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Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5 Review: The Verdict
With one foot in the future and the other a fold away from disaster, the Galaxy Z Fold 5 exists to make a point rather than solve a problem or offer competitive value. It’s got most of the right parts but it struggles against a sense of diminishing returns and a high price
What we love
- Optimised software
- Zero-gap hinge
- Decent battery life
What could be improved
- High price is hard to justify
- Iffy in-display camera
- S-Pen integration
The essentials
- Performance: Stellar! It has the best processor you can buy in an Android phone.
- Battery: Better than I expected. It'll get you through at least one day. It might even last you two.
- Screen: Awesome. Both sides of the Z Fold 5 look good as hell, despite the crease.
- Camera: Pretty good, but not consistent enough for the price.
65/100
The Galaxy Z Fold 5 is a better tablet than it is a phone. That’s nothing new though. Like the futuristic foldable smartphones that preceded it, the heavy-duty handset has always been the only option for Samsung-adjacent sickos seeking something with both the power and size to replace a dedicated tablet.
Whether the Z Fold 5 can deliver on those specific expectations has never been a problem. The deeper issue is that most people aren’t really looking for a device that’ll fill that specific niche nor do they know what to do once they have one. You’ll likely end up having to shift the way you use your phone to suit its unique limitations rather than make the most of its strengths.
Of course, it’s one thing for a phone to be a tech flex for power users and quite another for it to be one of the most expensive devices available in the market. The astronomical price point makes the Z Fold 5 feels like Samsung’s most boring update to what should be its most exciting device.
Where the new Galaxy Z Flip 5 seems primed to excite, its tablet-sized counterpart comes off as stale and stuck in its ways.
Samsung’s fanciest foldable smartphones are overdue for an overhaul, but this ain’t it.
Retrofuturism, rehashed
Five generations in, and the core pitch hasn’t really changed. Where the Galaxy Z Flip is a phone that gets smaller when you need it to, the Galaxy Z Fold 5 is one that grows bigger. Folded up, you’re looking at a 6.1-inch AMOLED display clocked at 120Hz.
Where the cover display on the Z Flip 5 is about half the size of your average smartphone screen, the exterior screen on the Galaxy Z Fold 5 is almost 1:1. This slimmer form factor did cause me to make a lot more typos, but it’s generous enough to do most of the things you’d what you’d want to do on a non-foldable device.
After a while, it actually started to make more regular screens seem ridiculously oversized by comparison. At least, until you unfold the Galaxy Z Fold 5. Do that, and you get a full 7.6-inch AMOLED screen to work (or play) with instead.
On top of being bigger and more comfortable to use, the experience of using this larger display comes enhanced by a steady stream of software enhancements that Samsung has been introducing and refining with each passing year. The split keyboard here works so well that I’m honestly shocked that more tablets don’t adopt it. Whenever you’re using them, inclusions like the integrated taskbar and the ability to open an app on one screen and then have it seamlessly persist on the other make the Z Fold 5 feel powerful and involved in a way that’s less akin to a smartphone and closer to a laptop.
All of this is to say that even if you have to put it up with a crease in the middle of it, the tablet-like side of the Galaxy Z Fold 5 feels like the way the device is meant to be used. That quality isn’t really new though, and the feeling doesn’t hit nearly as hard a fifth time around.
It’s not enough for a smartphone to just have a foldable screen anymore. Having the biggest or best one just isn’t as compelling either, and where Samsung is constantly coming up with new ideas for the form factor of the Z Flip, the fundamentals of the Z Fold haven’t really changed much from year to year.
New hinge, old issues
The Galaxy Z Fold 5 is both lighter and thinner than previous models, though it remains thicker and heavier than most of the other options. It’s got a new hinge design that allows for it to fold flat rather than at an angle and a less noticeable crease. To hold and to handle, there’s a surprising sturdiness to the link that holds the two halves of the device together. Though admittedly small, these changes are sure to be welcome to those who care enough to notice them.
This year’s most expensive foldable phone is also more durable. Both sides of the device come enhanced by Gorilla Glass Victus 2. The chassis frame comes with the same Armor Aluminium protection seen in recent Galaxy S devices plus an IPX8 rating for water resistance.
That last one is especially nice to see, though it's not new and it doesn’t cover any sort of dust resistance. The Galaxy Z Fold has come a long way since its first incarnation, but it’s not really any more beach friendly. Slow habits die hard, I guess.
Other callbacks here include the 4MP in-display camera and iffy S-Pen integration. Though technically impressive, the uneven quality of that camera was enough that I tried to avoid using it wherever possible. The clumsy reality of trying to take a photo with a tablet-sized device didn’t help, nor did the grill-like pattern that’s laid over the pixels involved.
At times, this innovative inclusion feels like more of an imposition than the infamous crease found on the Galaxy Z Fold 5’s main display. If you’re planning on taking any or many selfies, you’ll probably want to do so using the 10MP cover display camera instead.
As for the S-Pen, there's still no storage bay for the accessory built into the Z Fold 5 itself. You have to buy it separately and keep it in a compartment built into a case that adds further bulk to an already chunky chassis. It’s nice to see the S-Pen stick around but it’s a shame that writing with it feels clumsy and uneven (due to the camera bump). The Z Fold 4 had these same issues, but they’re less forgivable a third time around.
Capability, minus consistency
If the above has you feeling like the triple-lens rear camera on the Z Fold 5 is an afterthought, that’s because it kind of is. A new sensor aside, the setup here is the same as the one on last year’s Galaxy Z Fold 4. There’s a 50MP main lens, a 12MP ultrawide lens, and 10MP telephoto lens.
