Samsung Galaxy Z Fold7 review
Bigger displays on the outside and inside
The Galaxy Z Fold7 now employs an 8.0-inch foldable LTPO OLED panel with 1968 x 2184px resolution in a nearly square-ish aspect ratio. Last year's model had a 7.6-inch diagonal.
Of course, the panel has all the bells and whistles - 120Hz refresh rate with granular control (more on that later) and HDR10+ support. Unfortunately, as with any Samsung out there, there's no Dolby Vision support, but the display plays well with YouTube and Netflix and can stream HDR content.
We measured the maximum brightness in manual and auto mode. With the extra brightness boost setting in manual mode, we achieved a maximum brightness of 707 nits.
In auto mode, the display reached 1,408 nits, which is approximately 200 nits lower than the measurement we obtained last year on the Z Fold6. It won't matter in real-world usage, as 1,400 nits is bright enough for comfortable outdoor use.
Max display brightness test
White test pattern, 75% fill (nits)
- Manual mode
- Auto mode
Pixel 9 Pro Fold
vivo X Fold5
Galaxy Z Fold6
Galaxy Z Fold7
Oppo Find N5
Honor Magic V3
Huawei Mate X3
The cover screen has also grown by 0.2", now 6.5". It also has a better aspect ratio that's closer to what you get on a standard phone. The resolution is 1080 x 2520px, which is slightly higher than before.
Just like the main foldable display, the cover screen also supports HDR10+ streaming and since it's LTPO OLED ticking at 120Hz, it offers granular refresh rate control.
Interestingly, this display is again slightly dimmer than its predecessor. In manual mode, we measured a brightness of up to 688 nits, while auto mode boosted the brightness to 1,409 nits. Still more than adequate for comfortable outdoor use.
Max display brightness test
White test pattern, 75% fill (nits)
- Manual mode
- Auto mode
Pixel 9 Pro Fold (Cover display)
Honor Magic V3 (Cover display)
vivo X Fold5 (Cover display)
Galaxy Z Fold6 (Cover display)
Galaxy Z Fold7 (Cover display)
Oppo Find N5 (cover display)
Huawei Mate X3 (Cover display)
Refresh rate
The refresh rate control is pretty straightforward. Samsung offers two modes - Adaptive and Standard. The standard caps the refresh rate to 60Hz.
The displays can go down to 24Hz to preserve power when the system deems necessary or when you are playing a 24fps video on your phone. It works on YouTube.
High refresh gaming is supported as long as the game title offers higher frame rate rendering.
Battery life
Despite the thinner chassis, the Galaxy Z Fold7 retains the same battery capacity as last year - 4,400 mAh. The more recent Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy, however, is marketed as a more energy-efficient than its predecessor and some of the results from our battery tests suggest so too.
The Z Fold7 scored an 11:44h Active Use Score. This is slightly below average considering its competitors, but it's also an improvement compared to its predecessor. We see longer gaming and call runtimes (likely due to the new chipset), but lower web browsing scores due to the larger display.
We observed the same with the cover screen results. Naturally, you get considerably longer battery life with the cover screen, but the 12:56h Active Use Score is still a tad lower than what we were expecting.
Charging speed
Again, the charging rate on this year's foldables from Samsung is far from ideal. The Z Fold7 is one of the slowest-charging devices in its category, with only 25W wired charging and 15W wireless charging. If you are buying a third-party charger, you should know that the 25W is possible only with a USB-PD PPS-enabled Power Delivery charger, though.
In any case, the phone replenishes half of its battery charge in 30 minutes, while a full charge takes almost an hour and a half.
Charging speed
- in 15 min
- in 30 min
- Time to full charge (from 0%)
Honor Magic V3
vivo X Fold3 Pro
Oppo Find N5
Galaxy Z Fold7
Galaxy Z Fold6
Pixel 9 Pro Fold
Even though the slow charging rate is already sparing enough to the battery, Samsung has still implemented several battery protection features. For instance, you can limit the charging to 80, 85 or 90%. Or you can also turn off fast charging altogether.
Speakers
The Z Fold7 features stereo speakers and has both drivers on its cover screen half. The sound is emitted through the slits on the frame, while the top unit has an opening towards the cover screen since it serves as an earpiece too.
In terms of loudness, the Galaxy Z Fold7 scored a "Good" -28.0 LUFS, which isn't ideal for a device in this class. The handset is also quieter than its predecessor, which is likely due to the smaller cavities used for the thinner chassis. Notably, we got these readings after turning on the Dolby Atmos tuning toggle in the Sound settings.
Overall quality is okay. It's not particularly impressive, as the bass is not very pronounced, so the tracks sound a bit flat. However, the vocals and highs are well-defined.
Update: We were able to achieve a slightly higher loudness score by turning on the Dolby Atmos sound enhancer, which is disabled by default. The score below is with the enhancement ON. Without it, the score is -28.3 LUFS.
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 their differences. The scores and ratings are not comparable with our older loudspeaker test. Learn more about how we test here.
Reader comments
- Anonymous
- 05 Oct 2025
- fDa
cant wait to see the broke weeby nolifers bashing on samsung phones while us rich people keeps enjoying them
- Anonymous
- 04 Oct 2025
- mA{
Not really, no. Well, what can be said about a no-name brand, then?
- Alex
- 02 Sep 2025
- 31H
Very good phone