As a new form factor spawned by new technologies, foldable screen mobile phones are undoubtedly the “fresh meat” in the mobile phone category. Thinking back carefully, I can even remember the excitement and surprise I felt when I first saw a foldable screen mobile phone.
But if we look at it from a time perspective, it has been six years since the birth of foldable screen mobile phones. In terms of durability, performance, experience and other aspects, they have become stable and have become flagship products of mainstream mobile phone brands. But after maturity, does innovation no longer exist?
On July 10, Samsung officially released the latest product in its foldable screen series, Galaxy Z Fold6. As a pioneer and deep cultivator in the foldable screen mobile phone category, Samsung's foldable screen mobile phones have gone through six generations of development. What kind of innovation can Samsung make on what may be the most mature foldable screen product in the industry? Here are some of my feelings from a week of experience.
Appearance: Squarer, thinner
Compared with the minor revisions of previous generations of products, the design of Samsung Galaxy Z Fold6 can be said to have been completely redesigned.
Faced with the trend of thinness and lightness brought about by domestic folding-screen mobile phones, Galaxy Z Fold6 has also chosen to follow suit this time. Although the body weight of 239g and the unfolded body thickness of 5.6mm are not extreme, they also significantly improve the feel of the phone.
In terms of external design, the Galaxy Z Fold6 uses a full matte combination of matte glass back cover + matte metal frame, which is excellent in appearance and texture, and at the same time completely solves the fingerprint collector problem of previous generation products.
In addition to the material, the biggest change in Galaxy Z Fold6 lies in the design itself. The middle frame of Galaxy Z Fold6 almost abandons the curvature. Except for the small arcs on the four corners, the rest are straight lines without transitions. This is very rare in the current smartphone market, but it is very consistent with the business attributes of horizontal folding phones.
As for the rear camera module, the Galaxy Z Fold6 has designed decorative rings with record textures for the three cameras based on the oval design of the previous generation, further reducing the chance of the lens being scratched.
Samsung also uses tough Corning Gorilla Glass Victus 2 to protect the rear camera module and back cover of the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold6.trying every possible way to make the back panel “indestructible”.
In terms of color selection, Galaxy Z Fold6 provides three standard colors: Starry Silver, Light Rose Pink, and Cool Night Blue, and two Samsung Mall exclusive colors: Spacetime Black and Vanilla White. The one we got this time is the Cool Night Blue color. In a dark environment, this color is closer to black, and it looks closer to navy blue on weekdays. With the body design with almost no logo, it can be said to be quite low-key.
After talking about the outside, let's open the phone and take a good look at the inner screen of the Galaxy Z Fold6. Due to the narrowing of the frame, the inner screen size of the Galaxy Z Fold6 is still 7.6 inches. In addition, the inner screen of the Galaxy Z Fold6 supports a variable refresh rate of 1-120Hz. The larger adjustment range allows the phone to automatically adjust to the most suitable screen refresh rate according to the content displayed on the screen, which not only provides a better visual experience but also effectively reduces power consumption.
On the inner screen, the Galaxy Z Fold6 is still equipped with a 4-megapixel under-screen camera. However, thanks to technological advances, the pixel density of the camera part of the Galaxy Z Fold6 inner screen has been greatly improved, making this under-screen camera more hidden, thus ensuring the integrity of the inner screen to the greatest extent, thereby achieving a complete screen viewing experience.
In addition, Galaxy Z Fold6 also supports custom adjustment of screen white balance, which can control the overall tone of the phone screen according to personal preferences to present the most ideal display effect in your mind.
Galaxy Z Fold6 uses a side recognition unlocking method. This recognition area attached to the physical button does not affect the aesthetics of the front screen of the phone at all, nor does it destroy the integrity of the back body, ensuring the integration of the body.
In actual use, it is found that since the fingerprint unlocking area and the power button are combined into one, one-handed operation is much more flexible. After the screen is unfolded, the thumb is just in the recognition area, which makes it more convenient to close each time.
In terms of overall design, the Galaxy Z Fold6 has rounded corners but the overall shape is still square, giving it a strong presence; when the screen is unfolded, the hinge and frame are parallel and very regular. In terms of appearance, in addition to adhering to the aesthetics of order, it also incorporates its own unique aesthetic genes, making it unique among foldable screen phones.
