Samsung Galaxy Z Fold5 review: Can foldable phone fans even feel the difference?

Note: This review was first published on 18 August 2023.

Change doesn't only come from within

Book-style foldable users — you’re not forgotten. Yes, maybe the Galaxy Z Flip5’s changes seem sexier at first glance, but you and I know it’s not only about looking good. It’s about what the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold5 brings to the table.

The foldable market for phones has been increasingly inevitable, with many smartphone brands using this category to indicate their innovation and taste for premium market share. Estimates have said that we can expect 100 million foldables peddled around the world by 2027, and that even includes estimates based on brands like Apple, which has not yet played its foldable cards.

Against that backdrop, Samsung has good reason to feel anxious enough to create the perfect, textbook example of what book-style foldable offers. We doubt it wants to give up its current lead in foldable reputation and innovation, especially with its rivals quickly catching up with the few years it has before critical mass.

The TL;DR verdict:



One of the most thoughtful changes in a mobile handset between generations, making it even closer to a premium foldable with a worthy, yet eye-melting price tag.

Samsung has given its latest book-style foldable meaningful upgrades in multiple ways. You’re looking at a redesigned hinge that offers better portability, an improved Taskbar with more functionality, and a much higher peak brightness for its inside panel. Other perks include a 38% larger vapour chamber to manage the heat generated by its powerful Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for Galaxy processor. We’ll see if these changes are meaningful to book-style foldable users in a bit.

The rest of the phone saw no major changes. Despite the downsizing, you’re still getting the same 4,400mAh battery with wired and wireless fast charging profiles, along with existing perks like UWB and NFC connectivity and the same triple rear camera setup as before. 

On paper, it actually sounds like Samsung did more work to be even more efficient with the space afforded by the device's chassis. But are these seemingly superficial tweaks enough to make the S$2,398 (256GB) Samsung Galaxy Z Fold5 better than before? Let’s dive in.

It’s official: size matters

Samsung's redesigned hinge brought the Galaxy Z Fold5’s thickness down by 0.8-2.4mm and 10g reduction in weight, depending on which end of the phone you’re looking at. This difference, while small in number, is keenly felt in hand. Using the Cover Screen feels more like a normal phone and less like wielding a metal sandwich. It’s the kind of handling we’ve always wanted from a book-style foldable, so we’re glad Samsung figured out how, even if it’s a little slow to fix it. At least it retained IPX8 water resistance rating (the “X” means it lacks dust resistance) despite the improvement, which is a very important advantage it did well in keeping.

The handling change is also visible if you own an older Galaxy Z Fold. Our hands-on session at Seoul shows that Galaxy Z Fold5’s closed state offers an imperceptible gap, while the older Galaxy Z Fold4 bulges at the hinge. That makes the Fold flatter and more parallel between both halves.

Together, the slimmer and parallel halves grant a heightened user experience. The 6.2-inch HD+ Dynamic AMOLED 2X Cover Screen with 48-120Hz refresh rate feels less lumpy during use, is easier to operate with one hand, and keeps away cleanly in your bag or pocket. 

Even the (optional) S Pen is more compact too

One last significant improvement to the phone’s handling appeals to stylus users. The optional and sold-separately S Pen Fold Edition is also more compact now, at 4.35mm instead of the predecessor’s 7.4mm S Pen. It’s much shorter and slimmer but doesn’t come at the expense of your basic annotating capabilities.

It also sits flush inside the optional case. We prefer this over its previous implementation, where the S Pen was sheathed into a jutting bulge that looked and felt out of place. The new phone case makes it possible to have your phone faced up or down on the table. 

The crease sucks — there, we said it

Sadly, Samsung didn’t bring such upgrades to its inner display. Galaxy Z Fold5’s 7.6-inch QXGA+ Dynamic AMOLED 2X Main Screen with 1-120Hz refresh rate may have a higher 1,750-nits peak brightness, but a brighter display — while helpful — makes the crease more apparent than before (Galaxy Z Fold4 capped it out at 1,000).

We’ve already said that creases are non-negotiable for some users in our Galaxy Z Flip5 review, so we won’t repeat the same points here. But what's worth pointing out here is that the optional S Pen can get caught in the depressed crease, which does actually affect your annotation. This means it's not just an eyesore, it actually makes the phone somewhat tricky to use at times. This makes removing the Galaxy Z Fold’s crease even more critical than its clamshell counterpart.

Multi-tasking with the improved Taskbar

If you’ve not already heard, Samsung Galaxy Z Fold5’s improved Taskbar gives you up to four recent apps now, instead of the old two.

While this handy feature is new to the system, it is not enabled by default. You must go into Settings > Display > Taskbar > Show recent apps and select the number you want (you can pick between 2, 3, or 4 recent apps). 

We like that it’s customisable, but Samsung should’ve made this addition more evident. Users coming from other devices or older Galaxy Z Fold handsets might not know they can get more functionality out of their new Z Fold5.

As with Galaxy Z Fold tradition, you can drag and drop apps around the Main Screen to get a multi-window view across various apps. This works with the four recent apps' capability too. You should also enable the Samsung Labs option to bypass certain app restrictions for the full effect (for example, Shopee doesn’t like it when you do multi-window). As demonstrated above, not every app automatically reads the split view correctly, so you might have to fiddle a bit to get the apps to show up nicely.

