Samsung Galaxy Z Flip6 review

Credit where it’s due, Samsung has worked hard on the hinge, battery and thermal management of the Galaxy Z Flip 6 and it shows. The crease is barely felt now, although you can still “see” it when it catches the light, but in terms of the hand feel, it has never been this close to a regular candy bar design when open. The 6.7in AMOLED display is 2600nits bright and although not the usual Samsung Ultra-level spectacular, it is perfectly fine for most cases besides stitching images from the Hubble telescope. The new vapour chamber incorporated in the thermal design suite also allows the Flip 6 to sport the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processor which has been clocked for Samsung, promising even more performance than other flagships. It all keeps the temperature within acceptable limits and even after a few minutes of intense gaming, you won’t need to wear gloves. Additionally, the IP48 rating should give you more confidence to use the Flip 6 in and around a pool. But the beach may not be such a good idea since it still isn’t impervious to sand, dust and sharks.

The cover screen at 3.4in seems a bit underutilised and smaller than what could’ve been possible. It seems Samsung has stopped thinking about how to use it better barring the one feature in Galaxy AI that uses this Flex mode brilliantly. Galaxy AI Interpreter can translate up to 13 languages currently in real-time and the cover screen can show the translated text from English to the other person while the main screen shows you their speech-to-text in English. It works well as long as you have a reasonably quiet environment or speak directly into the mic.

You can customise the 720p (60Hz) cover screen wallpaper, add a few handy widgets, play YouTube and Netflix, and check on Google Maps but that’s about it for now. But again, the cover screen redeems itself thanks to some Samsung camera magic by using auto-zoom to frame perfect selfies by adjusting the zoom according to your position and you can click remotely by saying  “cheese” or showing your palm to the phone. Nifty.

The 6.7 inner display remains pretty much the same supporting HDR10+ and 120Hz refresh rate, and tops out at a respectable 2600nits of brightness, but the bezels don’t show any noticeable decrease in thickness. The side-mounted fingerprint scanner remains identical too and only the main camera sees a bump up to 50MP from 12MP earlier. There is no telephoto though, which is s shame at this price point, but it’s probably due to the space limitations within the chassis. Yet, the internal selfie camera is a 10MP unit, better than the 4MP under-display unit on the Fold 6, if that is any consolation!

With all that horsepower under its tiny hood, the Z Flip 6 doesn’t show any signs of stutter or lag no matter what you stress it with. If you’re looking for a full-screened phone that can fit into your pocket with a top-shelf processor, look no further. With the memory boost from 8GB to 12GB, along with the Snapdragon Gen 3 for Samsung, it terms of benchmarks, it smokes even the iPhones! However, if you also like to take the occasional moon shot, this isn’t the Samsung for you.

The lack of any kind of telephoto seriously cramps your artistic sensibilities and the 50MP camera is good, but not great. It does well in low-light conditions until you compare it with better competitors and realise how warm and overexposed the highlights are. Social media hunters won’t be able to spot any major shortcomings though and with the suite of Galaxy AI editing apps, you can easily divert attention away from composition to imagination. The sketch-to-image generative AI will fulfil your wildest desires to vandalise the one you love to hate. Putting horns on your boss’s head or an angelic halo on your mums..it’s all possible within a matter of seconds without ever leaving the gallery app.

The Flex mode’s inherent advantages include a split screen mode for the two halves and is great for shooting video with a camcorder-style grip. Nostalgia aside, it just offers more natural stability to your video. Alternatively, you can use the Flex mode as a creative angle for your ultrawide shots and you’ll be amazed at the results you get. Taking selfies is easier than ever before by just raising your palm and letting the AI Auto-zoom set the perfect frame no matter how close or far you are (within reason). Add the Edge panel to the mix and you can have a third app screen floating on top, so yes, it can still multitask like a boss.

Battery life is going to be a bit of a stretch for any power user but a 45W charging speed will hopefully help you top up relatively quickly. For an average use-case scenario, expect a day from its 4000mAh capacity, but here at Stuff, we don’t like to play Alka Yagnik at full volume on a loop to torture test the battery. They have cells too, c’mon! With the usual surfing, photography, editing, emailing and light gaming, we went to bed with some power to spare. But if it was your primary phone on a video shoot location, a power bank would become its best friend soon.

The biggest miss it feels is the lack of imagination on Samsung’s part to do anything different with the cover screen, camera or overall form factor of the Galaxy Z Flip 6. It’s an ever-so-slight refinement over the previous gen with marginal improvements to battery, efficiency and power. Sure, it gets a few more Galaxy AI tricks but isn’t that a matter of time until more devices become compatible with them? And while the seven years of Android OS and security update support is genuinely confidence-inspiring, who out there has managed to hold on to their first-gen Galaxy Flip from 2020 in one piece? The Flip 6 may still be charming for a certain segment of consumers, but it has to do more to continue swaying them.