Samsung owned yesterday by showing off its Galaxy Z Fold 7 and Flip 7 foldables, as well as newly redesigned watches. For the first time in a while, this feels like a big Samsung launch, with all of the products getting significant changes or upgrades. Like the Flip 7’s bigger cover display and AI features, the beautiful new designs of the Galaxy Watch 8 series, and the dramatic changes to the Fold 7, all have given us a jolt of excitement we don’t often expect from Samsung.
The Galaxy Z Fold 7 is really getting the improvements we needed to see from them after a couple of years of letdowns. We are finally getting a true upgrade this time, one that might have you considering making the switch to one. As your resident foldable hater, even I’m tempted to get one in the hand for a bit.
Before you do that, there are some things you need to know, both good and (potentially) bad.
1. Lighter than the Galaxy S25 Ultra, almost as thin. This is actually a crazy one. The redesign of the Galaxy Z Fold 7 has brought us a device that folds in half, yet is almost as thin when folded as Samsung’s non-folding Galaxy S25 Ultra. The Galaxy S25 Ultra measures in at 8.2mm thick, while the new Galaxy Z Fold 7 is just 8.9mm thick (!) when folded. When unfolded, the Fold 7 measures at just 4.2mm. But to up that impressive number, Samsung has found a way to decrease the weigh to just 215g, which brings it under the 218g of the S25 Ultra. Wild numbers.
2. 16GB RAM, but only with 1TB. The Galaxy Z Fold 7 has 16GB RAM for the first time, but the chances of you getting the version with that might be slim. Samsung is shipping versions of the Fold 7 with 256GB and 512GB storage, both of which only get 12GB RAM. If you want the full 16GB, you’ll have to fork out for the insanely priced 1TB model that retails for $2,419 without discounts.
3. Fancy new Corning Gorilla Glass Ceramic 2. On the cover display, the Fold 7 has Corning’s new Gorilla Glass Ceramic 2 glass, which first debuted on the S25 Edge, a phone no one cares about or wanted. So really, this is kind of like the first device to get this Ceramic 2 glass. What does that mean for you? Corning claims it’ll survive more drops, but just be aware that it isn’t necessarily any more scratch resistant than previous releases, like their Victus glass.
4. Cover screen hits 1080p officially, grows to 6.5″. Maybe more importantly for cover glass fans, the new cover screen is officially 1080p for the first time. The previous displays were 968p (Fold 6) and 904p (Fold 5), both of which were “HD+” because they didn’t quite hit 1080p. The Fold 7 has a 2520x1080p screen with variable refresh rate of 1-120Hz. It is once again a Dynamic AMOLED panel that measures in at 6.5″, the biggest we’ve seen.
5. No S Pen support this time. Samsung quietly discontinued S Pen support this time around, so that means you can’t use an S Pen on your Galaxy Z Fold 7. I believe their reasoning for the change was that in order to make the device as thin as it is, they couldn’t bring the layer necessary for S Pen support. Does that suck? Maybe! If you have previous S Pens and wanted to use them with this new Fold 7, you can’t. However, I actually wonder how many people were using an S Pen with the Fold series since Samsung wasn’t including it and you needed to buy it separately. I’d love to see those numbers. Either way, S Pen fans will be sad, while the rest of us will go find a snack.
6. New hinge, less crease complaining. Anyone who has ever used a foldable like the Fold series, knows that the crease in the middle of the larger display is both an eyesore and slightly annoying to slide your finger across. With the Fold 7, Samsung is introducing a new Armor FlexHinge that is as thin as it gets without decreasing the durability, so they say. But maybe more importantly, that crease is hardly visible. Just look at this picture that Tim took.
7. A real flagship camera, finally. For 6 years, Samsung kept selling us a $2,000 foldable phone with a camera typically found in close-to-budget devices. We couldn’t ever figure out why, so we kept complaining about it. And well, they finally listened and are delivering a true main camera sensor that should compete. Samsung is giving the Galaxy Z Fold 7 a 200MP “pro-grade camera experience” and their “next-generation ProVisual Engine” for image processing. We can’t wait to test it, but this should bring a competitive camera that the Fold series always deserved.
Pre-orders are live and you can save up to $1,200 for doing so.
PRE-ORDER GALAXY Z FOLD 7 ($1,200 in savings)
