Is the Galaxy Z Fold 7 worth it? Samsung's latest foldable reviewed
We'll explore its design, build quality, AI and camera capabilities, performance and battery life. Whether you're shopping for the best foldable phone in Singapore or just curious about the Galaxy Z Fold 7's capabilities, this review has you covered.
DESIGN: THIN IT TO WIN IT
Like a nerd-bragging contest, smartphone manufacturers have gone to great lengths to claim the thin-and-light phone crown. The current kerfuffle over who truly makes the thinnest foldable illustrates how high the stakes are.
Practically speaking, most consumers would be hard-pressed to tell if one device is a fraction of a millimetre thinner or weighs a few grammes less than another. Many of the 2025 crop of foldables are thin and light and the Galaxy Z Fold 7 is no exception.
Excluding the camera bump, the Galaxy Z Fold 7 is 8.9mm thick when folded – 3.2mm thinner than its predecessor, the Galaxy Z Fold 6. It feels like a conventional slab phone when folded. I carried it in the front pocket of my Dad jeans throughout the day and barely noticed it.
The Galaxy Z Fold 7's camera bump sits in a slim module in the top-left corner of the case. Its location means the phone wobbles a lot when placed on a flat surface, unless you're willing to risk resting it on its outer display.
The main case (excluding volume and side keys, SIM tray or camera lens barrel) is made from what Samsung calls Armor Aluminum. While the case is slim, it feels rigid and solidly built in use. That build quality extends to the hinge. It feels durable and tight but is also difficult to open.
AI FEATURES
The Galaxy Z Fold 7 features the full Galaxy AI suite of features. This includes stalwarts like circle to search, live translation and object erase. Two tools I found most useful were the Audio Eraser and Drawing Assist.
The former did a good job of minimising traffic noise and background conversations in my test clips. Drawing Assist converted my very basic, extremely non-artistic sketches in the Notes app into nice 3D renderings and illustrations.
DISPLAY
Displays are a foldable device's bread and butter. The Galaxy Z Fold 7 uses 8-inch inner and 6.5-inch cover screens that support HDR10+ and have a 120Hz refresh rate.
Both panels offers deep blacks and rich, vibrant colours and supports HDR10+. This makes it outstanding for viewing video content on supported apps like Prime Video and YouTube.
While it no longer has S Pen support, the inner screen is great for multitasking, viewing maps, gaming, reading e-books, drawing and editing photos and videos. The crease on the inner screen is only slightly noticeable. On my sample, the screen retained a very slight fold when first opened but would open completely flat once slight pressure was applied.
CAMERAS
The Galaxy Z Fold 7's main camera has received a major upgrade – the same 200MP main sensor from the Galaxy S25 Ultra. It's a capable sensor that captures good images, even in low light, without looking over processed.
Its telephoto and ultra-wide cameras aren't the sharpest but can capture good images in good light. The digital zoom (which goes up to 30X magnification) is usable up to 10X magnification. Beyond that, images look very soft, even when taken in good lighting with AI remastering.
While the selfie camera captured decent images, I preferred using the cover screen to take selfies with the main lens.
PERFORMANCE
The Samsung Z fold 7 uses the Snapdragon's flagship 8 Elite chipset with a 120Hz screen.
In daily use, it feels fast and responsive. Samsung's One UI 8 OS handles editing images, watching videos, scrolling socials and browsing smoothly – even with seven or eight apps open in the background. Gaming performance is good. Call of Duty played smoothly, even at high graphics settings.
BATTERY PERFORMANCE
For my use case, the Galaxy Z Fold 7's 4,400mAh lithium-ion battery offered an entire day of use. After one day of use, I had about 15 per cent of battery life remaining. This included about five hours of surfing, sketching, editing photos, streaming music and watching videos.
Still, that is some way behind some of its rivals from China who've opted for silicon-carbon batteries that offer greater energy density. For instance, the Oppo Find N5 features a 5,600 mAh battery, the Honor Magic V5 has a 5,820 mAh battery and the recently announced Vivo X Fold5 packs a 6,000 mAh battery.
For now, Samsung, Apple and Google are sticking with tried and tested lithium-ion batteries, focusing instead on improving energy efficiency.
The Galaxy Z Fold 7 supports 25W wired and 15W wireless charging – extremely slow by today's standards. It took about 1 hour and 24 minutes to be fully charged from 0 per cent.
WHAT ARE SILICON-CARBON BATTERIES?
Silicon-carbon batteries pack more energy than lithium-ion ones. This means they can store more energy in the same space, or the same energy in a smaller space. They also support faster charging speeds. It's not all sunshine and roses though – the jury's still out over the long-term durability of silicon-carbon batteries.
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