Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 Review- It's Never Too Late To Start Trying

True facts. When I first went hands-on with the Galaxy Fold 7, it was an accident. I was in Samsung's media space and I reached for my Fold 6 to check my shot list and accidentally grabbed the Fold 7 instead. And involuntarily, right in the middle of everybody, I went, oh what the f**k? Because that's how light and thin the Fold 7 felt in the hand. It was, for a moment, genuinely mind-blowing. Now you're gonna say, but Mr. Mobile, you've handled foldables just as light and just as thin before. And you're right. But I had to end almost all of those reviews by saying, sadly, you can't buy it in America. This is the Galaxy Fold 7. It's a tablet that shrinks down into a phone. It's a laptop that fits into four pockets. And it's the most exciting Samsung in half a decade. As I've said many times, foldables are the one phone category where light and thin still matter. And the Fold 7 doesn't just accomplish light and thin. It sets a new standard. I don't even need to tell you the dimensions because you can see them for yourself. And for the same reason, I barely need to give voice to Samsung's renewed embrace of color. But I will, because it's such a delight to see a bold, beautiful, iridescent finish like blue shadow join the tamer options. With its squared-off corners, it reminds me of the old HTC 8X Windows phone. And if that means nothing to you, well, you can still appreciate the 21 by 9 aspect ratio that makes this the first global Galaxy Fold to feel like a normal phone when it's closed. Still narrow enough to reach across the screen, but wide enough to type on. Goldilocks. Now, oddly, Samsung finally giving everyone what they've been asking for has led some to ask whether this new usable cover screen renders the inner screen less useful. Yeah, no. All it means is that when you have one hand, you can do phone things, and when you've got two hands, you can do tablet things. Review PDFs without all the pinching and zooming. I've been scouring a lot of contracts recently, so this has been really handy for that. Read books without scrolling them like there's some godforsaken TikTok. And run two or more apps side-by-side. I know, this is one of those parlor tricks that's been demoed to death, so here's how I do that in real life. Cross-shopping Uber and Lyft prices. Making to-do lists based on my memos. Checking public transit times while navigating to my next destination. And, sadly, rotting my brain at twice the speed with two social media feeds at once. My kingdom for an excuse to do another Light Phone video. Speaking of videos, some folks have said to me in the comments that foldables can't play full-screen videos without letterboxing, so doesn't that mean they're no better than regular phones? Hell is wrong with them. I already took this argument apart in my review of the Oppo Find N5, which I encourage you to watch if your field trip to a nuclear-powered ship is up your alley. But TLDR, foldables are more than just screens for videos, and even if you watch a lot of videos, they're still better than any slab. First, they've got their own kickstand, so you don't need to prop up your phone on a cup to go hands-free. And second, well, multitasking again. You can do something else on the bottom half, like scroll the comments while you're watching. Oh, and it's handy for video production, too. The cover screen is still functional when the phone is open, so you can throw your script alongside your viewfinder, giving you a teleprompter while you shoot with the high-quality main camera instead of the fuzzy FFC. That's how I got the walk and talk that opened this video. And, by the way, it was Samsung Audio Eraser that helped me clean it up so you could hear me over the din of the Oculus. Speaking of the cameras, they rest on a truly prodigious plinth that makes this one of the wobbliest phones ever precariously perched on a tabletop. But in exchange, you get a 200-megapixel primary sensor, the same resolution as the flagship S25 Ultra, alongside more typical telephoto and ultrawide options. And after four straight review videos shooting camera samples on the road, I hope you don't mind that I stuck close to home to capture these shots in my very own hot-town summer in the city, scanning for lifeforms in the Gowanus Canal, absorbing the Poster House Museum's exhibition on Atomic Age propaganda, visiting the tragically uncelebrated sidewalk site of the very first mobile phone call in the world, and poking holes in the far-flung corners of Red Hook and Harlem alike. Oh, and right, I did travel a little, visiting family for a weekend in Florida, which let me test the slow-motion video performance while waiting in a pool without fear, thanks to the Fold's IP48 rating. Also, for that matter, don't have to be afraid of coffee spills. Actual thing that just happened, and for once I can't blame him. This was all me. Yes, I did have some complaints. A camera module this massive would seem to leave room for a 5x telephoto instead of the included 3x, a difference you can see when you put the Fold up against the iPhone 16 Pro. And I seem to be in the minority who misses the hidden under-display camera on the inner screen. While the conventional hole punch does make for a clearer image, if you're using this inner camera for anything more than a video call, to me you're missing the point. There's a selfie camera on the cover already that's easier to use, and I've already said you should be using the main cameras for the majority of your selfies anyway. I was at first dubious, but I came