The Galaxy Z Fold 7 is super thin, measuring just 8.9 millimeters when closed and 4.2 millimeters when unfolded.
Ryan Browne | CNBC
Samsung on Wednesday launched three new folding smartphones — including thinner top-end devices and a cheaper version of its flip phone — as the tech giant looks to entice buyers to make the switch to foldables.
The main new additions to Samsung’s foldable phone range are the Galaxy Z Fold 7, which folds like a book, and the Galaxy Z Flip 7, which takes on the form of the classic clamshell-style flip phones. Samsung also announced a cheaper version of its latest flip phone, the Galaxy Z Flip 7 SE.
The South Korean consumer electronics giant is refreshing its foldable phone lineup at a time when the company faces increased competition from Chinese rivals, such as Honor and Oppo. Last week, Honor — which spun off from Chinese tech giant Huawei in 2020 — launched the new ultra-thin Magic V5 folding phone, while Oppo introduced its own slim foldable device, the Find N5, earlier this year.
Samsung’s share of the global foldable phone market slipped to 45% in 2024 from 54% a year earlier, according to Canalys. China also accounts for a significant share of the foldables market — although 17.2 million of these devices were sold last year globally, this drops to 9.4 million when excluding mainland China.
Thinner and bigger — but there’s a catch
The Galaxy Z Fold 7 is super thin at a thickness of 8.9 millimeters (0.35 inches) closed and only 4.2 millimeters open. It’s also much lighter than its predecessor, weighing 215 grams (7.62 ounces). These stats put the phone on par with both Honor’s Magic V5 and the Oppo Find N5.
The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7.
Ryan Browne | CNBC
The new Fold device has a 6.5-inch cover screen and an 8-inch main display when opened, making it bigger than its predecessor.
It’s also decked out with premium new cameras, featuring a 200-megapixel main lens, as well as a 10-megapixel telephoto sensor, 12-megapixel ultra-wide and two 10-megapixel front cameras on both the cover screen and on the main display.
The Galaxy Z Fold 7 is super thin, measuring just 8.9 millimeters when closed and 4.2 millimeters when unfolded.
Ryan Browne | CNBC
Samsung’s new Fold generation is, nevertheless, much more limited than other devices in the market when it comes to battery capacity. The Galaxy Z Fold 7 has a 4,400 milliampere-hour (mAh) battery — far less than the 6,100 mAh power pack in Honor’s Magic V5’s or the Oppo Find N5’s 5,600 mAh battery.
Samsung says its device is capable of 24 hours of video playback.
The Galaxy Z Fold 7 will retail in the U.K. at a starting price of £1,799 ($2,434).
Cheaper flip phone
The Galaxy Z Flip 7 has a 4.1-inch cover screen and a 6.9-inch main display when opened.
Ryan Browne | CNBC
Samsung’s Galaxy Z Flip 7 is also thinner than its predecessor, coming in at 6.5 millimeters when opened flat. By contrast, the Galaxy Z Flip 6 has a depth of 6.9 millimeters when unfolded.
The new phone has a 4.1-inch cover screen and a 6.9-inch main display. It comes with a 50-megapixel main camera and 12-megapixel ultra-wide sensor on the back and a 10-megapixel lens on the main display.
It also has a bigger 4,300 mAh battery, which Samsung says supports 31 hours of video playtime on a single charge.
In addition to Flip 7, Samsung is also introducing a cheaper version of the phone, called the Galaxy Z Flip 7 FE, which is slightly smaller and thicker than its more premium counterpart.
The Galaxy Z Flip 7 will retail from £1,049 in the U.K., while the Galaxy Z Flip 7 FE starts at £849.
AI fashion tips
Samsung also talked up the Galaxy Z Fold and Flip 7’s artificial intelligence capabilities. For the last two years, the company has used Google’s Gemini language model to power much of its AI features — and this year is no different.
Both devices use Samsung and Qualcomm’s custom-made Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy chip, which is designed to enable more AI processing on-device as opposed to in the cloud.
The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 7.
Ryan Browne | CNBC
It also has new AI-powered camera features, including one that automatically suggests people and objects to erase from photos — for example, if you’ve been photobombed by someone — and an audio eraser tool that proactively detects and removes unwanted background noise from videos.
The Galaxy Z Flip 7, meanwhile, lets you pull up Google’s AI assistant app, Gemini Live, on top of the camera app when taking a live video of yourself. Samsung says one use case this offers is the ability to ask the AI for tips on the outfit you’re wearing.
Sheng Win Chow, senior analyst at Canalys, said that physical design alone won’t be enough to convince users to convert to foldable phones from the touchscreen slabs we’re all used to.
“Lasting leadership depends on redefining what foldables do, not just how they look,” he said in an emailed note. “The next wave of competition will come from software — how vendors use the foldable form factor to deliver truly differentiated experiences.”