Samsung Galaxy Z Fold7 review

One UI 8 on top of Android 16

The Galaxy Z Fold7 and the Z Flip7 are the first devices to launch with Android 16 on board. The OS also comes with the corresponding custom Samsung overlay, One UI 8.0, which is another first for us. We can't recall the last time an OEM launched a device with a still-unreleased Android version, but it's probably a way of saying "Sorry for the belated One UI 7 update." This is the type of apology we'd gladly accept.

In addition, the Galaxy Z Fold7 is still entitled to 7 major OS upgrades and 7 years of security patches.

Visually, One UI 8 is the same as One UI 7, which is to be expected given that One UI 7 received a major design overhaul.

Home screen • Quick toggles • Notification shade

However, there are some new features and some enhanced ones. Samsung continues to lean toward AI heavily, so most new One UI 8 additions are AI-based.

Settings menu and Galaxy AI features

Now, Galaxy AI is optimized for the large-screen foldable experience. For instance, the Multimodal AI feature now works better with foldable, and you can share your big screen on Gemini Live. You can use natural voice commands and get context-based answers. In short, the Multimodal AI feature can now understand context better.

The snippets with information that you get from Gemini can be moved around, resized, and you can seamlessly transition from the small screen to the big one and vice versa.

Resizable snippets

You can even display the AI results in different views. You can use a floating window or a split-screen view to make the most out of the big foldable screen. Samsung has also enabled the drag-and-drop functionality of AI-generated images, making it easier to place them in your Samsung Notes app, for example.

Circle to Search now works in-game too. You don't have to close the game to get relevant information about a character or an item. Just activate Circle to Search and ask for tips and tricks about the game environment.

Circle to Search in-game

Last but not least, Samsung is mixing its Multimodal AI with the FlexCam feature, which is a Galaxy Z Flip7 functionality, but it works with the Z Fold7 as well. It allows you to share a live video from your camera to Gemini and ask it for relevant information or suggestions. Samsung gave an example of asking Gemini whether your clothes are suitable for the current weather, and it even helps you plan your wardrobe for your next trip. It understands context and will suggest proper clothing depending on the weather forecast of your destination.

Benchmark performance

Despite its thin body, the Galaxy Z Fold7 employs the Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy chipset, just like the rest of the flagship Galaxy devices from this year. The SD8 Elite for Galaxy is a slightly overclocked version of the regular Snapdragon 8 Elite.

The two prime CPU cores are clocked higher (4.47 GHz vs. 4.32 GHz), and the Adreno GPU runs at higher clock speeds - 1200 MHz as opposed to around 1100 MHz on the regular variant. The Elite chip uses Oryon processor cores, two versions of them - two Prime cores and six Performance cores. These aren't Cortex cores, like those found in MediaTek and Samsung Exynos chipsets, but a custom Qualcomm design. The two Prime cores run at up to 4.47GHz, while the Performance cores are clocked at 3.53GHz.

Then there's the Adreno 830, which is built on a new architecture using a sliced design with dedicated memory for each slice. The 830 has three of these slices clocked at up to 1.2GHz.

The benchmarks show slightly lower performance than what you'd typically expect from a Snapdragon 8 Elite device, but that's par for the course with some foldables, the Z Fold lineup included. It's evident that Samsung doesn't prioritize synthetic benchmark performance and it's maybe hard to do so with the the constrained space engineers are dealing with.

In any case, the Z Fold7 performs great in the real world, so sound off the alarms.

Sustained performance

As expected, the Galaxy Z Fold7 throttles heavily under long CPU and GPU load. In fact, the CPU and GPU start to throttle shortly after the stress tests have started.

CPU and GPU stress tests

The silver lining is that the outer temperatures are more than decent. The Galaxy Z Fold7 is comfortable to hold, the frame doesn't get hot at all and even the hottest area on the back isn't necessarily "hot".