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Fast Charge: Samsung could be about to give up its foldable crown
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OPINION: Samsung is set to reveal its updatedGalaxy Z Flip 5andGalaxy Z Fold 5at an event confirmed to take place on 26 July, but with leaked images showing minimal changes to the book-style foldable, Samsung could be about to lose its foldable crown.
The leaked imagesstarted doing the roundsonline earlier this week, seemingly showcasing apre-release test model of the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5– and it’s not that exciting.
At a glance, it seems that the phone will be near-identical, sporting the same tall-and-narrow design when folded and even keeping the same lozenge-shaped camera bump from the Z Fold 4.
Considering the rest of Samsung’s 2023 smartphone collection sports a minimalist rear camera housing, it seems the Z Fold 5 will be left with the 2022 style housing.
The only real advancement we can see from the images is the hinge mechanism, with the top-down photo seemingly showing the two halves of the Z Fold 5 sitting flush against one another – a big improvement compared to the awkward angled gap present in all previous models of Z Fold.
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Admittedly we can’t see the internal display so it’s hard to see how much work Samsung has done to reduce the central crease, but overall, it seems like a very minimal update.
That would’ve been fine had other manufacturers not thrown their hats into the foldable ring in 2023, with much more competition than ever before. That’sespecially true of the Honor Magic V2, which was announced in Bejing earlier this week and seems to absolutely blow the Z Fold 5 out of the water.
The book-style foldable sounds impressive; despite a similar overall design to the Z Fold 4 (and likely the Z Fold 5), the Honor Magic V2 measures in at just 9.9mm thick when folded and weighs just 231g. That’s not only lighter than the263g Z Fold 4but also the234g Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra, bringing the foldable into standard smartphone territory.
That’s despite the fact that the Magic V2 boasts a larger 5000mAh battery, a bigger 7.92-inch foldable display and a 6.43-inch external display with a 20:9 aspect ratio that resembles a regular candybar phone.
Throw in a triple camera setup with 50MP main, 50MP ultrawide and 20MP telephoto lenses, a pair of 16MP selfie cameras and up to 1TB of storage and you’ve got some pretty competitive hardware.
Admittedly this is all compared to the Z Fold 4 and not the upcoming Z Fold 5 so Samsung could close the gap in some respects, but given the pre-release images, it’s clear that the general form factor is the same.
The Honor Magic V2 is China-only for now, but like with the Magic Vs, it’ll likely get an international release in the coming months. Will Samsung’s loyal fans allow the Z Fold 5 to compete or will Honor come in and wow a Western audience with itstop-end foldable hardware?
Only time will tell, but I think it’s clear that Samsung’s days as the top foldable maker are numbered.
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Lewis is the Mobile Editor of Trusted Reviews with plenty of phone experience, from the Nokia 3210 to the iPhone 14 Pro Max. He has been in the tech industry writing about phones, headphones, tablets,…
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Founded in 2003, Trusted Reviews exists to give our readers thorough, unbiased and independent advice on what to buy.
Today, we have millions of users a month from around the world, and assess more than 1,000 products a year.
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
