Samsung Galaxy Z Fold5 Quick Review Philippines Initial Verdict: Save for newer internals and a revamped hinge design, the Galaxy Z Fold5 is barely different from its predecessor–and is a very incremental upgrade at best.
Pros
-Updated hinge design
Cons
-Slow charging speeds (for a flagship)
-Crease still visible
While the spotlight for Unpacked 2023 is on the Galaxy Z Flip5, Samsung also has the Z Fold5 as well. Unlike its smaller brother, the Galaxy Z Fold5 is focused more on tweaking the overall design of last year’s Z Fold4. Like the Galaxy Z Flip5, we also got our hands on the Z Fold5 ahead of its unveiling at Unpacked 2023.
Samsung Galaxy Z Fold5 Quick Review Philippines: Design
If you place the Galaxy Z Fold5 and Z Fold4 side-by-side, the differences are barely noticeable. Aside from a different color palette selection, the most notable improvement we’ve seen on the Galaxy Z Fold5 is with the hinge. Like the Galaxy Z Flip5, Samsung redesigned it to give the Z Fold5 a gapless design when folded. This makes Samsung’s large foldable at par with the competition–all while not making any drastic modifications to the core hinge design.
Since it’s very similar to the Galaxy Z Fold4, you get the same rear camera layout, display, and port selection on the Z Fold5. As how we described in our quick review of the Galaxy Z Fold4, the Z Fold5 is another case of Samsung perfecting the formula for large foldable phones.
Samsung Galaxy Z Fold5 Quick Review Philippines: Display
Being an incremental upgrade, the Z Fold5 has the same set of displays as its predecessor. 6.4-inch Dynamic AMOLED for the cover display, and 7.6-inch Foldable Dynamic AMOLED for the inner display. We have no complaints about using the same displays, though we wished that Samsung did make the crease less visible–considering that they revamped the hinge for a gapless design.
Like its predecessor, the foldable display also hides a 4-megapixel under-display camera that we also wished Samsung upgraded as well. We’re not satisfied with its performance on the Galaxy Z Fold4, and we hope the upgraded internals–more on that later–can help maximize the bleeding edge selfie shooter.
Samsung Galaxy Z Fold5 Quick Review Philippines: Cameras
We don’t like to sound like a broken record at this point, but you are getting the same set of cameras on the Galaxy Z Fold5. We have no qualms about it, especially since the 50-megapixel main camera proved to be the biggest improvement of the Z Fold4. Despite the same camera hardware, there are improvements in camera performance–partly due to the updated internals.
We had a brief time with the Galaxy Z Fold5 to test out its cameras, so watch out for our full review when we have a longer time in putting the Galaxy Z Fold5 to the test.
Samsung Galaxy Z Fold5 Quick Review Philippines: Internals
Since we’re talking about incremental upgrades here (like Apple’s iPhone -s models), the main upgrade on the Galaxy Z Fold5 is the internals: like every 2023 Galaxy flagship, you get a Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for Galaxy processor, which is essentially an overclocked version of Qualcomm’s 2023 flagship. You get the same 12GB LPDDR5X RAM on the Galaxy Z Fold5, while the storage–which can also be availed with up to 1TB–is now UFS 4.0.
We still have to see if the internals are enough to deliver improved performance over its predecessor, but our general impressions of the Galaxy S23 Ultra showed a considerable performance bump. We also want to see if the internals have an impact on battery life, as the Galaxy Z Fold5 still uses the same 4400mAh cell that supports 25w wired and 15w wireless charging.
Samsung Galaxy Z Fold5 Quick Review Philippines: Wrap-up and Initial Verdict
Unless you are coming from an older Z Fold phone, the Galaxy Z Fold5 is one of the most incremental upgrades we’ve seen from Samsung in a while. While we appreciate the revamped hinge to give it a gapless design when folded, the Galaxy Z Fold5 is essentially a very refined version of last year’s Galaxy Z Fold4.
Samsung Galaxy Z Fold5 Quick Review Philippines: Price
The Galaxy Z Fold5 is priced at Php 98,990 for the 256GB model, Php 105,990 for the 512GB model, and Php 119,990 for the 1TB model.
