Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 Review: Small Upgrades, Fun Little Phone

Every year, Samsung comes up with a new flip phone. This year, it’s the Galaxy Z Flip 6. Unveiled on July 10, 2024, globally, the Galaxy Z Flip 6 was launched in Nepal on July 17, 2024, alongside the Galaxy Z Fold 6, Galaxy Buds 3, and Galaxy Buds 3 Pro.

Priced at Rs. 1,54,999 (12/256GB), the Galaxy Z Flip 6 succeeds the Galaxy Z Flip 5, which was launched for Rs. 1,39,999 (8/256GB). What are the changes? Well, the changes are not that much. The design is almost identical. The notable changes include a new 50MP main camera, a larger 4000mAh battery, and a bigger 12GB RAM.

And of course, what flagship is it if it has no new processor? It comes with the latest Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip, and for the first time, a vapor chamber on a Galaxy Z Flip.

And most importantly, it’s 2024, how can we forget the AI? The Z Flip 6 is powered by Galaxy AI. And there are some exclusive Galaxy AI features as well that no other Samsung device has yet, except for the Z Fold 6.

Anyway, maybe I am focusing too much on what’s new only and not answering what you came here for, i.e., how is this phone in general and should you buy it?

I’m Pranish Khadgi, and I will answer this in my Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 review.

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Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 Review

Galaxy AI

Let’s start with the Galaxy AI; what are the new features and what do they do? First introduced in the Galaxy S24 series, the Galaxy AI has reached the foldable as well. The most interesting to me is the new “sketch to image” feature.

The sketch-to-image feature allows me to draw anything on a photo and convert them into photorealistic images. This feature is so good and fun.

You can also create a variety of different portrait styles from the Gallery app using the Portrait Studio feature. Portrait Studio is currently only available in Z Fold 6 and Z Flip 6. It will soon be available on other Galaxy devices with the One UI 6.1.1 update.

The Portrait Studio lets you transform pictures of people into a wide range of artistic styles including comic, 3D cartoon, watercolor, and sketch. The results were not that accurate so, I’m not as impressed with this as was with the sketch-to-image feature.

Additionally, the Live Translate feature now supports third-party applications such as WhatsApp, Meet, and Instagram. The feature uses on-device AI to translate phone calls. Sadly, the Nepali language is still unavailable.

One another unique feature is the Interpreter’s use of FlexWindow, the 3.4-inch cover screen. The interpreter uses on-device AI to translate spoken language for face-to-face conversation. Now, with the Z Flip 6, the live translation will be shown on the main and cover screens for both parties to conveniently view.

These are the new features in the Galaxy AI of the Z Flip 6. We’ve already seen the rest of the features on the Galaxy S24 series including Google’s circle to search, instant slow-mo, note assist, browsing assist, and generative fill.

The instant slow-mo is my favorite. Using AI-powered frame generation, it turns any video into slow-motion video simply by long-pressing the video.

Design

• Folded: 85.1 x 71.9 x 14.9 mm
• Unfolded: 165.1 x 71.9 x 6.9 mm
• 187 g
• IP48 water-resistant

Talking about the design changes, the crease of the Z Flip 6 has been improved. It is now less noticeable than before, though it is not entirely gone. It is present, but I quickly got used to it, and it did not bother me.

The frame of the phone is now flat, matching the Galaxy S24 series, and it also has a matte finish — previously, it was glossy. The phone is slightly smaller by 0.2mm when folded, but otherwise, the dimensions are the same as before.

The ingress protection has been improved to an IP48 rating from IPX8. However, the IP48 rating is still not dust-resistant; the “4” in the rating only means the phone is safe from solid particles larger than 1mm.

Otherwise, the overall design of the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 remains the same.

It is still a very compact, clamshell phone, and I love how pocketable it is.

