Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 review: the most stylish-looking phone gets a specs bump
The Galaxy Z Flip 6 has modest design improvements, but it's 50MP camera and larger battery make it our favorite clam-shell-style foldable phone
🏆 Review score: 4 out of 5
Pros
✅ 📸 50MP camera doesn’t hold back on brilliant photos
✅ 🎨 Stylish matte finish with bright and playful color options
✅ 💪 Dust resistance added along with a stronger hinge
✅ ⚙️ Qualcomm’s fastest chip, more RAM and a new heatsink
✅ 🔋 Bigger 4,000mAh battery fit into the compact design
✅ 💡 Inner screen has a higher peak brightness (2,600 nits)
✅ 👴 Seven years of Android updates promised
Cons
❌ 🤑 $100 more expensive than last year’s Fold 5
❌ 📱 Cover screen apps still feel limited by default
❌ 📐 Design hasn’t changed much over Fold 5
The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 is the modern-day flip phone that’s so fun to carry around that Apple’s foldable phone will likely copy it… in 2026. Samsung must be doing something right, and it’s doubling down on some specs this year.
The good news is that you can get this clamshell-style foldable phone today instead of waiting for two years, and I’m happy to tell you that the 50MP camera is a marked improvement over the Galaxy Z Flip 5 I reviewed 12 months ago.
This means the Galaxy Flip 6 no longer plays second fiddle to Samsung’s flagship foldable phone, as seen in our Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 review. It has a superb camera, a matte finish, and a strong hinge. The Flip is ready to sit at the adults’ table. Just be prepared to shell out $100 more this year, unless you hop on the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 Amazon deal this weekend.
In-depth review
📈 Pricier hardware. That 50MP, sturdier hinge and matte finish (not to mention inflation) made the Galaxy Z Flip 6 more expensive: $1,099, which is $100 more expensive than the Flip 5 and the newly introduced Moto Razr+ 2024.
💰 Discounts already. The good news is that Amazon is offering a $200 gift card for the 512GB version of the phone. That’s double the storage and a nice freebie.
📷 50MP main camera. Let’s start with the biggest perk: the 50MP main camera has the same resolution as the Fold 6, S24+, and S24 primary cameras. Testing it, I found it to be a huge bump over the Flip 5’s very basic 12MP camera. I went from “I love the Flip 5 design, but I wish the camera was better“ to “I love the Flip 6 and can actually rely on the camera to use this phone as my daily driver.”
🔭 AI camera auto-zoom. Framing selfies got easier in Flex Mode. The camera will pivot between 1x and 0.6x when the phone is propped open at an angle and framing your photo or video with the two rear cameras. If you’re not entirely in the shot, the camera expands the frame. It guesses but often gets things right.
📹 Camcorder grip. Holding the Flip 6 sideways half-folded allowed me to act like it was the 90s again. I was able to film in a camcorder-like interface, down to the detail of having a digital zoom slider I could operate with my thumb. Pure gimmick and a bit awkward, but it's a fun Easter egg/party trick.
🤳 Best selfie camera. As always, Samsung’s camera app allows you to trigger the selfie timer from afar with a simple hand gesture or command word. Just know that the ultrawide camera is 12MP, and the inner screen camera is a pedestrian 10MP. I noticed a difference between these cameras and the 50MP camera.
🗼 Mini tripod. Propping open the Flip 6 halfway makes it into a mini tripod (and it works better here than on the Fold 6). All you have to worry about is looking good in the shot – not pressing a button, not framing the shot, and not setting up a tripod.
📐 Design déjà vu. Unfortunately, the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 does not feature a larger cover like the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6. Aesthetically, the Flip 6 features the same overall design as its predecessor, including the folder-shaped cover screen.
🎨 Matte finish. Samsung opted for a matte finish on all of the fun Flip 6 colors and that finish extends to the hinge. It looks and feels so much better and should be slightly less scratch-prone than the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5’s shiny metal rails. Samsung also added color rings around the cameras. They’re a nice touch, and I love the way the colored outlines match the phone's overall color.
🌈 New exuberant colors. This year’s colors are vibrant and full: silver shadow, yellow, and blue mint at any retailer. Samsung online store exclusive colors include white and material black colorway, the last of which features an etched glass finish that looks like it’s made of carbon fiber.
🛡️Beefier defenses. The Flip 6 might not feature a new design, but it’s practically built out of all-new materials to make it more rugged for everyday use. Samsung has also made the hinge sturdier with a dual rail mechanism, which should make the phone’s folding edge more resistant to sharp edges and pressure.
⚙️ Add multiple widgets. The Flip 6 cover screen allows for multiple split widgets, so I was able to display more than one at a time. Previously you could only display the calendar, clock, weather, or what have you in fullscreen on the cover screen. But now, you can have up to three widgets on the outer display.
😕 The setup is a bit tedious. It takes a little bit of setup widgets in the menus, and yes, you have to arrange them with the phone’s inner display. I’m also miffed that we haven’t been able to add any app as a widget by default without a workaround.
🌲 Pretty little trees. The new Flip 6 features some new attractive wallpapers, too. There are new life-like background options that react to your touch. Alternatively, the more static photo ambient wallpapers feature a still image that changes based on the current time and weather.
👔 Flip Suit case. My favorite of the new wallpapers are the ones that match Samsung’s new flip-suit cases (our top pick among the best Galaxy Flip 6 cases so far), some of which include miniature LEDs that activate when you open the phone.
🗣️ Interpreter: conversation mode. Live translations are one of Galaxy AI’s most useful features, as seen in our Galaxy S24 Ulta review, and now you can display translations on Flip 6’s cover screen. This new interpretation of the translation feature looks straight out of Star Trek and it removes a bit of the awkwardness of waiting for translations to generate. You simply activate the Galaxy AI translator and open the phone halfway. As you speak the phone will display your speech in another language, while on your end you can see a transcription of what you originally said and translated replies from the other person.
🚗 Internal tune-up. Samsung upgraded the Galaxy Z Flip 6 with Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processor and 12GB of memory instead of the usual 8GB. It also packs in a new larger heat sink that’s 50% larger than the one in the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra – an odd comparison, but the frame rates didn’t drop.
🎮 Playing games. Sure enough, the Flip 6 played games like Call of Duty Mobile and Genshin Impact without dropping frames on the 6.7-inch inner display. The 3.4-inch Cover Display is far too cramped for legit gameplay, but it is an OLED, and it can be done. The bigger Fold 6 remains the best gaming phone due to its large screen size.
🔋 10% battery boost. I was able to sail into part of a second day with the Flip 6, which contains a 4,000mAh battery. That’s 300mAh more than the Flip 5. When you combine the larger capacity with the more power-efficient Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chipset, I was seeing 10% more life from this compact flip phone.
⚡ 25W charging, 15W wireless charging. This is the one spec that didn’t seen an upgrade, though I’m not surprised. The Flip 6 still has standard “fast” charging, while the Fold 6 can utilize a 45W charger for truly “super fast” charging.
Yes, if…
✅ You want the most stylish flip phone with great cameras (sorry, Moto)
✅ You have an older phone to take advantage of this year’s trade-in deals
✅ You haven’t upgraded from Flip 5 yet (it’s a big jump from Flip 4 or older)