Galaxy Z Fold 7 after 48 hours: my full first impressions

I’ve been using the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 for two days, and after just 48 hours it’s clear: I’m keeping it. The Z Fold 7 has brought the fun back to foldable phones for me, even though there are points Samsung could or should have done better.

The Galaxy Z Fold 6 was great technically, but too thick, too heavy, with a far too narrow front display, a mediocre camera, and a mediocre battery. A year later, the Fold 7 gets almost everything right. The step forward couldn’t be bigger.

Design: thin and light

Closed, the Fold 7 is almost 4 mm thinner than its predecessor and, at 215 g, a whopping 24 g lighter. It now has a proper 21:9 format and a big 8-inch display on the inside. The edges and back are completely flat, nothing sticks out. Together with the sharp corners, that makes for a sleek, futuristic design. Right now there is no thinner foldable in Germany. What the competition is about to launch in Europe is 0.1 mm thinner on paper, but it doesn’t feel that way. You really have to hold it in your hand.

Funny enough, the Galaxy S25 Ultra weighs almost the same at 218 g. Every time I pick it up, I think, what a brick. The Fold 7, which weighs the same, feels light and airy by comparison, because my brain sees that you can open it and fold it. Go to a store and compare. The only thing I wonder, because of the USB-C port, is how durable such a thin design is. We’ll only find that out in a few years.

Camera

Samsung has built in the 200-megapixel main sensor from the Galaxy S25 Ultra. That makes really great photos and videos possible and takes one of the biggest criticisms of foldables off the table. The 12-megapixel ultrawide camera does a solid job.

The 10-megapixel telephoto camera with 3x optical zoom is halfway decent. From 10x digital zoom it gets difficult, and 30x is unusable. I don’t understand why Samsung doesn’t use AI here to improve the quality.

• Camera position: The camera doesn’t stick out too much, but when the Fold 7 is closed on a table, it wobbles a lot while typing because the camera sits on the side. Open, nothing wobbles.
• Inner display: Instead of the under-display camera, there is now a 10-megapixel punch-hole camera, meaning a black dot at the edge. It bothered me until my brain tuned it out after about 10 seconds. It’s still a shame.
• Outer front camera: 10 megapixels, a great job in good light. You can use the main camera anyway and use the front display as the viewfinder, a major advantage of a foldable.

Displays and performance

The three displays are top-notch, as is typical for Samsung. I wish the outer and inner displays had an anti-reflective coating. Ever since I saw that on the Galaxy S25 Ultra, I want it everywhere. At this price, you could have expected all of Samsung’s latest technologies to be used. Instead, I ordered an anti-reflective screen protector from the Samsung shop.

The Fold 7 runs on the Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy, the current top processor in the Android world. It runs super fast and smooth, even with all the AI applications, and is considered energy efficient.

Battery test after 48 hours

The battery still has only 4,400 mAh, which hurts in 2025. I used the device for everything: email, WhatsApp, phone calls, Instagram, music, jogging, filming, and photos. On Sunday morning, shortly after 10 o’clock, I took it off the charger at 100%. On the first day I got 4 hours and 44 minutes of screen time, and on the second another 1 hour and 47 minutes, with 12% battery still left, without charging in between. That’s 6.5 hours, and in the end maybe 7 to 7.5 hours of screen time. I find that perfectly sufficient. You’ll find out later how the battery holds up in the long-term test.

One drawback: the battery charges at only 25 watts, which isn’t fast in 2025. Apple users charge even more slowly. I charge overnight, so it’s not that important to me.

No more S Pen

On earlier Fold devices, the S Pen was very important to me: notes on the large inner display, signing documents, editing photos and videos precisely, a unique selling point compared to the foldable competition. S Pen support was dropped in favor of the slim design. It probably wasn’t used across the board on the Fold, so I can sort of understand the decision, even though I regret it. It was always annoying having to carry the S Pen separately, because there was nowhere on the device to attach it.

Price

The smallest version with 12 GB of RAM and 256 GB of storage costs €2,099 RRP. That’s a hefty sum. It’s still a lot of money.

For that, with this processor, the large screen, and the new format, you get three devices in one: smartphone, tablet, and, thanks to Samsung DeX, probably a laptop replacement for 99% of people, because the Snapdragon has more power than most cheap laptops. On top of that come the futuristic design and seven years of OS and security updates. That eases the pain just a tiny bit.

Verdict

Those were my experiences from the first 48 hours with the Galaxy Z Fold 7. I’m looking forward to the phase of intensive use and testing.