Display

• 6.5 inches Super AMOLED
• 1080 x 2340 pixels
• 120Hz refresh rate
• 1000 nits (peak)

The inside features a foldable display, while the outer display is protected by Gorilla Glass Victus 2. The screen sizes are the same as before. The 60Hz Super AMOLED cover screen measures 3.4 inches with a resolution of 720 x 748 pixels.

I love using the cover screen for simple tasks like checking notifications and playing or pausing music. The cover screen can also show widgets, allowing you to glance at the weather, view your calendar, and quickly access the clock and calculator.

You can also use apps on the cover screen, though they are very limited. You can only use Maps, Messages, Netflix, YouTube, and WhatsApp. I know there is a way to use any app on it, which requires the Good Lock app. Unfortunately, it’s unavailable in Nepal. Yes, you can use VPNs to install it, but that’s too much of a hassle for the average user. Anyway, the cover screen is fun to use.

The main foldable display is a 6.7-inch Full HD+ Dynamic AMOLED 2X panel. Because it’s an LTPO panel, the display can dynamically adjust the refresh rate from 1Hz to 120Hz.

The screen is now brighter than before, with a peak brightness of 2600 nits. The outer screen is not as bright but offers 1600 nits of full-screen brightness under HBM. The phone is usable outdoors, but the cover screen cannot match the main display’s brightness.

Performance

• Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 (4 nm)
• Octa-core (1×3.3 GHz Cortex-X4 & 3×3.2 GHz Cortex-A720 & 2×3.0 GHz Cortex-A720 & 2×2.3 GHz Cortex-A520)
• Adreno 750
• 256GB 12GB RAM, UFS 4.0

The Z Flip 6 features the latest Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset, which is also used in the Galaxy S24 series. Since the performance of the SD 8 Gen 2-powered Z Flip 5 was already impressive, it’s only natural that the 8 Gen 3 would be even more powerful.

Apart from the chipset, there are other performance improvements as well. The RAM has been upgraded from 8GB to 12GB, though the 256GB storage remains the same. Additionally, to address the heating issue on the Z Flip 5, Samsung has included a vapor chamber for the first time in its flip phone.

This should have improved sustained performance; unfortunately, that’s not the case. I conducted some CPU throttling tests, where performance dropped to 45 percent, which is bad.

However, in real-life usage, I never faced any performance issues. Everything I did with the phone was fast, smooth, and very responsive.

While the vapor chamber may have helped with the thermals of the Z Flip 6, the phone still gets extremely hot.

Not the entire phone, but the cover screen part becomes uncomfortably hot even after a short period of use. During gaming, I measured temperatures up to 46 degrees Celsius using a thermometer.

Gaming

I tried playing PUBG Mobile on it. I was expecting the phone to support up to 120fps, but the Z Flip 6 only allows up to 90fps (Extreme+), which is still impressive but not quite at the true flagship level.

The gameplay is very smooth. I was getting an average of 83fps, and I did not notice any frame drops during an entire game on the Erangel map.

Similarly, I played Genshin Impact for around an hour. By default, the graphics are set to High, but I tested it by setting the graphics to the Highest with 60fps.

In these settings, I got an average of 52fps. The frame rate fluctuated between 40 and 60fps but stayed around 60 most of the time. After 40 minutes of gameplay, for around 10 minutes, the frame rate dipped, ranging between 35 and 50fps, but after that, it returned to 60fps.

Camera

• Rear Camera: 50 MP, f/1.8, 23mm (main), 1.0µm, dual pixel PDAF, OIS
  • 12 MP, f/2.2, 123˚ (ultrawide), 1.12µm

• Front Camera: 10 MP, f/2.2, 23mm (wide), 1.22µm

Another change is the main camera on the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6. The new 50MP main camera replaces the 12MP one.

The 12MP ultrawide camera and 10MP selfie camera remain the same, and the telephoto is still not present, which I miss.

FlexCam

The selfie capability of the Z Flip 6 is its strength. Not necessarily because the front camera on the inside display is good, but because it’s a flip phone and you can use the superior rear cameras to take the selfies.