The results are fine. They’re far from terrible, with the triple-lens system allowing for the kind of telephoto photography that used to be unheard of on a smartphone but has become relatively mundane among flagship camera systems like this one. What’s here is accomplished, but rarely awe-inspiring or magical in the way that algorithmically enhanced rivals are.
More often than not, photos that I took using the camera on the Galaxy Z Fold 5 would look pretty impressive right up until I decided to take a closer look at the tablet-sized display. While it’s true that many smartphone cameras can’t deliver results that hold up to the scrutiny of a higher-resolution screen, it’s rare to find one that has the hardware to make that process take as little time as this one does.
Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5 camera samples
Check out these camera samples taken on the Z Fold 5. Click or tap on any photo to see a larger version.
Yesterday's price is not today's price
By this point in the review, a key theme should come into focus. This year’s Galaxy Z Fold 5 is a fairly by-the-numbers update on last year’s device. It’s better in all the small ways you’d expect, plus a few that you can’t really see from the outside. While the first Z Fold was a mixed bag, the Z Fold 5 feels like it entirely delivers on that foundational, if dated, idea for what this version of a foldable phone should be.
The most meaningful improvements here have nothing to do with the design of the Z Fold 5 at all. They’re the kind of typical year-on-year upgrades you can expect from any premium device with or without a foldable screen.
Instead of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 processor found in the Z Fold 4, the Z Fold 5 has this year’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor instead. As per Qualcomm’s own estimates, this process should offer 35% faster performance and 40% more power efficiency than the fourth-gen Galaxy Z Fold.
That silicon comes paired up with the usual 12GB of RAM and as much as 1TB of storage. Those last two aren’t any different from last year’s model, but they do give power users plenty to work with. It’s as powerful an Android phone as you can find, but it can’t hold a candle to Apple’s own silicon and there’s still not much out there in the way of software that makes full use of that hardware.
If you need another example of this, take the Galaxy Z Fold 5 is powered by a 4400mAh battery. On paper, it’s roughly equivalent to the one found in the last year’s Galaxy Z Fold 4. In practice, I could comfortably cruise through two solid days on a single charge, with something like six and a half to seven hours of screentime. For obvious reasons, your individual mileage may vary based on both how you use your phone, how frequently you use your phone and how often you make use of 5G.
Burned down from a full charge to 0% by video streaming via YouTube, the Galaxy Z Fold 5 lasted 18 hours and 44 minutes. That's not the best result ever, but it feels like a respectable one given the hardware involved. If you’re spending this much on a phone, a decent battery is the least you can hope for. Beyond that, the Z Fold 5 supports up to 25W fast charging via USB Type-C with compatible chargers as well as wireless and reverse charging.
This foldable is too familiar
The Galaxy Z Fold 5 has gone from being the coolest piece of tech Samsung makes to one that’s getting alarmingly close to being boring.
Where interest and excitement around the Z Flip 5 feel like it’s at an all-time high, the original foldable phone feels like a dinosaur by comparison. Samsung has learned how to make a better version of the phone they’ve been making for the last five years, but that device is still relying on most of the same old tricks. It’s better by most metrics, but most metrics don’t really justify a price tag this lofty nor do they account for the unique disadvantages that define the Z Fold 5 experience.
It is true that, if you’re a multi-tasking maven, there is no better smartphone designed to meet your needs than this one. The ability to seamlessly split-screen apps on a display this large is still something that no other smartphone can match.
Unfortunately, those moments are few and far between. There are times in my life when I do wish my smartphone was a little bit more like a tablet or a laptop. The Galaxy Z Fold 5 capitalises on that opportunity whenever it comes around and it does so with impeccable competence.
But most of the time, it all feels like overkill. Between those flashes of brilliance, you’re left with nothing but reminders of all the ways in which the Z Fold 5 feels like a little bit too much phone for one person to handle. It’s wonderful to see Samsung’s commitment to making more durable foldables but when the price remains this high, it’s hard to see that as anything but the bare minimum.
Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 - Final Thoughts
The thing about novelty is that it fades. The shock of seeing a screen bend in a way that you haven’t before eventually wears off. The shortcomings that come with the Galaxy Z Fold 5 stick around. Time wears down everything and what you’re left with isn’t nearly as impressive.
If all you want is that magic trick of seeing a screen flex, there are cheaper ways to get it. The Galaxy Z Fold might be the original foldable phone, but it feels stifled by an arbitrary and overarching need to play things safe. It’s a by-the-numbers upgrade that’s likely to appease all the pain points of power users who are either still sitting on the fence or grumbling about their Galaxy Z Fold 2 but does little to appeal beyond that constituency.
Where its first generation counterpart for a problematic fave, the new Galaxy Z Fold 5 inspires an equal but opposite reaction. If this is what a better foldable looks like then Samsung had better learn to make a cheaper one sooner rather than later.
When reviewing phones, we consider a number of key factors. Primary concerns include:
- Camera: Does a phone take good photos? How does it perform in low light? Can it handle moving subjects?
- Battery: Will it last a full day? How many hours of screen time can you get per charge?
- Screen Quality: Is it nice? Is it bright enough for a sunny day? Do colours distort off axis?
- Performance: Is the phone fast enough for day-to-day tasks? How does it handle more demanding activities like gaming?
We also take any unique features or inclusions into account.
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