Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 Review: Clamshell Phone Goes Bold With AI Flex

Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 – the head-turning flip phone is back with improvements and tons of AI features baked in. With a legacy of foldable devices, Samsung, at this point, boasts unique bragging rights and deserves it, too. However, the times are changing, and the entire foldable market is gearing up to see foldables at lower price points in the next couple of years. In fact, Motorola has already tried this with its Motorola Razr 40 Ultra.

Samsung, on the other hand, has increased the pricing of its new flip phone for the third consecutive year. From Galaxy Z Flip 4’s Rs. 89,999 to Galaxy Z Flip 5’s Rs. 99,999 to finally crossing the lakh mark. The Galaxy Z Flip 6 starts at Rs. 109,999, but the one good thing Samsung has done this year is raise the base RAM to 12GB RAM – more on that in our performance. AI, or as the brand calls it, “Galaxy AI”, is at the centre of Samsung’s entire marketing push this time around. The company gave us a bit of stats on how AI was the second most important feature of why people bought the Galaxy S24 series. So, how does Samsung keep its Galaxy Z Flip 6 relevant in 2024, and how much of a difference AI brings? Let me answer this in my review.

Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 Design: Pocketable (rocket)

• Folded – 85.1×71.9×14.9mm
• Unfolded – 165.1×71.9×6.9mm
• Weight – 187 grams
• Colours – Silver Shadow, Blue, Black, White, and Peach

The sixth-generation Flip 6 looks and feels familiar to its predecessor. There are improvements like hinge enhancement using a dual rail hinge, and a claimed stronger exterior.

Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 weighs 187 grams

One of the biggest highlights of the Flip phones is their compact size when folded – very pocketable and can fit into the smallest pouches. As expected, the Galaxy Z Flip 6 gets the edge in terms of size when folded. However, compared to the Galaxy Z Flip 5, there’s hardly any noticeable visual change on the exterior. Both in terms of dimensions and weight, not much has changed between the two generations.

The Galaxy Z Flip 6 hinge and the frame are built from an enhanced armour aluminium frame that offers a solid in-hand feel and features Corning Gorilla Glass Victus 2. I love the scratch-free matte finish of the Flip 6 rear – I spent about two weeks with this, and it still looks box-fresh. The flat edge finish adds to the overall premium feel. This also means that corners will press into your palm during daily use; however, it’s not at all a deal breaker. You ultimately get used to the size and use just one hand to open and close the lid. The Flip 6 is one of those devices I like to use without a case because adding any case will mean increasing the weight, which would kill the USP.

Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 comes in Silver Shadow, Blue, Black, White, and Peach colours

Samsung has launched the Galaxy Z Flip 6 in six colours – Crafted Black, White and Peach – all being Special Edition options, while regular colours are Blue, Mint and Silver Shadow – which we got for this review. After experiencing all of them during the Galaxy Unpacked 2024 event, I can comfortably say that the Peach and Mint look outstanding, while Black feels very classy. The Silver colour we received is reasonably bright and looks charming. Steadily, this colour option grows on you as you spend time with the Flip 6. For water resistance, the Flip 6 gets IP48 certification. Overall, Flip 6 doesn’t bring groundbreaking changes to the already good-looking Flip 5, and that’s alright.

Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 Display: Two steps forward, one step back

• Main screen – 6.7-inch Full-HD+ Dynamic AMOLED display
• Cover screen – 3.4-inch 720×748 pixels Super AMOLED display
• Refresh rate – Main screen – 120Hz and Cover screen – 60Hz

Much like the design, the Galaxy Z Flip 6 display department also sees almost no changes, except a few bumps here and there. The Galaxy Flip 6 features a 6.7-inch Full-HD+ Dynamic AMOLED display (main screen) with 120Hz refresh rate and 1080×2640 pixels screen resolution. The peak brightness on the main screen has been bumped to 2600nits compared to 1750nits on the Flip 5 – a considerable raise and a much-needed one.

​Galaxy Z Flip 6 features a 6.7-inch Full-HD+ Dynamic AMOLED 2X display with 2600nits peak brightness

On the other hand, the cover display features a 3.4-inch Super AMOLED display with a 60Hz refresh rate and a 720×748 pixels display. The 60Hz refresh rate shouldn’t even appear on your spec sheet at this price point. Maybe next-iteration, right Samsung!

