Samsung Galaxy Fold Series: Every Generation Compared — From a $1,980 Experiment to the Thinnest Phone Ever Built

Samsung didn't just launch a phone in 2019. It launched a category.

The idea of a smartphone that unfolds into a tablet had lived in concept drawings and patent filings for years before Samsung shipped one. When the original Galaxy Fold arrived at $1,980, the response was equal parts amazement and skepticism. Review units started failing within days. Samsung pulled the launch, reinforced the hinge, added warning labels, and tried again. It was a rough start to what has become one of tech's most successful hardware experiments.

Six years, seven generations, and a complete reinvention of the hinge later, the Galaxy Z Fold 7 unfolds to 8+ inches, weighs just 215 grams, and is 4.2mm thin when open — thinner than any iPhone ever made. This is the full story of how that happened.

The Original Galaxy Fold (2019): The One That Started It All

Samsung unveiled the Galaxy Fold on February 20, 2019, at an Unpacked event that felt genuinely historic. The price — $1,980 — was audacious. The specs were impressive: a 7.3-inch Infinity Flex Display, a secondary 4.6-inch cover screen, 12 GB of RAM, and six cameras (three rear, one on the cover, two on the inner screen for both folded and unfolded selfies).

The Snapdragon 855 chipset made it one of the fastest Android phones of the year. The 4,380 mAh battery was respectable. And the folding mechanism — a barrel hinge that allowed the large inner display to fold in half — was genuinely new engineering.

The early failures were real. Several review units sent to journalists showed screen damage within 72 hours. Some reviewers had peeled off a protective polymer layer that covered the display, mistaking it for a standard screen protector. Others reported debris entering the hinge and damaging the display from underneath. Samsung delayed the launch by months, added explicit "do not remove this layer" labels, redesigned the hinge gap to prevent debris ingress, and reinforced the sweep mechanism.

The phone eventually launched on September 6, 2019, first in South Korea and then globally later that month. For those who bought it and treated it carefully, the original Fold was genuinely remarkable — the world's first phone you could unfold into a tablet and fold back into your pocket.

Key Specs — Galaxy Fold (2019):

• Main display: 7.3-inch Infinity Flex Display (1536 × 2152)
• Cover display: 4.6-inch Super AMOLED
• Chipset: Snapdragon 855
• RAM: 12 GB
• Cameras: 6 total
• Battery: 4,380 mAh
• Price: $1,980

Galaxy Z Fold 2 (2020): The "Z" Era Begins

The second generation arrived in September 2020 with a new name structure — the "Z" branding — and addressed the original's most obvious weakness: the cover screen.

Going from 4.6 inches to 6.2 inches on the external display transformed the phone's usability when folded. The Fold 1's cover screen was barely wide enough to type on; the Fold 2's was a proper phone display. Samsung also introduced Flex Mode, a software feature that split app interfaces in half when the phone was partially open — video calls on the top, controls on the bottom; YouTube on top, comments below. It was a genuinely useful UI innovation that arrived with the hinge hardware to support it.

The redesigned "Hideaway Hinge" with a cam structure allowed the phone to stay open at any angle, like a tiny laptop. A sweepable internal brush system kept debris from entering the hinge channel. The internal display grew to 7.6 inches — the size it would stay for the next four generations. The phone became the first foldable to support 5G natively across all variants.

The Z Fold 2 weighed 282 grams and folded to 16.8mm. It was heavy. It was thick. But it was significantly more practical than the original.

Key Specs — Galaxy Z Fold 2 (2020):

• Main display: 7.6-inch Dynamic AMOLED, 120Hz
• Cover display: 6.2-inch Super AMOLED, 60Hz
• Chipset: Snapdragon 865+
• Weight: 282g / Folded thickness: 16.8mm
• Price: $1,999

Galaxy Z Fold 3 (2021): Water Resistance and the Stylus

The Z Fold 3 was the landmark generation. Samsung achieved two things nobody had managed in a foldable phone before: official water resistance and stylus support.

IPX8 certification meant the Z Fold 3 could survive 1.5 meters of water for 30 minutes — a standard that had seemed impossible for a phone with a moving hinge and a flexible inner display. Samsung got there by sealing the hinge channels and using improved adhesives on the fold mechanism. It was a significant durability milestone.

S Pen support was the other headline. The stylus (sold separately, with no built-in silo) worked on the 7.6-inch inner display, making the Z Fold 3 a genuinely capable note-taking and drawing device. The Fold screen's reduced layer count — dropping a digitiser layer to make room for the S Pen's pressure sensitivity — was sophisticated engineering.

The under-display camera was a third first: a selfie camera embedded beneath the foldable screen itself, visible only as a slightly darker circular area when the screen was off. No punch-hole, no notch. The execution was imperfect — the under-display camera produced softer images than traditional front cameras — but the approach was ahead of its time.

Samsung also dropped the price to $1,799 — a $200 reduction that signalled confidence the foldable market was growing.

