The Fold6, despite having a slightly larger 4,400 mAh battery, has a significantly larger screen relative to the battery, so my battery experience was about the same. A full day of moderate use (maybe a little more) or more heavy use (i.e. watching a lot of Instagram reels) will likely require a recharge in the evening, especially if you use the 7.6-inch screen a lot. I was able to get two days of use with minimal use. It’s nice to have the option to expand the screen space at will.
I do a lot of work with split screen apps and prefer the larger view in some apps that take advantage of the larger screen. There is still a crease in the middle, but that doesn’t cause me much of a problem. It do It annoys me because I have to rotate my phone to landscape mode to get the much nicer two-pane view in Gmail (where I can see my email list on the left and the email content on the right). I know this isn’t Samsung’s fault, but there’s a lot of collaboration between the two companies and I wish this was fixed by now.
Other annoyances? I’m no longer a fan of the side-mounted fingerprint sensors on these phones. I’ve gotten used to the in-screen sensor, which is easier to reach with whichever hand I’m holding the phone in, but the capacitive sensor on the side often requires me to switch grips or use my other hand to unlock. (It’s a minor quibble, but hey, we’re six years in!)
The cameras are now closer to what you get on the Galaxy S24 series, and they’re pretty great. I rarely complain about the photos I take, although I do wish Samsung had crammed a longer telephoto zoom camera in here, like the 5X optical zoom on the Galaxy S24 Ultra. Still, I DO like the addition of Camcorder Mode on the Flip6—launch the camera, switch to video mode, and position the fold at a 90-degree angle and tilt it sideways in your hand as if you were holding a camcorder. I found it easier to shoot and access on-screen controls with one hand and get steady footage.
Photo: Julian Chokkattu
Photo: Julian Chokkattu
The number-one camera feature remains the same: You can see your preview on the external display of any of these phones, allowing you to take hands-free travel selfies in front of a subject without handing your phone to a stranger. As I was setting up the Flip6 to take a photo in front of the Eiffel Tower, another tourist asked if I wanted her to take the photo. I said no thanks; she saw the Flip6 leaning toward me and said, “Oh, is that a flip phone? That’s smart.” Indeed.
This is a great travel companion, especially with the new update to Samsung’s Interpreter mode. Turn it on and you can fold the display to translate your words into text on the outer display for the other person to see. They can tap a button on the outer display to start speaking, and their translated words will pop up on the inner display. It works well enough to use when you’re in optimal noise conditions and people are speaking fairly clearly, although you’ll still have to get over the awkwardness of gesturing at first to figure out how the whole process works.
AI Tax
Much of what’s new on the Fold6 and Flip6 is AI GalaxyThe wave of AI features Samsung first debuted on the Galaxy S24 series. I rarely found myself needing to use most of them, but some were handy, like the Voice Recorder app, which does a pretty good job of transcribing recordings (though not as fast as Google Recorder on Pixel phones). Even more impressive, it can translate those notes into other languages.
Photo: Julian Chokkattu via Portrait Studio app