While you can easily have four apps running in each quadrant, you’d probably want to keep to a maximum of three apps for a nice balance between readability and multi-tasking: any more and the Main Screen gets too cluttered for practical use.

Our only gripe with the device’s day-to-day usage is how untidy the settings are. You really need to set aside time to personalise the Galaxy Z Fold5 to an ideal standard of accessibility and convenience, and it’s not one to take lightly because we’d return to it regularly and optimise it further in our course of use. The two important Fold features (Taskbar and Multi-Window) are housed in different Settings submenus. The UX doesn’t make sense seeing how they are unique to Samsung’s book-style foldable phones.

Oh, don’t forget there’s two-handed drag-and-drop now, where you can use both thumbs to move copied content across apps (one thumb to hold what you’re copying, the other to tap around for the app you’re pasting in). It’s an excellent addition, but it’s also odd that this wasn’t an option when the Fold first came about.

Imaging Performance

Samsung made no major changes to the Galaxy Z Fold5's rear camera system. It's the same loadout as its predecessor's. From its specs list, you see:

• 50MP main camera, Dual Pixel AF, OIS, f/1.8, 1.0μm, 85 ̊ FOV
• 12MP ultra-wide, f/2.2, 1.12μm, 123 ̊ FOV
• 10MP telephoto, PDAF, OIS, f/2.4, 1.0μm, 36 ̊ FOV, 3x Optical Zoom

No changes mean we can expect the same quality from before, which was already more than what most multi-taskers require for video calls and documentation. We won't bore you with the details so here are some photo samples taken in Seoul to assure you that the camera and imaging quality is still up to par.

Of particular note is the 3x optical zoom, which showed it was able to retain details very well from a distance. However, it's the main camera with the strongest control over colour accuracy and contrast handling.

Imaging samples

Benchmark Performance

While the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold5 also uses a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for Galaxy customised chipset like its clamshell sibling, it gets a 38% larger vapour chamber than before for thermal management. We’ll see if this change can help the Galaxy Z Fold5 achieve performance heights that other premium flagship mobiles cannot attain.

For good measure, we’ll also bring up its predecessor to compare below. With many benchmarks getting new versions between these two years, some scores would be missing, but that shouldn’t stop you from having a reasonable estimate about what Galaxy Z Fold5 can do.

JetStream 2.0

JetStream 2 is a combination of a variety of JavaScript and Web Assembly benchmarks, including benchmarks that came before like SunSpider and Octane. It primarily tests for a system’s and browser’s ability in delivering a good web experience. It runs a total of 64 subtests, each weighted equally, with multiple iterations, and takes the geometric mean to compute the overall score. The higher the score, the better.

Geekbench 5

Geekbench CPU is a cross-platform processor benchmark that tests both single-core and multi-core performance with workloads that simulate real-world usage. Geekbench 5 scores are calibrated against a baseline score of 1000, which is the score of an Intel Core i3-8100. The higher the score, the better.

Geekbench 6

Our Geekbench 5 benchmarking will soon be replaced with Geekbench 6, the updated version that tests single-core and multi-core CPU performance. Geekbench 6 scores are calibrated against a baseline score of 2500, which is the score of an Intel Core i7-12700. We’ll continue to populate this new benchmark with more scores from our review units before fully transitioning over. 

3DMark Wild Life (Unlimited)

3DMark Wild Life is a cross-platform benchmark for Windows, Android and Apple iOS for measuring GPU performance. Its graphics test consists of multiple scenes with variations in the amount of geometry, lights and post-processing effects, mirroring mobile games that are based on short bursts of intense activity. Wild Life uses the Vulkan graphics API on Windows PCs and Android devices. On iOS devices, it uses Metal.

In Unlimited mode, the benchmark runs offscreen using a fixed time step between frames. Unlimited mode renders exactly the same frames in every run on every device, regardless of resolution scaling. The higher the score, the better.

PCMark for Android - Work 3.0 and Storage 2.0

PCMark for Android is a benchmark for testing the performance of Android phones and tablets. The Work 3.0 test checks how the device handles common productivity tasks such as browsing the web, editing videos, working with documents and data, and editing photos. Storage 2.0 checks write-in and read-out performance for internal storage, external storage (if applicable), and SQLite database management. Together, the benchmarks can clue us in on how capable a phone is at handling everyday use. Work 3.0 scores are above, while Storage 2.0 scores are immediately below for each device - the higher the score, the better.

Since this is a newly introduced benchmark in our reviews, we’re building up our database of PCMark scores for Android phones.

Benchmark Performance remarks

Samsung Galaxy Z Fold5 is a monster of a smartphone with all its hidden upgrades, outclassing nearly every modern Android phone in synthetic performance. More impressive is it kept these numbers without getting too hot to the touch. In day-to-day use, it could handle multiple apps on its Main Screen quite effortlessly, which is something Fold5 users should be proud of. It also looks as if the vapour chamber works because it recorded higher scores across most of the tests compared to the Galaxy Z Flip5 (our scores are an average of multiple runs for each benchmark, after all), with which it shares the same processor.

