Samsung Galaxy Z Flip6 review

Displays are largely unchanged

The Galaxy Z Flip6's display setup is pretty much unchanged, coming from the previous generation. On the inside, there's a 6.7-inch panel that bends in half, and on the cover you'll find a notched 3.4-inch screen for simpler tasks. Both are OLEDs, of course.

The main panel has a 1,080x2,640px resolution in a 22:9 aspect ratio - it's almost the same ratio as on the Fold6, and we do like to pick on that one for its proportions, but we'll insist that the size just makes this one a lot easier to swallow.

The Flip6 posted brightness numbers very similar to those of the S24, and it's an improvement over the Flip5 when the adaptive toggle is turned on. The manual result is around 760nits with the 'Extra brightness' enabled and some 200 nits lower when you switch it off. The minimum value we measured is 1 nit.

The cover display is also seemingly unchanged. It's got a 3.4-inch nominal diagonal and a 720x748px resolution, though some of those pixels have been chiseled out to make room for the cameras.

Refresh rate

Samsung's refresh rate handling is fairly simple, with the menu giving you Adaptive and Standard options - effectively 120Hz and 60Hz ceilings. These only apply to the main screen on the inside - the cover panel is limited to 60Hz.

Regardless of mode, the phone will dial down to a self-reported 24Hz when idling and will adjust to match video frame rates (24, 30, 48, and 60Hz). High frame rate gaming is also supported, as long as you have the Flip set to Adaptive mode.

Streaming and HDR

The Galaxy Z Flip6 supports HDR10 and HDR10+, but no Dolby Vision - Samsung likes its standard better. We got HDR streams in Netflix and YouTube, as expected. The Widevine L1 certification ensures you get FullHD playback in apps that stream DRM-protected content - Netflix for example.

Google's Ultra HDR photo standard for metadata-based brightness boost of images in gallery apps or browsers is also supported and we found it to work in the in-house Gallery app and in Google Photos, as well as Chrome, but not the Samsung browser.

Samsung Galaxy Z Flip6 battery life

One of the changes to this year's Flip that can pass for 'major' is the increase in battery capacity. The Z Flip6 is powered by a 4,000mAh battery - 8% higher than before. Oppo and vivo clamshells stand at 4,300mAh and 4,400mAh, so the Galaxy's number isn't huge, but we'll take any increase we can get. The Motorola Razr 50 Ultra also has a 4,000mAh battery, for what that's worth.

We're happy to report that more battery has actually resulted in better longevity, at least in the on-screen tests. There's a meaningful improvement in all three scenarios that we test for with the display on, and it's only the call test where we see a downgrade - we also observed one on the Fold6, so it must be a chipset/modem thing this year.

Having said that, while the Flip6 does mark a generational improvement for the lineup, competitors are still doing better - both the Find N3 Flip and the Razr 50 Ultra have an endurance advantage.

Our new Active Use Score is an estimate of how long the battery will last if you use the device with a mix of all four test activities. You can adjust the calculation based on your usage pattern using the sliders below. You can read about our current battery life testing procedure here. For a comprehensive list of all tested devices so far, head this way.

Charging speed

Another Galaxy release, another reason to complain about Samsung's charging practices that aren't exactly in keeping with the times. The Z Flip6 is rated for up to 25W of wired charging power, and we measured around 23W on our power meter whether with the 25W or the 45W Samsung adapter - so at least it's doing what we were promised it will.

The thing is, the Flip6 simply charges slowly. An empty-to-full time of 1:38h is hardly record-setting and it's all the more annoying that the phone will report an estimate of a little over 1:20h when plugged in, but actually take longer to complete. The Razr is the true champ here, but the Find N3 isn't half bad either.

Update, 22 Aug 2024: We've retested the charging speed for Galaxy Z Flip5 and Z Flip6 and we've updated the charging speed results in the chart below.

For when you are in even less of a hurry the Galaxy Z Flip6 supports wireless charging at up to 15W and it can also charge other devices off of its back at up to 4.5W.

Speaker test

The Galaxy Z Flip6 features a familiar speaker system arrangement, where there's one speaker on the bottom, and another one up top that also covers earpiece duties in voice calls. In portrait orientation, the top one gets the left channel, while in landscape, the phone will assign the channels dynamically to correspond to the handset's orientation in space - that's when the Flip is unflipped, of course.

Bottom speaker • Top speaker/earpiece

The Z Flip6 made it into the 'Good' category in our loudness test, on par with the previous generation, but short of the S24's 'Very Good' rating or the Razr 50 Ultra's 'Excellent' result.

The new Galaxy makes a small improvement in bass presence compared to the previous generation and it's a generally nice-sounding setup but the S24 is notably livelier higher up the range and better balanced than either clamshell. None of them is a match for the Razr 50 Ultra, however, which is one of the loudest and best-sounding smartphones we've heard, foldable or otherwise.

Use the Playback controls to listen to the phone sample recordings (best use headphones). We measure the average loudness of the speakers in LUFS. A lower absolute value means a louder sound. A look at the frequency response chart will tell you how far off the ideal "0db" flat line is the reproduction of the bass, treble, and mid frequencies. You can add more phones to compare how they differ. The scores and ratings are not comparable with our older loudspeaker test. Learn more about how we test here.