The compact form factor of the flip phone makes it so easy to a selfie with the rear camera. Plus, be it a group selfie or you want to show the view, the ultrawide selfie is perfect for both.

Moreover, the FlexCam, Samsung’s name for the ability to take hands-free photos from the Z Flip phones, is very useful and gives a unique perspective.

Main Camera

When it comes to the actual quality of the camera, the Flip 6 will satisfy a lot of users. It captures pleasing pictures most of the time, with natural colors and good detail. The dynamic range is also impressive.

The details in the photos are not over-sharpened like Samsung used to do, making the pictures and faces look more natural. Although photographers may prefer this, not everyone likes it.

Because the Z Flip 6 has a higher-resolution 50MP camera, the digital zoom has also been improved. It now has less noise and retains good detail even at 10x zoom.

The phone lets you take portrait photos at 2x zoom, and it does a solid job of detecting the subject and applying a natural-looking blur to the background. There are some instances when it failed to properly detect the glass worn by the subject. However, the portrait photos still look impressive.

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Ultrawide Camera

The ultrawide camera matches the color accuracy of the main camera, which is good. The detail is comparable to that of the main camera.

I love using the ultrawide camera to take group selfies from the phone’s cover screen; the images have pleasing face tones and a great dynamic range.

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Front Camera

I just realized that I didn’t use the front camera on the Flip 6 as much as I do with other phones. The reason is that whenever I needed to use the front camera, I preferred using the rear camera via the cover screen. So, you could say that the Flip 6 is actually better than non-foldable flagships for selfies.

One complaint is that the aspect ratio of the photos taken from the cover screen is almost square.

Anyway, if you’re curious about the actual front camera on the Z Flip 6, it’s also good. It captures decent detail and vibrant colors.

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Videos

• 4K@30/60fps

Unlike the Z Fold 6, the Z Flip 6 cannot shoot 8K videos, but I don’t think you’re missing out on much. You still get excellent 4K video at both 60fps and 30fps from all of its cameras.

The stabilization capabilities of the main camera are great; the footage is smooth. The video quality is also good, with natural colors and a wide dynamic range, though the level of detail seems slightly lacking.

The zoomed video quality is also impressive, considering the phone has no telephoto lens.

Battery

• 4000mAh
• 25W charging

Samsung has improved the battery on the Flip 6. It now has a larger 4000mAh battery combined with the more efficient Snapdragon 8 Gen 3.

However, it is still small compared to the battery capacity of other regular non-foldables, which normally have 5000mAh. It is understandable though, since the Flip 6 is a relatively small phone and needs to be folded in half.

When it comes to actual battery life, the phone may last you a day on a single charge if you’re a light user. But if you use the phone intensely, you will need to charge the phone before the day ends. So, battery life on the Z Flip 6 is still its weak point.

When you need to charge the phone, the Z Flip 6 supports 25W fast charging, which is slower than the S24’s 45W. You also need to purchase the Samsung charger (or any other USB PD PPS-supported charger) separately as it is not in the box.

The charging takes around 1.5 hours to go from zero to a hundred percent.

Software

• Android 14
• One UI 6
• 7 years of OS upgrades

Out of the box, the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 comes with Android 14-based One UI 6.1.1. Samsung has promised to provide seven years of major software updates and security patches.

The features available on the cover screen are quite limited. The UI feels like the cover screen is a large smartwatch. Swiping right lets you view widgets and apps if you have enabled them. Similarly, the top swipe brings up quick settings, while swiping left reveals notifications.

Unfolding the phone offers the same One UI experience you find on other high-end Galaxy devices. Yes, there are some Flip-exclusive features, like when you bend the phone, you can tap the icon that appears to turn one-half of the screen into a touchpad with additional controls. It’s a cool feature that lets you use the phone like a PC, but I didn’t use it much.

The edge panel is useful for quickly opening apps, and it’s also convenient for quickly launching the Sketch to image tool.

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So, this is my Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 5G review. What do you think about the phone? If you have any questions, please let me know in the comments!