Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 review

The world of foldable phones has come a long way since those early, fragile prototypes that felt as if they needed kid-glove treatment.

Samsung's Galaxy Z Fold 7 represents the culmination of years of refinement, delivering a device that finally feels confident, robust, and genuinely desirable – rather than an expensive tech experiment you'd be nervous about carrying in your pocket.

The proposition is compelling – a standard 6.5-inch smartphone that unfolds to reveal an expansive 8-inch tablet display, effectively replacing two devices with one. For entertainment enthusiasts, this means carrying a phone for calls and messages that transforms into a tablet-sized canvas for movies, TV shows, and music control – all in a single pocketable device.

The core question for us AV enthusiasts, though, is whether this ingenious engineering translates into superior picture and sound performance – or whether the compromises make it nothing more than an expensive – albeit rather cool – novelty.

Can a phone that folds in half truly compete with traditional flagships for watching films and listening to music? Let’s find out.

Price

The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 starts at £1799 / $1700 / AU$2899 for the 256GB model, with 512GB (£1899 / $1820 / AU$3099) and 1TB (£2149 / $2120 / AU$3549) variants also available. There’s no two ways about it – this is a seriously high asking price, and one that even seasoned tech fans will baulk at.

To put this in context, you could purchase a Galaxy S25 Ultra and still have a decent chunk of change left over.

The question for potential buyers, then, is whether the unique form factor and engineering achievement justify this substantial premium.

For those seeking a device purely for media consumption and audio performance, more affordable flagships may offer better value. However, if you're drawn to the hybrid phone-tablet form factor for productivity and multitasking, the Fold 7 makes more sense – though it remains an expensive proposition.

Build

The difference between the Fold 7 and the first few foldables we tried when they first emerged is, quite frankly, remarkable.

Gone are the bulky, creaky, fragile bits of kit that you felt like you had to baby. Instead, the Fold 7 feels like an alien artefact in the hands – impossibly thin even when folded, it's completely rigid, and brimming with confidence as a result.

If you're spending this much money on a bit of tech, you don't want to feel like you're carrying around a Fabergé egg in your pocket, and the Fold 7 feels like any other phone when folded. At 8.9mm thick when closed, it's only marginally thicker than the Galaxy S25 Ultra, and even weighs less at 215g. This is a remarkable achievement, given there's an entire 8-inch screen hidden inside.

Things get even more impressive when it's opened up. The hinge is the best folding phone hinge we've ever used – confident, sturdy, and smooth, with absolutely no wiggling or looseness to be found. The phone feels razor-thin when unfolded, too, measuring just 4.2mm, with barely enough space for the slimness of a USB-C port on the bottom.

It looks great in the navy blue colour of our review unit as well, and the overall impression is one of a masterpiece of engineering. In short, it’s a very covetable bit of kit indeed. And so it should be, for the price Samsung is asking.

Features

The outer screen finally has sensible dimensions that put it on par with a regular smartphone, making it much easier to use and hold. At 6.5 inches, it's sharp, crisp, and bright, with a pinhole selfie camera at the top. This addresses one of the main frustrations with previous Fold models, where the narrow cover screen made typing and general use awkward.

The inner screen is a generous 8 inches when unfolded, and as with the outer screen, inky blacks and vibrant colours are all present and accounted for. The colour temperature leans slightly too warm for our taste out of the box, but it’s easy to adjust this to a cooler, more natural preset in the settings.

Those who do plan on watching movies on the main display will be treated to a sharp 1968 x 2184 resolution, with HDR10+ also supported. Samsung is claiming a peak brightness of 2600 nits here, and its Vision Booster technology is also on board to adapt the display’s settings for better visibility in different lighting conditions.

The company’s ProScaler feature is also supported. This proved to be a hit on the Award-winning Galaxy S25 Ultra thanks to its ability to upscale lower resolution content to suit the Quad HD display.

While movies and TV shows are our top priority, another big draw is the fact that you can multitask, having lots of apps open at once. You can watch a YouTube video while typing or browsing the web, for instance.