Specs aside, the real-world performance of the 6.7-inch main screen is fantastic. The colours are crisp and punchy, and the text appears sharp. Flip 6 can be a great multimedia device and I can vouch for that. The peak brightness shows up during outdoor use, making it worth every penny. Even gaming on this device feels decent – more in our performance section.

Galaxy Z Flip 6 features a 3.4-inch Super AMOLED display with 60Hz refresh rate

The company gets full marks for increasing peak brightness and display panel quality, which are usually among the best for Samsung premium devices. Where things get tricky is with the cover screen in a competitive era where brands like Motorola are offering Flip phones in the market with enhanced functionality and impressive spec sheets. Samsung, with its legacy of foldables, has to defend its fortress. But, especially for the cover screen, the Motorola Razr 50 Ultra has the edge over the Galaxy Z Flip 6. The 3.4-inch display on Flip 6 offers 306PPI pixel density, and a peak brightness of 1600nits slightly disappoints.

You cannot open every app on the cover screen. Samsung has offered options to add widgets and some useful ones like a calculator, dialer, gallery, and calender. However, the limited functionality of the cover screen holds back the Galaxy Z Flip 6. While there are workarounds for that, including an app called Good Lock, which you can download from the Galaxy Store. But those who have tried this hack know that despite downloading Good Lock, it isn’t straightforward like the new Moto Razrs.

The cover screen of the Galaxy Z Flip 6 supports widgets

Let me break down the entire Good Lock scenario with a – how to install Good Lock on your Galaxy Z Flip 6 guide. Start by searching for and installing Good Lock from the Galaxy App Store. Open the app, scroll to the Life Up tab and install MultiStar (it’s not over yet…). Next up, from the MultiStar, select the I Heart Galaxy Foldable button and then tap on the Launcher Widget button, which lets you add whatever apps you want to add to your cover screen. Unfortunately, even after installing Good Lock and doing all the hacks, I could notice apps acting weird when being tapped on the cover screen. Some even felt like hit or miss.

My only question to Samsung folks is, why hide such a feature in this complex loop? Either offer it upfront or don’t offer it. On the pro side, Good Lock allows access to any app on the Galaxy Z Flip 6 cover screen, including YouTube and more. It helps enhance the functionality of the Flip 6 cover screen and elevates the overall phone experience. Imagine responding to emails while folded or watching YouTube. Another thing Samsung needs to implement is a transition, which currently works from the cover to the main screen; for example, open an app, and when you unfold, the app stays where you were on the cover screen. However, this doesn’t work the other way around, and that has to change.

The Galaxy Z Flip 6 cover screen supports a 60Hz refresh rate

I liked the customisations that Samsung offers for the Galaxy Z Flip 6 cover screen, but I wish I could absolutely love it with more functionality enabled out-of-the-box.

Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 Performance: Top of the class

• Processor – Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 Mobile Platform
• RAM and Storage – 12GB RAM + 256GB & 12GB RAM + 512GB
• OS – One UI 6.1.1 based on Android 14

The good thing about yearly upgrades from Samsung, such as the ​Galaxy Z Flip 6, is that the company ensures it offers the latest hardware. This time, however, Samsung has gone for the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 SoC instead of the newer 8s Gen 3, and we are more than happy. The reasons are simple: the 8s Gen 3 is a processor aimed at premium phones, but it is cheaper for OEMs. The Snapdragon 8s Gen 3 also sits between the 8 Gen 2 and 8 Gen 3.

Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 is powered by Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 SoC and comes in two RAM and storage variants

Now, jumping back to the performance of the Z Flip 6, it absolutely feels nothing less than an Android flagship smartphone. Smooth handling of multitasking and can run heavy graphics games without a sweat. Yes, this brings me to the fact that the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 is the first flip phone with a vapour chamber cooling system, and it does work wonders. By making 12GB RAM as the base variant and ditching 8GB RAM, Samsung has already impressed almost all tech pundits.

The phone ran Call of Duty Mobile on ‘Very High’ graphics and ‘Max’ framerate and didn’t stutter even after 30 minutes of gaming session. I loved gaming on the clamshell phone, though it took me a few hours to get used to the non-bar style design while playing a game like COD Mobile or BGMI. However, it gets warm and to a point where you feel you should stop playing. But that’s when the cooling system kicks in. The phone returns to normal temperatures within 10 minutes after the game is closed, which is very impressive. Overall, the gaming performance was decent and better than I initially thought.

