(Gadget Review) Galaxy Z Flip6, Fold6 Brings AI to Your Palm

Samsung Electronics’ latest foldable phones — the Galaxy Z Flip6 and Z Fold6 — were unveiled at the summer edition of the Galaxy Unpacked 2024 event in Paris on Wednesday, surprising audiences with their slimmer and lighter designs.

The Korea Herald had the opportunity to test the new foldable product line the day after the event in Korea.

The tech giant’s first foldable phones equipped with AI are easy to hold and fun to use, but the more you use them, the more their intelligent features become apparent.

Overall, the most important features of the new foldable phones were related to AI-powered translation and personalization.

Putting your Z Flip6 or Z Fold6 into Flex mode and activating the inner and outer screens enables real-time voice transcription and translation. The phone records the original spoken language on the bottom of the inner screen, while the translated version appears in the upper half and on the outer screen, enabling real-time conversations across language barriers.

Another interesting new feature was PDF overlay translation. Regardless of the document length, it allowed for almost instant translation of the entire text in a PDF document.

Additionally, a special AI feature exclusive to the Z Flip6 enables quick and easy replies to text messages. Using the external window feature, users can respond to KakaoTalk or regular text messages without using the keyboard or unfolding the device. Users can choose from suggested replies generated by the Galaxy AI on the device, which creates them by analyzing the content of the user’s conversation and conversation history.

The ability to display multiple widgets on my home screen that would express my mood or reflect my personality each day also seemed intriguing to me.

The vertically folded Galaxy Z Flip6 weighs 187 grams and is 14.9 millimeters thick when folded, making it thinner than its predecessors. The Z Flip5 weighs the same but is 15.1 millimeters thick. The edges have been streamlined, changing them from the previous curved design to a straight one.

There have been noticeable improvements in camera quality and battery life. Previously, there had been criticism that the image quality of foldable phones was inferior compared to the company’s flagship phones. However, this series now has a new 50-megapixel wide-angle camera and a 12-megapixel ultra-wide-angle camera, which are comparable to the latest flagship Galaxy S24.

The device is equipped with a 4000 milliampere-hour battery, while its predecessor had 3700 mAh.

The big improvement over the horizontally foldable Galaxy Z Fold6 is its portability. When folded, it’s just 12.1 millimeters thick, making it 1.3 millimeters thinner than its predecessor. It weighs 253 grams, just 7 grams heavier than the Galaxy S24 Ultra.

The Galaxy Z Flip6 and Z Fold6 will go on sale in Korea on July 24, with pre-sales starting this Friday.

The Z Flip6 is priced from 1.49 million won ($1,075) to 1.64 million won, depending on storage space, while the Z Fold6 is priced from 2.23 million won to 2.7 million won.