In practice, though, this multitasking seems best limited to fancy tech demos, and once the novelty wore off, we didn't find ourselves using this much. That's not to say there won't be power users who'll want to check their share prices while keeping an eye on breaking news, but it feels like a fairly niche use case scenario.

There are some more useful use cases, though. If the phone is folded at a 90-degree angle, you can use the lower half as a flat base while the video plays on the top half – essentially like a small laptop. This proves handy for hands-free video calls as well.

The large inner screen won't provide any benefit if you're watching 21:9 movie content, as it'll be the same size as the outer screen. But anything in 16:9, 4:3 or other aspect ratios will be larger on the bigger display. Watching something such as old Simpsons episodes in 4:3 is more impactful than a modern 16:9 show, which isn't that much bigger than the outer display.

Ultimately, buying a folding phone purely for enjoying occasionally slightly larger video content on the inner screen shouldn't be one of your main reasons for getting it. That remains multitasking, or having a larger screen for more comfortable e-book reading or browsing.

The other downside to using the inner folding screen for videos is the fact that the rather large pinhole selfie camera is very distracting. The previous iteration of the Fold had an under-display selfie camera, so this seems like a step backwards. Granted, the quality of selfies themselves is better, but the prominent hole in the screen is an unwelcome visual intrusion when watching content.

As for the rear camera system, it has a 200MP main sensor (f/1.7), 12MP ultra-wide (f/2.2), and 10MP telephoto with 3x optical zoom (f/2.4). This represents a significant upgrade over previous Fold models, particularly the main sensor, which now matches the Galaxy S25 Ultra's camera.

Both the cover screen and inner screen feature 10MP selfie cameras, and the overall performance of all three lenses is solid, with the main camera producing the best shots. Photos taken in even more challenging low-light conditions provide plenty of detail, and the zoom levels are more than usable too, as long as you don’t push beyond 10x zoom.

Is it the absolute best smartphone camera system currently available? No. But it’s still very decent, and far from the early days of foldables, where the cameras were an afterthought.

Under the hood, the whole affair is powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy processor, a customised version of Qualcomm's flagship chipset.

The 4400mAh battery delivers solid all-day performance with 25W wired charging and 15W wireless charging – though we'd prefer to see faster charging speeds to match competitors. Samsung promises seven years of OS and security updates, which is excellent for long-term value.

Audio capabilities include stereo speakers with Dolby Atmos support. There's no headphone jack – users will need to rely on USB-C adapters or wireless connectivity. Bluetooth 5.4 with high-quality codecs, including LDAC, is supported for wireless audio.

Picture

Both inner and outer screens are sharp, with decent brightness that's usable in sunlight. We tested with the default settings that most people would use – adaptive refresh rate with a maximum of 120Hz, and Vivid picture mode; though, as previously mentioned, we tweaked the colour temperature to a more natural setting as the default looked too warm for our tastes.

Testing with Planet Earth II on both screens revealed vivid colours and solid contrast. In fact, side-by-side comparisons with our Galaxy S25 Plus review unit prove that the Fold 7's inner and outer screens are noticeably better than the single screen of its more traditional sibling.

There’s serious depth and contrast to images from the Fold 7’s screens, while the S25 Plus seems much flatter in comparison. Scenes with lots of trees, for instance, have a real sense of three-dimensionality from the Fold 7, creating a more engaging viewing experience that draws you into the scene.

Content pops impressively. This is one area where Samsung has clearly made improvements, and the enhanced contrast and depth make for an impressive cinematic viewing experience on the larger inner display.

However, this is where we encounter the Fold 7's most significant picture quality issue. There is some slight judder noticeable during scenes such as the fast-panning drone shots of Planet Earth II. In fact, across all of the content we watch, regardless of resolution and native frame rate, we encounter quite a bit of stuttering, and it’s often obvious and distracting.

