There's a Labor Day treat in store for anyone who has been on the fence about picking up one of Samsung's latest foldable smartphones as there's a sale taking place right now. You can snap up the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5 for $300 less than usual at the moment. The foldable has dropped from $1,800 to $1,500 for a version with 256GB of storage.
Samsung has been steadily refining its foldables since debuting the first Fold in 2019. The latest incarnation has a new Flex Hinge that's designed to eliminate the gap between the two halves of the screen and reduce the device's thickness while still being able to offer IPX8 water resistance.
There are upgrades to various other components compared with the Z Fold 4, including a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 Mobile Platform chipset. There are new gestures designed to improve multitasking, which we found worked well. In fact, we think the Galaxy Z Fold 5 is the best phone for multitasking.
Ultimately, we gave the Z Fold 5 a score of 86 in our review. While we feel that it's a solid phone, there's a sense that Samsung isn't doing enough to innovate or (crucially) bring down the base price of the foldable. We like the Flex Hinge and the lack of a gap between the two sides of the screen. Better performance, stronger battery life (thanks to improved efficiency rather than a larger capacity) and a brighter main screen were plus points too.
On the downside, it's still a somewhat bulky device when folded. Samsung didn't really update the cameras, though it added new image processing bells and whistles. There's no space to slot an S Pen inside either. Still, if you're looking for a foldable from a major manufacturer, the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5 is one of your main options right now, and a $300 discount might make it a more palatable choice.
Meanwhile, if you prefer your screen to fold vertically rather than horizontally, you can pick up a Galaxy Z Flip 5 for less than usual too. A variant with 256GB of storage has dropped from $1,000 to $800.
It might take you a while to tweak the settings to get the most out of the device, and you'll likely have to recharge it more often than other Android phones. However, we reckon it's the best flip foldable around and gave it a score of 88. The Z Flip 5 has a slightly unusual document folder-shaped external display that measures 3.4 inches — a major size and quality upgrade over the exterior screen on last year's model. The Z Flip 5 also has a Flex Hinge, and the device is comparatively compact when it's folded.
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