’ll die on the hill that Material 3 Expressive looks 10 times better, there is a lot to like in One UI 8. For one thing. the level of customization is far beyond what Pixels allow. Now Bar showing my playing media in the status bar has become something I really like, even if its appearance on the lockscreen is a borderline downgrade. I’ve even used Generative Edit to make some stylized wallpapers out of photos I took. Samsung’s Audio Eraser feature has also genuinely been a life-saver on a couple different occasions now.
I’ve posted 25 minutes of tips and tricks for a reason. These phones are as feature packed as any without feeling like a disjointed mess.
Pricy, But Premium
The elephant in the room with a phone like the Z Fold 7 is always going to be the price. Let's be real, for most people the answer to the question "Is it worth it?" is an obvious and resounding "no." While that's true of most phones in this category, it's even more true here than it has been with some of the slightly cheaper foldables. No matter how much I love this phone and no matter how much it has won me over, that high cost remains a huge barrier that will prevent this from ever being a phone for the masses. That being said, I don’t think Samsung ever intended it to be. The Z Fold 7 represents Samsung’s return to form. Proof that they can still make impressive hardware and marry it with thoughtful and mature software. I know some will prefer the Find N5 or the Pixel or the Magic V5.. But for me? The Z Fold 7 has taken the number 1 spot.