I’ve used the world’s best foldables, but Galaxy Z Fold 6 remains an inexplicable favorite

Ben Schoon | Apr 6 2025 - 9:00 am PT

Foldables have improved drastically since their full debut in 2019, but Samsung has been stagnating on progress for quite a while now. That’s why I can’t explain why I still enjoy the Galaxy Z Fold 6 so much, especially after having spent a lot of time with some of the best foldables the market has to offer.

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Samsung may have kicked off the foldable market we know today, but the company has not been the technical leader for quite some time. The past few generations of Samsung’s foldables have consistently been eclipsed in their technical prowess by competitors. The Galaxy Z Flip series has advanced to include a bigger outer display, but Motorola’s Razr has been beating Samsung at that game for over five years now, and the Motorola Razr+ (2024) very much outshines the Flip 6 across the board. It’s still the king of flip phones as it stands today.

The book-style foldable market is a bit more competitive, though.

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Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold series peaked early, with the Fold 2 offering essentially the same form factor as we have today. The hardware has gotten a bit thinner, the displays a bit wider, and the cameras a bit better, but Samsung’s progress has been excruciatingly slow.

In 2023, the OnePlus Open was an incredible example of what a book-style foldable could be with its rock-solid hardware, good ideas in its software, great cameras, and slightly more affordable price. While OxygenOS was worse at the time, I called the OnePlus Open “the best foldable,” the one that “really ruined me for other foldable devices.” The same year’s Galaxy Z Fold 5 was good, but not nearly to the same extent.

Meanwhile, 2024’s Pixel 9 Pro Fold and Honor Magic V3 just showed how far Samsung was behind the curve. Compared to the Galaxy Z Fold 6, both devices were thinner with bigger displays and better cameras too. Honor issued an apology to Samsung fans regarding how far behind the Galaxy device was, an while I only used the device briefly, I walked away impressed. In our review, Andrew Romero said that the Magic V3 “breaks the rules and presents the idea of a book-style foldable in a way that would make more people want to make the switch” after Samsung had admitted that the bulk of its foldable customers were just repeat buyers enticed by subsidized trade-ins. In my Pixel 9 Pro Fold review, I said that Google’s foldable was “as close as we’ve come” to a foldable that just feels like a normal phone.

In my review of the Oppo Find N5 earlier this year, I lamented the fact that Oppo has wasted what is without a doubt the best foldable hardware I’ve ever laid my hands on with a device that’s being sold in barely any places around the globe.

So why, then, does the Galaxy Z Fold 6 – a device I repeatedly said was worse than the competition – still hold a candle to these devices?

Following the arrival of the One UI 7 beta on the Fold 6, I’ve been using my unit (which I bought personally last year) alongside my usual Pixel 9 Pro Fold, which I’ve been using daily since its launch. And every time I pick it up I just can’t help but remember that, for some reason, I actually really like that device.

Something about Samsung’s fit and finish on the Fold 6 is just a delight to use, but it’s hard to explain why.

The best I’ve come up with about why I still like using the Fold 6 is Samsung’s fit and finish, and the formula that, despite being objectively worse than the competition, is that Samsung’s hardware is more inviting to what a foldable is supposed to be. The thicker hardware makes it physically easier to open the device and hold it. The aspect ratio of the outer display invites you to spend time on the inner one rather than just using the outer display the majority of the time as I often find myself doing on the Pixel and Oppo devices. Sometimes I’ll go a whole day without opening those devices, where I instinctively find myself opening the Fold 6 right away.

With foldables being these pricey devices, I do find it a little ironic that we’ve come to decide that the form factor should mimic a traditional slab. I agree it’s ultimately the right call, but I also stand by what I’ve been saying for years – Samsung was on to something with the narrow design of the Fold series, and it shouldn’t have been mocked as it was for years.

With all of that said, though, I really do wonder what the future has in store for foldables in general. Oppo’s restricted Find N5 launch (and subsequent skipping of the OnePlus Open 2 this year) served as a sort of canary in the coal mine for this struggling market that’s so obsessed with pushing the technical envelope while ignoring the core complaint of foldables – the cost. While Samsung has shown its hand that it doesn’t truly care about that complaint by laughably making the Galaxy Z Fold 6 more expensive last year, I do hope that the company’s more conservative approach can eventually land a device like this at a price point people are more willing to pay.

But what do you think? Am I crazy for still liking the Galaxy Z Fold 6 despite the competition? Do you use one of Samsung’s foldables still? Let’s discuss!

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