Look, fun is fun and all, but sometimes boredom is better.
A foldable phone that oozes nostalgia, comes in flashy colors, and lets you run apps at will on the cover display? With attractive wallpapers and fun UI touches? That's fun. It's not the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 either. But while I thoroughly enjoyed using the Motorola Razr Plus, the fun Foldable phone: reliability triumphs in the end.
Samsung’s new clamshell foldable phone is a slight update to last year’s model. It costs $1,099 — a hundred dollars more than last year, but also the same as what flagship phones cost today. The internal and external displays get a little brighter in direct sunlight, there’s a slightly larger battery, and there’s an improved main camera — plus Qualcomm’s latest chipset, naturally.
That paragraph could describe any number of new Android phones this year. And in the case of the Z Flip 6, it’s actually a good indication of how far Samsung’s foldable phone has come. Last year’s upgrade from a tiny cover display to the current 3.4-inch OLED took the Flip series from “eh, this is pretty cool” to “okay, this is something.” It’s a far cry from Samsung’s early efforts.
But the Z Flip 6 hasn't quite reached parity with tablet-style phones; it's certainly not the most fun foldable phone. Sure, it's the best. Samsung Foldable phone: I just wish it would borrow some ideas from some of the competitors.
If you'd never owned the Motorola Razr Plus, you'd think the Z Flip 6's exterior display was pretty good. But the Razr's larger, higher-resolution screen completely wraps around the holes for the lenses and flash. This makes the Flip 6's cover display, which stays pretty far away from that entire area, look dull and cramped by comparison.
And don't obsess too much about it wallpapers, But Samsung's best idea for the new outer screen wallpapers is… a donut that bounces when your phone moves? There are so many more fun things you can do with this! Moto's wallpapers are colorful and attractive, there's an adorable turntable that spins when you're playing audio, and I swear one of the background options is blurry. The Z Flip 6 comes with an always-on display this time around, but it lacks the sense of fun you'd expect from a flip phone. Motorola has a mode that tech/mobile/how-to-transform-new-moto-razr-into-the-original-with-retro-razr-mode/”>Turn your entire phone into a retro flip phoneFor the love of God, let's live a little.
The Flip 6’s home screen is a bit more customizable than last year’s, which limited you to swiping through a bunch of full-screen widgets. Now, it’s more like a traditional home screen. You can still opt for one full-screen widget or add multiple smaller widgets to the same panel. The result feels much more streamlined; I don’t have to dedicate an entire panel to a timer; I can just add it as a smaller widget on a screen with weather info and my calendar.
And as much as I liked the fun touch of the Motorola Cover Screen, Samsung's widgets are more reliable. In particular, the Spotify panel on the Razr Plus' Cover Screen needs to be refreshed often before it works. The Z Flip 6's Spotify controls work flawlessly. There's only so much fun to be had.
Still, Motorola's method for approving apps to run on the Cover Screen is much better than Samsung's. Out of the box, Samsung will only let you run a handful of full-featured apps on the small screen. To add others, you have to go through a complicated process: downloading Good Lock and another module from the Galaxy Store, then adding a launcher as a Cover Screen widget. Motorola doesn't require any of that complication.
This is worth complaining about because I still think being able to run a full app on the outer screen is one of the best things about a flip phone. Is it an ideal experience to open Strava on a tiny square? No! But I can tap, say, two things to start recording a bike ride without having to come face to face with everything else on my phone. It’s glorious.
Typing messages on the small screen keyboard is still a bit ridiculous, but it's another feature I appreciate about a foldable phone, even if it's an objectively worse user experience. It's perfect for when I'm in the middle of something and want to send a short response to a text. As an alternative to tapping those tiny keys, Samsung uses ai to suggest some responses based on previous messages in your thread. As with many generative AIs, the responses seem almost They are normal but never completely correct.
Processing speed? Connectivity? Mouthfeel?
This is the part of the review where I would normally tell you about a lot of other things, like performance and display quality, but you know what? They’re all good. It’s 2024 and it’s hard to buy a bad phone at the flagship level. The internal display? Fine. The crease is still there, but it’s not really noticeable when you look at the phone head-on and it never bothered me much. Processing speed? Connectivity? Mouthfeel? I joke about that last one. But they’re all good.
Even the battery life is good, which is an achievement compared to foldable phones from just a few years ago. The Z Flip 6 will last a full day of intensive use, but it will run out of juice by bedtime. There are plenty of other $1,000 phones with better battery life, starting with Samsung’s Galaxy S24 Plus. If top-notch battery life is a priority, then a foldable phone may not be for you.
If sand gets into the crease, it’s going to ruin your day, and the same goes for a foldable phone. The Flip 6 has an IP48 rating, which means it’s fully waterproof, but God help you if that hinge so much as sucks up a grain of sand. That “4” looks a lot better than the Razr Plus’ nonexistent dust rating, but it just means the phone is protected against foreign objects larger than 1mm. That said, I’ve been pretty rough on my Z Flip 6 test unit over the past week. It’s survived being tossed into the bottom of a few dusty bags, but I can’t say how well it would hold up to years of that kind of abuse.
Foldable phone cameras are catching up to slab phones, too. This year, Samsung has addressed that problem by upgrading the Z Flip 6’s main camera sensor to a 50-megapixel sensor. Image quality seems as good as any flagship phone’s, though there’s no telephoto lens if you want to get close to your subject — just digital zoom and a secondary ultra-wide camera. Motorola went in the opposite direction with the Razr Plus, swapping out its ultra-wide for a 2x telephoto lens. It’s a good move in theory if you like taking portraits more than panoramic landscapes, but Motorola’s overall image processing isn’t as good as Samsung’s. Samsung phones really do take the best portrait photos, and the Z Flip 6 is no exception.
Samsung is working hard to sell the idea that foldable phones work just as well as any other phone, and Didn't you see those Olympic athletes taking pictures with one?Don’t you want that too? But while there are things to love about the Z Flip 6, it’s still not a phone I’d recommend to anyone. Everyday durability is fine, but it’s still unclear how it will hold up against dust over the long term. The Z Flip 6 does have a 12-month warranty when you buy it from Samsung in the US, but it doesn’t cover damage caused by exposure to dust.
The Galaxy Z Flip 6 makes sense if In fact If you want the benefits of the cover screen, not so much if you find the novelty appealing. You can easily find better battery life and cameras in a conventional phone. The Moto Razr Plus is more fun. But if you're sold on the idea of a foldable phone, Samsung's slow and steady approach is your best bet.
I find the outer display incredibly useful, and while Samsung’s UI is a little unimaginative, it works consistently, unlike Moto’s. Likewise, Samsung’s track record with software support is excellent: flagship phones receive timely updates, and the Z Flip 6 will continue to receive OS updates for seven years. Motorola makes a lovely flip phone, but it comes with just four years of software support, and new OS updates can be slow to arrive.
Software updates, reliability, and camera processing: Not the most fun stuff, but in this case, boring can be better.
Photograph by Allison Johnson/The Verge