On occasion, when we pause and rewind, the footage seems smoother on second viewing, but this isn’t consistent. It’s a disappointing flaw to find at this premium flagship price point, especially as it’s not an issue with the Galaxy S25 Plus.

Oh, and if you’re worried about the inner screen’s crease ruining your Netflix binge, don’t be. While it’s very apparent when purposefully viewing the inner display from the side (especially with a bright light above), it’s genuinely invisible during normal, face-on viewing. Another major improvement from first-gen foldables.

Sound

We test the Fold 7 against our Galaxy S25 Plus using a USB to 3.5mm adaptor with Dali IO-12 over-ear headphones, and the results reveal some notable differences in audio performance between our two Samsung phones.

Overall, the Fold 7 sounds pleasant in isolation, but it has an overly warm tonal balance that colours the sound somewhat. The low-end is also slightly exaggerated, resulting in some muddiness to the midrange, and there’s not enough separation between instruments.

This isn't a problem in less busy tracks with simpler compositions – classical guitar pieces such as Borislav Slavov's I Want To Live sound airy and spacious, with mostly string instruments and guitar creating a relatively clean presentation. The lack of heavy low-end content means it's not as muddled an experience as some of the other more complex tracks in our test list.

However, the issues become more apparent in complex pieces. Tool's The Pot reveals notable distortion and murkiness from the Fold 7 compared with the Galaxy S25 Plus. There's a hint of crackly, gravelly distortion in the lead guitar – a challenging, guttural riff – that the S25 Plus does a better job at keeping cleaner.

The S25 Plus is cleaner in general, with more separation between different components. In isolation, The Pot sounds good on the Fold 7 and has plenty of punch and attack, with effective spatial panning in the intro as the drum pads circle and envelop you. But the direct comparison reveals its limitations.

Super8 & Tab's Black Is The New Yellow is very noticeably subdued from the Fold 7, with less separation than you get from the Galaxy S25 Plus. The hi-hat and thumping beat roll into one, while there's a far clearer distinction and precision when listening to the same track on the S25 Plus.

Wolf People's Kingfisher demonstrates great separation in the intro – you can hear the fingers sliding over the guitar strings clearly. Again, in isolation, it sounds good, though the higher guitar twangs are a little harsh. Compared with the Galaxy S25 Plus, though, the mids are a bit jammed together, with less separation. The overall sound is a tad too warm as well.

The sound is typical Samsung fare – it's fine, gets most things right, but doesn't excel at anything. Rhythmically and dynamically, the Fold 7 doesn’t seem to try very hard, and music feels a bit two-dimensional compared with what we'd expect from a device at this price.

Turning on Dolby Atmos does open the listening experience up, giving songs more room to breathe. Unfortunately, it also sacrifices some of the focus of the delivery and adds a slightly synthetic edge. Overall, we prefer the listening experience with Atmos enabled, but it doesn’t raise the sound quality to the level of the best in class.

Verdict

The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 represents the most accomplished foldable phone the company has produced, refining the formula to deliver a device that finally feels beautifully robust and desirable, rather than an expensive tech concept.

The engineering achievement is undeniable – this impossibly thin device somehow houses two high-quality displays and flagship internals while feeling like a normal smartphone in your pocket.

For those seeking a device that can replace both a phone and a tablet, the Fold 7 makes a compelling case. The outer screen now has sensible smartphone dimensions, making it far more practical for everyday use, while the expansive 8-inch inner display provides ample room for multitasking, reading, and media consumption – all while providing an enjoyable, immersive, 3D-like depth to proceedings. The build quality is excellent, too, and the improved hinge mechanism feels confident and premium.

However, when viewed purely through the lens of picture and sound performance, the Fold 7 reveals some disappointing compromises. The prevalent judder during demanding video content is particularly concerning at this premium price point, while the sound lacks the dynamism, separation and textural richness we'd expect from a flagship device.

Even so, the Fold 7 is a remarkable piece of engineering and one of the best foldable phones you can buy. And if that’s important to you, you won’t be disappointed.

SCORES

• Picture 4
• Sound 4
• Features 5

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