Samsung has announced the 7th generation of its foldable phones today at their annual Galaxy Unpacked event. After what feels like a few generations of stagnation, Samsung has seemingly moved the bar for the foldable device segment in meaningful ways.
Samsung managed to repackage the Fold 7 in a form factor smaller than before – and with it claims to be one of the thinnest if not the thinnest foldable on sale in the United States. The Fold 6 measured 12.1mm folded. Measuring at 8.9mm when folded, the Fold 7 takes a massive step forward, rivaling even the non-folding 8.25mm thick iPhone 16 Pro. However, S Pen support and a bigger battery are casualties of this war against width, though I’d argue that the former is not a priority for a phone that can fold in half. Battery life, too, may not be impacted much due to the new Snapdragon 8 Elite chip that lives inside. Other dimensions grow larger: the Fold 7’s cover panel measuring 6.5 inches at 2520 x 1080p versus the 6.3 inch 968 x 2376p display atop its predecessor and the interior screen is now a full 8 inches across. Gone is the under-display inner camera, replaced with a back-to-basics hole-punch camera with a 10-megapixel sensor. The loss of the under-display tech may seem like a step back, but Samsung struggled to get quality images from that sensor due to the limitations that arrangement entails. Image quality should be the main focus anyway, as the interior screen is probably the one being used for video calling, so I’m okay with Samsung shelving the under-display camera until it can be iterated on. The main camera out back is a 200 mega-pixel set up which signals a step up in camera performance, something prior Folds have struggled with.
The bad news is that these upgrades come at a cost. Samsung was able to keep the Fold’s pricing as stagnant as the phones themselves, but in this new landscape of rising component costs and undulating tariffs, the new Fold 7 will set buyers back just about $2000, with pricing going up from there depending on configuration. The silver lining is that Samsung is usually generous with initial trade-in offers and carriers too offer incentives for upgrading.
Whether that cost is worth having the slimmest, most capable folding phone remains to be seen, especially with the rumored folding iPhone expected to be announced within the next year. For now, at least Samsung has finally gotten off the bench and taken another swing at a home run.
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