Jumping to synthetic benchmarks, the Flip 6 does shine with results, and you can check out the results below.

The Flip 6 is a wonderful choice for everyday usage, especially considering the compact design. Most of that credit has to go to OneUI 6.1.1, based on Android 14. Over the years, the OneUI has become very neat and offers almost no bloatware.

The display is a highlight of the device, and we have also talked about it in our display section. Samsung has improved upon its crease, and compared to the Flip 5, the Flip 6 offers a crease which is almost not visible in daily usage. There’s IP48 for water resistance and packs speakers that are decent for a small room. The Flip 6 supports a Nano SIM, while you need to buy an eSIM for the second SIM. The call quality is excellent on the Flip 6, and the device can latch on to data at low network zones, which is an add-on for the device.

Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 sports a dual camera setup

Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 AI: Additions for AI age

• Suggested Replies on the cover screen
• FlexCam with auto zoom
• Photo Ambient

One of the big pushes this year for premium Galaxy devices is AI, and I believe if these features help with everyday usage, then there’s nothing better. Fortunately, the Galaxy Z Flip 6 packs a ton of it. The Note Assist on the Samsung Notes app has multiple integrated AI features that can help you summarise, correct spellings, translate, or even voice record and transcribe a meeting. Moreover, you can also translate PDFs in the Notes app using Samsung’s new PDF overlay translation.

The Galaxy Z Flip 6 also has a Composer feature on the Samsung Keyboard, allowing text to be suggested for email or social media apps. If you’re travelling to a place where language is a barrier, then the company’s new Interpreter tool can be a saviour where you can use both your screens (cover and main screen) to have a face-to-face conversation with translations on the screen for the two people talking—very well-thought-out feature. The Gallery app has a nifty new feature called Sketch to Image, which lets you scribble on existing images, and AI comes into play. Be it drawing a mountain behind you, which AI understands and creates. The good thing is that all these images with AI play will have a watermark at the bottom saying “AI-generated content”.

Galaxy Z Flip 6 has a dedicated settings tab where all AI features are listed

The Portrait Studio is also an interesting feature, and it lets you convert any portrait photo into different styles, such as comics, 3D cartoons, watercolour, and sketch. Check the above image. The Flip 6 also gets the Flex Cam with Auto Zoom feature, again powered by AI. It can automatically find the best framing for the shot by detecting the subject and, accordingly, zooms in or out before making any necessary adjustments.

You can also better utilise the cover screen of the Flip 6 with Suggested Replies, which offers a set of replies generated by AI on the cover screen when you get a text on your Instagram, WhatsApp or regular Messages app. Then, there’s also the Photo Ambient feature that changes wallpaper in real-time based on the time and weather – again, a feature powered by AI.

There are more AI features baked in, like Call assist, which offers real-time translation during voice calls; Chat assist, which you can use to translate messages or compose full text with the help of AI; and Browsing Assist, which can offer you a summary of a webpage with text along with full translations. 

With Portrait mode, you can covert portraits into 3D avatars

Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 Camera: Best camera in a flip phone

• Primary camera – 50-megapixel wide-angle camera
• Ultra-wide – 12-megapixel camera with 123-degree field of view
• Selfie camera – 10-megapixel camera with f/2.2 aperture

One of the biggest upgrades that Flip 6 has got is in terms of the primary camera. The phone has an all-new 50-megapixel primary (wide-angle) ISOCELL GN3 sensor with an f/1.8 aperture, dual-pixel PDAF and OIS. The ultra-wide camera is a 12-megapixel with f/2.2 aperture, and the selfie camera also sticks to the 10-megapixel module. Though there’s no telephoto camera yet, the new sensor ensures that the zoom quality is better than before.

Starting with daylight photos, the Galaxy Z Flip 6 excels in proper lighting situations. Captured samples had optimum details, accurate colours, good exposure and a wide dynamic range. I liked colour rendering both in clicked images and recorded videos. The autofocusing was also quick and mostly reliable in most light conditions. Because Flip 6 missed out on the macro sensor, close-up photos won’t come as you would expect, but Flip 6 manages well. It will depend on your tricks on how stably you can capture close-up shots.

Daylight samples from the primary camera

The main camera on the Flip 6 is generally colour-accurate 

During our extensive camera tests, I could relate that the Flip 6 is better in terms of the primary camera than its predecessor. Portrait shots on the Flip 6 come out great, with good exposure and depth estimation. Thanks to some AI play, you can now turn portraits into cartoon style in the phone’s gallery – a nice touch by Samsung.