Battery Life

Our battery benchmark uses PCMark for Android’s Work 3.0 Battery Life test to determine a modern Android-based smartphone's battery uptime in minutes. This controlled benchmark simulates real-world usage with a combination of both web and social media browsing, video and photo editing, parsing data with various file formats, writing (on documents), and more. 

To enhance consistency in battery results, we start the test at: 

• 100% of the phone’s battery capacity until 20% left
• A fixed display brightness is calibrated at 200cd/m2 (200-lux) with the help of a luminance meter 
• Max resolution
• Refresh rates unlocked
• 0% audio, or completely silenced where possible
• Full bars of Wi-Fi connectivity, Bluetooth, and notifications enabled
• Only one other battery recording app opened in the background
• Scored in uptime minutes; the higher, the better

We expected the Galaxy Z Fold5 to have a lower uptime than most conventional phones despite its 4,400mAh battery for one simple reason: the Main Screen display is almost twice as big as other conventional options, and displays are the battery vampires of mobile devices. That said, you can expect a significantly longer uptime if you’re primarily on the Cover Screen — a more viable option on the Galaxy Z Fold5 thanks to its physical improvements to handling and usage.

That said, it’s fortunate we still keep the old battery test around for reference (although not for long now). We can see that it’s on par with its predecessor, implying that you’re not suffering from the more powerful processor and bright display.

It took 30 minutes for a 0-50% charge, but almost two hours for 100%. Clearly, the Fold5 is a bit dramatic at preserving battery longevity, but a 50% charge in a jiffy is reasonable if you want to top it off before continuing your day.

As a final parting comment for Galaxy Z Fold5: you’re charging users a hefty ~S$2,400; please don’t skimp out and exclude the charging adapter for the price like you already are. Come on, now.

The new benchmark will succeed our outgoing Battery Life benchmarking, which has the following parameters:

• Looping a 720p video with screen brightness and volume at 100%
• Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity turned on
• Constant data streaming through email

Conclusion: A refinement for the refined multi-tasker

Samsung has kept the Galaxy Z Fold5’s upgrades simple and to the point, bringing about more practicality to its physical and software aspects in one fell swoop. Everything, from its optional S Pen to its hinge, is about being a smaller, slimmer, and better Fold. We think the Galaxy Z Fold5 is the best representation of Z Folds and book-style foldable phones anyone can get now.

Users of older Galaxy Z Fold models may feel less compelled to upgrade if they don’t feel drawn to the changes or its updated components. Maybe the bulge doesn’t impact their handling, maybe they have big enough hands or pockets. To these people, we say a trip to a Samsung store with your old Fold is worth seeing how the new Galaxy Z Fold5 measures up. The handling changes might be enough to sway you.

Those who already intend to upgrade will fare better: it’s everything you love about Galaxy Z Fold handsets without its old bulk. Upgrades from older Folds will feel very apparent, and we think Samsung got it right despite lacking flashy headline-grabbing changes.

To us, it’s clear the Koreans fully understand the Z Fold's target audience and their penchant for efficiency and productivity. And that has resulted in a phone that's better at multitasking than anything else in the market.

But the Galaxy Z Fold5 is not without its flaws. Samsung maintains the phone's reputation as a productivity wizard, but we think it’s high time the Korean giant starts grouping the phone’s settings coherently. Z Fold-specific configuration options are all over the Settings app, and it’s hard to track where’s what. 

Setting up the device for an ideal experience can be exhilarating. Still, it would be better to house its foldable tweaks in a more intuitive, all-in-one menu for quick and frequent optimisations throughout the phone’s lifespan.

Its other problem is its price. Unsurprisingly, a smartphone with a folding display and high-end components will be expensive, but Samsung could have sweetened the deal with a free S Pen case and charger to make it less painful for its users. It’s a thousand dollars more than a typical high-end phone, so it needs an upfront appeal even before getting a chance to lock users in with its multi-tasking feats.

Similarly, getting rid of the crease is their next priority. Failing to do so won’t help convert the remaining potential users from holding out, and it’s even more crucial on the Fold than Flip because of how S Pen works. You don’t want to be annotating midway, and your stylus stumbles because of a silly longkang (Hokkien for drain) in the middle of the panel. Samsung also needs to figure out how to optimise its charging and include an adapter, but going creaseless has to come first and foremost.

That’s not to say Samsung tried cruising on autopilot with the Galaxy Z Fold5. In fact, the changes have all but muted the competition posed by other book-style contenders on the market who are still figuring out their form factor. An even better Fold5 demonstrates a deeper understanding of its users and better longevity of its foldable lineup. As it stands, the Galaxy Z Fold5 proves that foldable phones can be a viable mainstream option – as long as you've got the wallet for it.

Samsung Galaxy Z Fold5 starts at S$2,398 (for the version with 256GB storage), with the more expensive variants going up to 1TB at S$2,938. You can pick it up from Samsung or its official Lazada and Shopee platforms. It’s also available via a variety of third-party retailers in Singapore. The full pricing and promo article can be found here.