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The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 Failed To Impress Me - Why I am sticking with my Z Fold 5

K

Last Week, Samsung held its annual foldable edition of Samsung Unpacked where they debuted a few new products as well as upgrades to their Samsung Galaxy Z-Fold and Z-Flip line of phones. Samsung hyped up these new devices over the weeks leading up to the event as a generational leap forward in technology, and I was excited to see what Samsung had up their sleeves.  I watched the recordings of the event after I finished my workday and was largely underwhelmed by the upgrades. AI Gimmicks aside, there are no real reasons for me to upgrade from my battle tested Z-Fold 5 to the new Z-Fold 6. There is a lot more Samsung could have done to sway me but it seems they choose to go with minor improvements instead of the promised "generational" leap. If Samsung wanted me to upgrade from the Fold 5 to the Fold 6, here are some things I would have loved to see.

16 GB of RAM

Samsung seems to love the idea of limiting the amount of RAM on their Z-Fold line of phones to 12 GB; in fact, the first Z-Fold 1 from September 2019 came with 12 GB of RAM, and this has remained the same in the later 5 generations. 12 GB of RAM is definitely fine for most people, however, as Samsung has been pushing people to do more with their phones, the 12 GB of RAM can become a limiting factor - especially if used as a desktop replacement using Samsung Dex. I would ideally love to see the base model Z-Fold ship with 16 GB of RAM with the option for 32 GB of RAM on the 1 TB storage upgrade.

S-Pen Support on the Front Screen

I do use the Samsung S-Pen a lot and love it. I have purchased both the official Samsung S-Pen case for the Fold 5 and the upgraded S-Pen Pro to allow me to use some of the Bluetooth functions on my Z-Fold 5. Using the S-Pen on the large screen works flawlessly, but Samsung missed a massive opportunity by not extending support for the smaller front cover screen. I would have loved the ability to pull out my phone and discreetly jot down a quick note when I am standing in line at the grocery store instead of needing to open the phone to do it on the larger screen.

More Powerful Charging

One thing that irritates me about the new fold is that Samsung has chosen to limit the charging speeds to 25 Watts, again a trend that has been consistent with all previous generations of the Z-Fold line of phones. Personally, I don't mind if my phone takes a few hours to charge, but I do mind that while using Google Chrome + Dex while connected to the official Samsung Charger, it does not charge my phone, it just causes the battery to die a bit slower.