Galaxy Z Fold 5 Review: Reliably great

Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 5 isn’t very different from its predecessor, but that’s not necessarily bad given I’m very fond of the Z Fold 4.

As expected, the Galaxy Z Fold 5 remains the king of the book-style foldables in Canada, as it’s the only device with this design officially sold here. However, while reviewing this handset, I also compared it to the Pixel Fold, a smartphone that’s not available in Canada but that is still worth looking at since Google could bring a Pixel Fold here in the future. It’s also good to look at different form factors to see what Samsung could do better with its foldable.

By all accounts, the Galaxy Fold 5 is an excellent device that offers top-of-the-line specs, including 12GB of RAM, up to 1TB of storage, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor and an even better design than last year’s model. This foldable smartphone is still a productivity powerhouse, but Z Fold 4 owners shouldn’t run to the store to upgrade as the two devices are practically the same — and that’s my biggest gripe with the Z Fold 5, the lack of innovation.

With the Fold 5, Samsung’s Fold line has hit a very clear plateau.

More refined

Nothing about the Z Fold 5’s design is particularly exciting, but “if it ain’t broke,” right? That phrase is almost identical to what I said last year about the Fold 4, and just by looking at the device, you’d assume it was true again. Like with the Fold 4, most of this year’s changes are inside the device. You’ll feel that it’s lighter, weighing about 10g less than last year at 253g. It’s also slightly smaller and thinner as Samsung cut a bit from the foldable’s length, width and thickness. Again, this isn’t something most will notice just by looking at the device, but the changes are evident when you have both the Fold 4 and Fold 5 in your hands.

The Cover Screen features the same aspect ratio with a 6.2-inch panel and a 904 x 2,316 pixels resolution. Last year I mentioned that I used the display much more than the Fold 3, which featured a tighter aspect ratio. However, now that I’ve started playing around with the Pixel Fold, which sports a 5.8-inch front display with a 17.4:9 aspect ratio, I’ve noticed I prefer the Z Fold 5’s design over Google’s foldable.

When you open up the handset, you get that same 7.6-inch display, similar to a tablet, alongside an under-display camera (UDC). The UDC seems pretty much the same as last year’s, which means it’s not noticeable unless you’re looking for it. The foldable display crease is also still there but slightly less noticeable. I barely even see it when I’m using the larger display.

The Fold 5 continues to offer IPX8 water resistance and its firm-feeling armour aluminum frame. The IPX8 water resistance means it’s good up to 1.5 meters underwater, a feature other foldable devices don’t offer.

Like its predecessor, the Fold 5 doesn’t feature an S Pen. However, if you purchase the separate Slim S Pen Case for $124.99, it comes with an S Pen, and the case itself is pretty nice. None of this really matters to me since I don’t have much use for Samsung’s stylus.

Both displays are nice, beautifully showcasing any content you put on the screen. However, you still need to deal with that odd aspect ratio on the front of the Fold 5. Because of this, I found myself mostly opting for the larger inside display.

“…I wish Samsung did something new with this year’s camera array”

With all of that said, some of you might be thinking, “Oh, the Pixel Fold is better than the Z Fold 5,” but that’s not entirely accurate. When opened, the Z Fold 5’s display looks better than the Fold’s. The bezels are significantly reduced, a clear positive, and the Z Fold 5 is naturally a vertical display versus the Pixel Fold’s more horizontal screen. A vertical screen makes a lot of sense, considering most apps are designed for a portrait aspect ratio.

The Z Fold 5 Samsung sent me to review is ‘Icy Blue,’ but it also comes in ‘Cream,’ ‘Phantom Black’ ‘Gray,’ and ‘Blue’ (the last two colours are exclusive to the Samsung Store).

Same shooters

The Z Fold 5’s 50-megapixel primary camera is still good. However, I wish Samsung did something new with this year’s camera array.

Pictures are sharp, bright and vivid, and in true Samsung fashion, there’s a bit of oversaturation, but it’s not the worst thing. The sky is slightly bluer, and the grass is a bit greener; still, it’s pleasing to the eye, and turning off the scene optimizer helps a bit. Oversaturation, notwithstanding the primary shooter, also has a great high dynamic range, showcasing the difference between bright whites and darker shadows.

The Z Fold 5 also features a 12-megapixel ultrawide and a 10-megapixel telephoto with up to 10x zoom. Again the camera experience is similar to last year’s model, meaning they all take good shots. However, I still prefer the shooters in Samsung’s S series handsets, so you could argue that the Fold 5 should take better images. Even Google’s Pixel Fold offers 5x zoom, and Samsung pushes 10x on its S23 series; if you’re paying over $2,000, you should also expect top-of-the-line camera performance.

Selfies taken with the primary shooter (using the Cover display as the viewfinder) show details in facial hair, brickwork isn’t too sharp, and even foliage looks pretty good as long as you’re not zooming in to inspect the digitally sharpened edges.

Low-light images are also slightly better this year; they’re well lit, the colours are vibrant, and there’s still a lot of detail present in shots.

Productivity champ

Like last year, the Z Fold 5 is great at multitasking, as it continues to offer 12GB of RAM and features the new Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 processor. Firstly, the handset has the best benchmarks of any Android on the market, boasting a single-core score of 2,066 and a multi-core score of 5,549. This is impressively high, and though benchmarks don’t necessarily indicate performance, it’s not shocking that this handset performs super well.

I’ve only managed to make the Z Fold 5 lag once, and that was when I purposefully tried to see how many apps the phone can have open at once on its display — the answer: a lot. You can open three main apps, along with tons of pop-ups, which is crazy. That said, with this many apps, you can switch back to the Cover Screen, causing a lot of lag. Closing all the apps will fix this immediately. Still, it’s impressive how many apps you can use at once.

Other features, like having the taskbar at the bottom when you’re using the main screen, help you easily switch between apps. The taskbar always shows the apps you have pinned at the bottom of your homepage, but they are minimized, so it’s not in the way. You also have access to your two most recently opened apps and a shortcut to the entire app folder. This feature was available last year, but now you can add two more apps to the taskbar, which is a welcome addition. You can easily pull apps from the taskbar to either side of your display and make pop-ups from these apps.

Battery-wise, the Z Fold 5 offers a similar experience to last year, with around 5 hours of screen on time. The handset can easily make it through the day and is reliable. I typically multi-task using Google Keep and reading, watching YouTube videos, playing music, and even playing several games of Marvel Snap.

It's worth noting Samsung did provide me with an S Pen to test this time, but the company hasn’t made any changes from the Z Fold 3, and I don’t really like using a stylus, so if you want to read more about the S Pen experience, check out that review. However, the new case is pretty nice as the S Pen lays flush with the back of the case, so the stylus is no longer sticking out.

Using the Sound Meter app, I determined that music peaked around 71 to 75 decibels, so compared to other devices, it’s not that loud, but surprisingly, the sound profile is pretty full.