Comparison between the Samsung Galaxy Fold6 and the Galaxy Fold5

If you're considering buying this year's Samsung Galaxy Z Fold6, you're probably wondering whether the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold5 might be the smarter choice. Some might appreciate the improvements, while others might prefer to save money with the older model, as both offer essentially the same foldable smartphone experience.

So how much better is the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold6 to deserve its higher price tag? Let’s take a closer look.

Table of contents:

To get started, you can compare the full spec sheets or continue directly with our editor's review in the following text.

Size comparison

Samsung has managed to make the Galaxy Z Fold6 noticeably more compact than its predecessor. The designers have reduced the screen size by one or two millimeters without sacrificing the screen diagonal. Even better, the cover screen is now larger, but we'll get to that later.

The hinge is also a bit smaller now, giving the device a more compact feel when used folded. The sharp corners of the frame may not be to everyone's taste, but others find them useful for a more secure grip.

The Z Fold6 is also supposed to be better built. Samsung is marketing a “reinforced aluminum” frame that’s stronger than last year’s. The new material and hinge are likely why the Fold6 is lighter.

And while last year's Z Fold6 only had water protection (IPX8), the Fold6's design now offers full ingress protection – IP48. The “4” in the rating means the device is protected against particles larger than 1mm. To be honest, that's not very impressive, since most dust particles are smaller than 1mm. But hey, we guess sand should be kept at bay now.

Display comparison

Despite what the spec sheet might lead you to believe, the Fold6 brings a lot of improvements to the display. And we're not talking about the aspect ratio of the internal display. That's hardly a noticeable change. The new Z Fold6 uses a brighter LTPO panel with a variable refresh rate.

The new Fold comfortably reaches 1,600 nitswhich is considerably more than the less than 1,300 nits Z Fold5. The Fold6's outer panel is also much brighter, going beyond 1,500 nitswhile the Z Fold5 makes do with a 1,114 nits sign.

Additionally, the Z Fold6's outer display is wider, adding an extra 0.1″ to the diagonal. It's not perfect, but it's a bit more usable with the new aspect ratio.

Cover displays

Overall, the Z Fold6 easily wins this round thanks to its slightly wider aspect ratio, thinner bezels, and of course, brighter displays.

Battery life

In our battery endurance tests on the internal display, the Z Fold6 performed similarly to last year's Fold 5, except for call times where we see a bigger gap. We also observed shorter call times with the Flip, so we assume the new modem is to blame.

Things improved slightly for the new model when we ran the tests on the new display, as web browsing and video playback times improved. Still, the overall active usage score remained similar.

Loading speed

And just like battery life, the new model is slightly slower to charge than the old one. And that's after several retests to get the best possible speeds (our original test results for the Fold6 review were even lower). The Fold5 is a few percentage points faster at the 15 and 30 minute mark, and also reaches 100% a few minutes faster.

And we're not even going to suggest that the Z Fold5 is a charging speed champion, but seeing the numbers drop over a generation (not to mention being so inconsistent from charge to charge) for no apparent reason is disappointing.

Speaker Test

While the Fold6 is slightly less loud than the Fold5, the former sounds noticeably better than its predecessor. The Z Fold6 has a warmer, deeper sound, while the Fold5 just sounds flat in comparison. We'd definitely choose the Z Fold6 over last year's Fold.

Performance

As usual, the new generation of Folds is powered by Qualcomm’s latest flagship SoC, which promises better performance and improved efficiency. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 powers the Z Fold6, succeeding the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 in the Z Fold5. Both phones use the special “For Galaxy” versions of the chipsets, which means the main core of the processor is slightly overclocked.

Memory options remain unchanged from the Z Fold5. Both devices offer the 12GB/256GB memory configuration as standard, but you can choose between 512GB or 1TB. UFS 4.0 is the storage standard in both cases.

Benchmark performance

According to synthetic benchmarks, the Z Fold6 is about 25% faster than the Z Fold5 in purely CPU-related tasks, while combined scenarios like those in AnTuTu 10 only show a gain of about 6%. In GPU-intensive workloads, the SD8 Gen 3 is only 2% faster than its predecessor inside the Z Fold5.

If we are to draw conclusions from the tests, the better performance of the Z Fold6 will probably not be felt by the majority of users. Especially if you plan on playing games, both devices seem to perform very similarly.

Camera comparison

Both devices share the exact same camera hardware. There are no changes. The 50MP f/1.8 main camera still does the heavy lifting and is joined by a 10MP f/2.4 telephoto camera with 3x optical zoom and a 12MP f/2.2 ultra-wide camera with 123-degree field of view.

The two selfie cameras also remain unchanged: a 4MP f/1.8 under-display camera for the inner display and a 10MP f/2.2 unit in its own cutout in the cover display.

Image quality

Despite having the same hardware, the two devices deliver slightly different photos thanks to their three rear cameras. That's because Samsung has changed its approach to post-processing, opting for slightly less saturated colors and using less sharpening.

Samsung Z Fold6: 0.6x • 1x • 2x • 3x

Samsung Z Fold5: 0.6x • 1x • 2x • 3x

You can see that the Z Fold5's main camera resolves fine details, like grass, a little better than the Z Fold6 due to the added sharpening, but otherwise the Z Fold6's photos are cleaner, without noise or artifacts.

The Z Fold6's 2x (digital zoom) photos are better, however, as they are considerably less noisy.

The Z Fold6's ultra-wide camera produces overall better-looking images: more detail, better contrast, more balanced HDR. Colors are more vibrant, too.

And finally, the 3x camera rendering is similar, but the Z Fold6's 3x zoom photos are again sharper and less blurry, if you will.

We also noticed some noticeable differences in nighttime post-processing. The Fold6 takes a more balanced and natural approach to Night mode. It sacrifices some fine detail in the shadows, but eliminates noise. The Fold5’s extra sharpening and overly bright shadows make still images look rendered, even artificial.

Samsung Z Fold6: 0.6x • 1x • 2x • 3x

Samsung Z Fold5: 0.6x • 1x • 2x • 3x

The observations are true for the auxiliary cameras, although the difference between the two devices is smaller. In fact, the 2x zoom crops look identical.

Video quality

It seems like Samsung hasn't messed around too much with video processing. We struggle to find a difference between the two 4K footage with the main cameras. The Z Fold5 does offer a stronger contrast, though.

The same can be said for 3x, ultra-wide and low-light footage.

Samsung Z Fold6: 0.6x • 1x • 3x • 1x

Samsung Z Fold5: 0.6x • 1x • 3x • 1x

Verdict

As you can see, it's possible to get confused when comparing the specs of just two devices. While the Galaxy Z Fold6 and Z Fold5 are very similar, they're competing in different areas, and the results aren't always in favor of the latter model.

The Galaxy Z Fold5 has slightly better battery life, slightly louder speakers, it's slightly faster to charge, and some may find the camera processing more enjoyable.

On the other hand, the Z Fold6's screens are better now, the sound quality of the speakers has improved, and it runs on a slightly faster and newer chipset. Plus, you get three more years of major OS updates, considering that it's already been a full year since the Z Fold5 was released and it's promised four years to start.

That being said, it is understandable that some users do not justify a price difference of €250 between the Z Fold6 and the Z Fold5. And this price gap could well be the deciding factor.