Key Specs — Galaxy Z Fold 3 (2021):

• Main display: 7.6-inch Dynamic AMOLED 2X, 120Hz, 1200 nits
• Cover display: 6.2-inch, 120Hz
• Chipset: Snapdragon 888
• Weight: 271g
• Water resistance: IPX8
• S Pen support: Yes (sold separately)
• Battery: 4,400 mAh
• Price: $1,799

Galaxy Z Fold 4 (2022): Camera Finally Catches Up

The Z Fold 4 closed the camera gap that had persisted since the original Fold. Samsung gave it the same triple-lens system as the Galaxy S22 Plus: a 50MP main sensor, a 12MP ultrawide, and a 10MP 3× telephoto lens. Previous Fold cameras had lagged behind Samsung's slab flagships; the Fold 4 was the first generation that didn't require compromising on photography.

The cover screen changed aspect ratio from 24.5:9 to 23.1:9 — subtly wider, more usable one-handed, better for video. The taskbar in Android 12L (built specifically for foldable and large-screen devices, with Samsung's foldable lineup as the primary driver of development) arrived with this generation, giving the inner screen a persistent dock at the bottom for app switching and multitasking.

Weight dropped to 263 grams (down 8g from the Fold 3) and folded thickness came down to 14.2–15.8mm. Still heavy by slab phone standards, but progress.

Key Specs — Galaxy Z Fold 4 (2022):

• Main display: 7.6-inch Dynamic AMOLED 2X, 120Hz
• Cover display: 6.2-inch, 120Hz
• Chipset: Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1
• Weight: 263g / Folded: 14.2–15.8mm / Unfolded: 6.3mm
• Cameras: 50MP + 12MP + 10MP (3×)
• Battery: 4,400 mAh
• Price: $1,799

Galaxy Z Fold 5 (2023): The FlexHinge Changes Everything

Four generations in, the Z Fold still had a fundamental design problem: it couldn't fold completely flat. The old Hideaway Hinge left a gap between the two halves when closed, making the folded phone thicker than it needed to be and creating that characteristic slight gap you could see at the spine.

Samsung solved it with the FlexHinge — a new mechanism that allowed the display to fold in the shape of a water droplet. Four drive shafts and a dual rail structure let the inner display curl into the hinge cavity rather than pressing against an abrupt fold point. For the first time, the Z Fold closed to a flat, gapless profile.

The result: 13.4mm folded, down from 14.2mm. 6.1mm unfolded, down from 6.3mm. 253 grams, down from 263g. The Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for Galaxy was the fastest chip in any Android phone at the time, and brightness jumped to 1,750 nits.

None of these numbers sound dramatic in isolation. But the Z Fold 5 was noticeably more pocketable and more refined than its predecessor. It felt, for the first time, like a mature product rather than an impressive but slightly awkward engineering exercise.

Key Specs — Galaxy Z Fold 5 (2023):

• Main display: 7.6-inch Dynamic AMOLED 2X, 120Hz, 1750 nits
• Cover display: 6.2-inch, 120Hz
• Chipset: Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for Galaxy
• Weight: 253g / Folded: 13.4mm / Unfolded: 6.1mm
• Battery: 4,400 mAh
• Hinge: FlexHinge (waterdrop, first flat-fold Z Fold)
• Price: $1,799

Galaxy Z Fold 6 (2024): Galaxy AI and a Square Redesign

Announced at Samsung's Paris Unpacked event in July 2024, the Z Fold 6 arrived with a visual redesign and a major software story. The squared-off corners and flat sides looked visually closer to the Galaxy S24 Ultra than any previous Fold. The cover screen grew to 6.3 inches — slightly wider and shorter than before, making one-handed use more natural.

The Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 for Galaxy powered the full suite of Galaxy AI features: Circle to Search (draw a circle around anything on screen to search it), Live Translate (real-time call translation), Generative Edit (fill in missing parts of photos with AI), and Chat Assist. AI was the headline story this generation, and it was genuinely useful rather than gimmicky.

Brightness hit 2,600 nits — more than double the Z Fold 3's 1,200 nits from just three years earlier, making outdoor visibility dramatically better. Weight dropped to 239 grams and unfolded thickness to 5.6mm. Storage options went up to 1TB.

Key Specs — Galaxy Z Fold 6 (2024):

• Main display: 7.6-inch Dynamic AMOLED 2X, 120Hz, 2600 nits
• Cover display: 6.3-inch, 120Hz
• Chipset: Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 for Galaxy
• Weight: 239g / Folded: 12.1mm / Unfolded: 5.6mm
• Battery: 4,400 mAh
• Galaxy AI: Full suite
• Price: $1,899 (starting)

Galaxy Z Fold 7 (2025): Thinner Than Any iPhone

The Z Fold 7, announced in Brooklyn in July 2025, led with two numbers: 8.9mm folded, 4.2mm unfolded. For context, the iPhone 15 Pro is 8.25mm thick. The Apple iPhone 6 — famous for being the thinnest iPhone ever — was 6.9mm. The Z Fold 7, when open and in use as a tablet, at 4.2mm is thinner than any iPhone ever manufactured.