to appreciate the uninterrupted inner canvas the hidden camera made possible. It used to set Samsung apart. So it goes. Oh, and speaking of deleted differentiators, hope you didn't like using the S Pen on the Fold because it's gone. This one I came to terms with over a year ago once I became convinced that Samsung would never integrate the stylus directly into the phone. It would always force you to use a clever but clunky case, which I was just never gonna do. I understand the blowback, and if you're an S Pen user who's not gonna upgrade because of this, I am not saying you're wrong. I'm just saying that I personally have moved on, and obviously Samsung's sales data indicates to them that I'm not alone. Samsung reallocated the space it saved from ditching the digitizer to make the folding screen stronger with thicker glass, stronger glue, and a new titanium matrix underneath, all of which work together to give it a new lifetime rating of 500,000 folds, and should help protect it even further against impact damage, which if you watched my Galaxy Flip 7 review, you'll know isn't as big a hazard as many people still fear. And it also just fell off this thing onto here, so it bounced over all the way over here. Let's see how well it did. Ooh, cat hair I gotta pick up. How you doing? Dirty. Dirty but undamaged outside and inside. Okay. Oh, there's the, there's the impact point right there. God, slippery little devils. Was it you tugboat? Don't eat gaff tape. Stop that. Stop that. Now, that redesign didn't totally delete the crease, but it's better than it's ever been, and it's still not noticeable when you're actually using the phone. And that bigger eight-inch display means this is better than ever at being a four-pocket laptop, which I first demoed on the Galaxy Fold 3 way back when, and which I fully admit is a total stunt. I almost never use it this way. But every time I do, I feel like we get a little closer to something like this actually being tenable, because Android keeps getting more useful with physical keyboards, those keyboards keep getting more diverse, and they and the phones they support keep getting thinner and lighter. When I pop the Fold 7 in my pocket, it just feels like a normal phone. I know you've heard it a billion times already. I had to say it again, because it's true. Now, if you think that means that phones like this don't last as long, well, that's not always true. That Oppo Find N5 used new silicon carbon batteries to deliver larger capacity and longer runtimes in a frame that's almost the same thickness as Fold 7. Samsung, though, stuck with lithium-ion, a more proven technology, but also less performant, at least in the short term. Now, the Fold 7 is adequate in endurance, always seeing me to the end of a moderate day, but with very little margin to spare. And keep in mind, this is the best this battery is ever gonna be, right at the start of its lifetime. When I turn up the usage to a heavy day, I need to charge before dinner, and charging is nowhere near as super-fast as Samsung's branding declares. That's a low note to end on, but it's not enough to sour me on the Fold 7. By all indications, Google's not gonna blow us away with much hardware innovation in the upcoming Pixel 10 Fold, and it's also a pretty safe bet the US won't be opening itself to more competitive Chinese foldables anytime soon. That leaves Samsung as the manufacturer most likely to ship foldables in significant volumes, and unlike the past few years, that's not a downer. Because the Fold 7 can at worst stand toe-to-toe with, and at best defeat, almost all of those global competitors, and it comes with all the bands and software features it needs to excel in North America. All that evolution means I don't bristle nearly as much as I otherwise might at the Fold 7's $2,000 price point. Look, it'll never win over the mainstream, but power users who recognize the benefits of a large-format foldable, who've been waiting for foldables to match slabs on silicon and sensors, who maybe have phones to trade in to take the sticker sting out, will definitely pay attention. And for the first time in years, that attention is well-earned. At the risk of repeating my Flip 7 sentiments, welcome back, Samsung. A thinner phone means you could case it up, but that would kinda be a waste, wouldn't it? This video is sponsored by dbrand, maker of materials that let you keep your Fold 7 svelte and scratch-free. That means easy-to-apply Prism 2.0 screen protectors for the front, and skins of all colors and materials for the back. This time around I tried out Matrix, because it was my favorite skin for the Galaxy Fold 2 way back then, but as always, at the end of the day, I once again came back to uncorrected, full-grain leather. And I can't wait to see how it ages over time. dbrand your device at the links below. This video was produced following 16 days total, and 10 days of daily use, with a Galaxy Fold 7 review sample provided by Samsung. But as always, the manufacturer had no hand in the production of it. No seeing it before publication, no approving the copy, no editorial input. The lone sponsor of this review is dbrand. Don't miss my Flip 7 review, featuring a fun jaunt to Pittsburgh to eat some pickles, and my recent appearance on the Geared Up podcast with Andrew Edwards and Jon Rettinger talking about the Fold. We're gonna wrap up the summer of Samsung next week with a review of the Galaxy Watch 8 Classic. Subscribe to theMrMobile on YouTube so you don't miss it. Until next time, from Michael Fisher, Captain Two Phones on Threads, thanks for watching, and stay mobile, my friends.