At the recent Galaxy Unpacked event in July, Samsung unveiled its middle-year refresh for its foldable lineup of phones. The Z Flip 5 got a much larger cover screen, a more efficient chip, and a larger battery. The Fold 5 was a much more iterative launch, with most changes centering around a slight crease and hinge mechanism improvement.
The new waterdrop style hinge doesn’t allow the screen to fold in a V shape, but it rests in a semi U-shape. This reduces the crease’s visibility and allows the phone to fold flat. This is a major durability improvement and also makes dust resistance better.
However, not much else has changed on the Z Fold 5 except the chip, and the Fold has remained extremely iterative since the Z Fold 3. If you expect a radical difference overall, you might want to wait until next year for a new foldable purchase.
According to several rumors from @asbytofficial/Twitter (Now X), Samsung’s foldable for 2024 will bring massive design changes. There are two ways to design a foldable phone; both have different target audiences. A taller cover display makes one-hand use easier and expands into a larger screen when unfolded. However, this makes the aspect ratio weird, and apps on the cover screen look crummy and severely lack optimization.
Another way is similar to the Google Pixel Fold and the Oppo Find N2. The cover screen is much shorter, and the overall aspect ratio resembles a typical slab phone. This isn’t as usable with one, though, and the phone is much more compact overall, even when unfolded.
There’s no objectively correct approach to this. However, new rumors say the Z Fold 6 will feature a shorter outer screen. This will make the aspect ratio more comfortable for apps, and the overall phone will shrink in size. There are more notable changes, mainly including an S Pen slot internally.
The point of open-book style foldable phones is productivity and multitasking, out of which note-taking is also a major feature. While the current Fold also supports the S Pen, it isn’t included inside. The Fold 6 adding the S Pen internally will be a major upgrade. The cover screen also appears to have slimmer bezels and a possible under-display camera.
The phone still folds fully flat, so it’ll stick to the waterdrop-style hinge design. It’s worth noting that it’s just one of the concepts for the Z Fold 6, and there’s plenty of time for Samsung to finalize a design for this phone. According to the original source, this photo was taken at an R&D Samsung lab in South Korea.
Since it isn’t an official design and it’s too early to speculate, we don’t recommend taking this too seriously, though it does give us good insight into Samsung’s plans for the Fold lineup. We’re yet to hear about any camera improvements, which aren’t very impressive on the current Fold.