At 215 grams, it is also the lightest Z Fold by 24 grams — lighter than the Fold 6, and 67 grams lighter than the Z Fold 2 from five years earlier. The main display grew past 8 inches for the first time and the cover screen reached 6.5 inches. The Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset and 200MP main camera completed what is, on paper, the most capable foldable ever shipped.

Starting at $1,999, it is also the most expensive Z Fold since the Z Fold 2 — the price floor has edged back up as the specs have pushed significantly further.

Key Specs — Galaxy Z Fold 7 (2025):

• Main display: 8.0-inch+ Dynamic AMOLED 2X, 120Hz
• Cover display: 6.5-inch, 120Hz
• Chipset: Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy
• RAM: 12–16 GB
• Weight: 215g / Folded: 8.9mm / Unfolded: 4.2mm
• Main camera: 200 MP
• Battery: 4,400 mAh
• Price: $1,999 (starting)

Every Generation at a Glance

10 Things You Probably Didn't Know About the Galaxy Fold Series

1. The battery never changed for five generations. From the Z Fold 3 in 2021 through to the Z Fold 7 in 2025, every Galaxy Z Fold shipped with the same 4,400 mAh cell — even as displays got dramatically brighter, processors more powerful, and cameras more demanding. Battery life was the top user complaint across every generation.

2. The original was not called the "Z" Fold. Samsung launched it simply as the "Galaxy Fold" — the Z branding started with the second generation in 2020. Today nobody calls the original by any other name but the Z Fold retrofit is technically incorrect.

3. Water resistance took two years. The first two Fold generations had no water resistance rating at all. Achieving IPX8 on a phone with a moving hinge, flexible inner display, and open hinge gap was a genuine engineering problem. The Z Fold 3 solved it in 2021.

4. The hinge has been completely redesigned three times. Original: barrel hinge. Z Fold 2: Hideaway Hinge with cam structure and sweep protection. Z Fold 5: FlexHinge (waterdrop, first flat-fold). Z Fold 7: next-generation FlexHinge achieving 4.2mm thinness when open.

5. Android built an OS version specifically for foldables. Android 12L (released 2022) introduced taskbar, improved multitasking, and adaptive UI layouts. The Z Fold series was the primary driver of this development — Samsung and Google collaborated directly on the software to match the Fold 4's hardware capabilities.

6. The crease has never fully disappeared. Every Z Fold generation has had a visible fold line in certain lighting. Samsung reduced it significantly with each generation but has never eliminated it. It is arguably the defining compromise of the book-style foldable form factor.

7. The cover screen doubled in size in one generation. The original Fold had a 4.6-inch cover display. The Z Fold 2 jumped to 6.2 inches — a 35% increase in screen size on the outside alone, making it the most impactful single-generation improvement in the series.

8. Samsung dropped the price by $200 in year three. From $1,980 at launch to $1,799 with the Z Fold 3, holding there for three consecutive generations. The price increase didn't return until the Z Fold 6 in 2024.

9. The Z Fold 7 lost 67 grams vs. the Z Fold 2. The Z Fold 2 weighed 282 grams. The Z Fold 7 weighs 215 grams. Over five years, Samsung shaved the equivalent of a small chocolate bar's weight out of a device that simultaneously grew its inner display from 7.6 inches to 8+ inches.

10. More than 10 million foldable phones sold globally since 2019. What started as a product the industry called "too expensive to sell" became a legitimate market segment. Samsung holds roughly 65–70% of the global foldable market, with Motorola and Huawei as the primary competitors.

What Changes the Most — and What Hasn't

Looking across all seven generations, the weight and thickness story is the clearest narrative: Samsung has consistently made the phone lighter and thinner every single year. From 282g and 16.8mm (Z Fold 2) to 215g and 8.9mm (Z Fold 7) — that's a 24% weight reduction and 47% thickness reduction in five years.

The inner display size has been remarkably stable. It went from 7.3 inches (Fold 1) to 7.6 inches (Fold 2), then stayed there for four generations, and finally crossed 8 inches with the Fold 7. Samsung prioritised every other dimension before expanding the main screen.

The battery never moved. 4,400 mAh has been the number since the Z Fold 3. This is either a constraint of the physical space inside the device or a deliberate compromise to keep weight and thickness down.

Camera quality accelerated sharply from the Z Fold 4 onwards, going from lagging behind Samsung's slab phones to, with the Z Fold 7's 200MP main camera, leading the entire industry.

The Verdict Across Generations

The Galaxy Fold series is one of the most honest product evolution stories in modern consumer electronics. The first generation was a proof of concept. The second made it usable. The third made it durable. The fourth made it photographically capable. The fifth made it pocketable. The sixth made it intelligent. The seventh made it thinner than the competition's premium slab phones.

Each generation addressed the most obvious complaint from the generation before. That is not always how product cycles work — sometimes companies fix things that weren't broken and ignore things that were. The Fold series has largely avoided that. The result, in 2025, is a phone that is no longer a compelling curiosity for early adopters. It is the most capable and versatile smartphone Samsung has ever made.