Talking about the ultra-wide camera, the Flip 6 doesn’t disappoint either. The details are intact, and colour accuracy is fine. You can see the camera samples below.

10x zoom on the Flip 6

Main camera sample with people around

People removed using Samsung’s Object Eraser

Compared to Flip 5, Flip 6 looks way better, especially in terms of managing noise in images and videos. The selfies captured are great, too, and I liked the natural skin tones. Unlike Xiaomi, Oppo and other Android phones, Samsung doesn’t unnaturally smoothen skin. With the Flip 6, you can play with Flex Cam, which now comes with an auto zoom feature to frame you perfectly all by itself (or managed by AI) – again, a good addition.

Finally, in terms of low-light photography, Samsung’s marketing push nightography is part of the package here, too. The Flip 6 gets decent night shots, and I liked the way it tries to maintain details and keeps noise controlled. If you want to really see Samsung’s version of nightography, then probably find a spot with no lights, and then you will see how Flip 6 performs in extremely low-light situations. In one of the shots captured, look at how Flip 6 matches Thar’s true colour at night. We tried the same with an iPhone 15 Pro, and it showed the car as black.

Low-light sample from Galaxy Z Flip 6

Plenty of details are intact in low-light photos

Again, compared to Flip 5’slow-light samples, the Flip 6 does better in multiple categories, including dynamic range, better details and controlled noise. The ultrawide camera also does well in low light and mostly maintains colour accuracy as much as possible. The details are also intact, though not as much as during the day, but it does well.

The Flip 6 doesn’t get 8K recording support, but it comes with 4K recording at 30 and 60fps. The video quality is excellent and is social-ready for your audience. Overall, the camera department on the Galaxy Flip 6 seems to have a good update.

Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 Battery: Still average

• Battery – 4000mAh battery
• Charging – 25W adapter support
• Supports fast wireless charging 2.0 along with wireless PowerShare feature

The battery department is another one that has seen a significant bump. Compared to the Flip 5’s 3700mAh battery, the Flip 6 gets a 4000mAh battery, which seems great on paper. The wired charging is capped at 25W, while wireless charging supports up to 15W. In real-world performance, I couldn’t see improved battery life during the review. My morning starts with plugging devices to charging with an expectation that these would last for a day at least. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for the Galaxy Z Flip 6.

Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 packs a 4000mAh battery with 25W wired charging support

With heavy usage, where we had Outlook, WhatsApp, Telegram, YouTube, Chrome, Google Maps, Android Auto, and Samsung Browser – open in the background all day, along with two 20-minute sessions of gaming, about 15 minutes of calls, and 10-20 minutes of camera usage – we saw Flip 6 down at 15 percent at about 7 pm after being unplugged from the charger at about 7 am. We registered a screen on time of about 5 hours during the review period. With medium usage, the phone lasted for about 14-15 hours.

The Galaxy Z Flip 6 lasted about 18 hours and 20 minutes in our video loop test, slightly more than what we saw on the Flip 5. With a 25W charging adapter, the Flip 6 reaches 50 percent in 32 minutes, as marketed by Samsung; however, a full charge takes about 80-90 minutes.  

Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 Verdict

The Samsung Galaxy Flip 6 has plenty of things going in its favour – from in-built AI features, which are useful for daily use, to an improved primary camera. It also gets a vapour chamber – a first on a clamshell design, and the crease is hardly visible now. The package is solid now with a base 12GB RAM, but also costly. On paper, the Galaxy Z Flip 6 looks like an incremental upgrade over the Flip 5. Of course, for customers holding onto the Galaxy Z Flip 4 and older models – the Flip 6 is an excellent upgrade plus the AI features.

However, looking at the competition, the closest rival is the Motorola Razr 50 Ultra (Review), which gets the basics right and offers a decent cover screen experience. However, Samsung is aggressively pushing AI features on its premium devices, and there’s little on offer from any other OEM. If you like these AI features, you might as well go with Samsung as Galaxy Z Flip 6 offers the kind of features Motorola isn’t anywhere close to.

But, overall, in terms of value proposition, the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 doesn’t outshine the competition. In fact, phones within the company give Flip 6 a run for the money, like the Galaxy S24+ (Review), which offers most of the features minus a foldable design.