Performance: The flagship chip is naturally powerful enough
As a flagship model, the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold6 naturally uses the latest flagship processor, the third-generation Snapdragon 8 mobile platform (for Galaxy), and the entire series is equipped with 12GB of RAM and a maximum storage option of 1TB. It is also equipped with UFS 4.0 flash memory to provide a steady stream of power for gaming performance. Next, we will follow the usual practice and test the performance of the Galaxy Z Fold6 through running points.
First of all, let’s talk about the running score. Here I used AnTuTu and 3D Mark for testing. You can see that AnTuTu V10 scored 1845423 points and 3D Mark Wild Life Extreme scored 3445 points.
It is worth noting that during the game, thanks to the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold6's use of stereo speakers to support Dolby Atmos, it can provide users with shocking sound effects and a wide sound field experience regardless of whether it is a single-player or multiplayer game. After inserting the headphones, the sense of distance and direction of the sound field created is even stronger.
Image: The flagship triple-camera combination helps you easily record the beauty of life
As a foldable flagship, the Galaxy Z Fold6's imaging capabilities are not inferior. In terms of the rear camera module, the Galaxy Z Fold6 uses a combination of a 50-megapixel main camera + a 12-megapixel ultra-wide-angle lens + a 10-megapixel 3x telephoto lens, and both the main camera and the telephoto lens support optical image stabilization.
It can be seen that even in low-light scenes, thanks to the support of OIS optical image stabilization, the overall picture does not appear blurry due to shaking. At the same time, we can also be surprised to see that the night scene samples do not have ghosting or glare problems in various complex lighting environments, and the overall white balance, color, exposure and other aspects are well handled.
From the hardware configuration and actual shooting experience, it can be seen that the imaging capabilities of Galaxy Z Fold6 have reached the first-class level among current flagship mobile phones, and the ultra-wide-angle, wide-angle, and telephoto triple-camera combination can also meet the needs of users in many usage scenarios from scenery to portraits.
Experience: AI is fully integrated to provide a better experience
Finally, let's talk about the highlight of the Galaxy Z Fold6 – AI. Compared with the way domestic mobile phone manufacturers combine AI with voice assistants, Samsung has fully integrated AI functions into the daily use of mobile phones.
For example, the Circle and Search feature introduced at the press conference allows us to long press the navigation bar at the bottom of the screen to activate AI when we encounter any picture, video or text we want to look up, and then search for the target content by circling, highlighting, writing or clicking. This one-step user experience can undoubtedly greatly reduce the threshold for using AI.
Another very practical AI function is GalaxyAI's real-time two-way translation. When using a mobile phone to make a call, GalaxyAI can perform real-time two-way voice and text translation.
During our test, when you call a foreign friend who speaks English, the phone can convert the other party's voice into Chinese in real time, and my Chinese will also be translated into English for the other party to hear, as if there is a simultaneous interpreter between the two parties. It is worth mentioning that this function is supported by the client-side big model, and the call content will not be uploaded to the cloud, which is more secure to use.
Galaxy Z Fold6 can not only translate the conversation content in real time, but also generate the corresponding text synchronously, which users can check at any time. In addition, the phone can remember the language used by each contact, and the next contact will be directly tuned to the language corresponding to the contact.
The picture generation function has also come to the Galaxy Z Fold6 this time. The graffiti function allows your casual doodles to be easily turned into a good painting. Paired with the S Pen, this function will undoubtedly make this function more practical.
Final Thoughts
At the end of the article, let's go back to the question at the beginning. Does the maturity of foldable screen mobile phones mean the stagnation of innovation? The answer is obviously no. As Samsung's sixth-generation foldable screen mobile phone, Galaxy Z Fold6, on the premise that the product form has matured, still provides users with a better user experience by optimizing details in appearance, imaging, system, etc.
As a company with a leading advantage in the field of foldable screen mobile phones, Samsung has been leading the development of foldable screen mobile phones. With the rapid development of the foldable screen mobile phone market, Samsung has chosen to provide users with better foldable screen mobile phone products through continuous technological innovation. I believe that under the leadership of continuously improving products such as Galaxy Z Fold6, foldable screen mobile phones will become more and more popular.