This week, Samsung Electronics lifted the lid on the future of foldable smartphones with the Galaxy Z Fold7 series.
Our first encounter with the device, during the local launch in Johannesburg on Wednesday, revealed a startlingly thin device.
Samsung describes it as “a device that brings together the best of Galaxy design, camera functionality and AI innovation in the thinnest and lightest Galaxy Z Fold series to date”.
And sure enough, in folded format it was even thinner than the single-screen flagship from Samsung, the S25 Ultra. During the global launch, streamed live from New York on Wednesday, TM Roh, president and acting head of the Device eXperience (DX) Division at Samsung Electronics, spoke of the “ultra experience”, linking the foldable series directly to the top-of-the-range Galaxy S device.
“Galaxy Z Fold7 combines Galaxy AI with powerful hardware to deliver our most advanced smartphone experience yet,” said Roh.“This next chapter of foldables brings together design and engineering, with AI built specifically for the foldable form. It gives people the ultra experience they want: powerful, immersive, intelligent, and portable all in one.”
According to Samsung, “it delivers the premium performance and experience of an ultra smartphone, while unlocking new levels of efficiency and productivity with a larger, more immersive display when unfolded. And with the new One UI 8 as its foundation, it seamlessly integrates intelligent, multimodal agents optimised for the foldable form factor.”
Photo supplied.
Samsung provided the following information on the new series:
Ultra Sleek, Ultra Powerful
Thinnest, Lightest Galaxy Z Fold
Galaxy Z Fold7 is crafted for those who want the everyday portability and intuitive feel of a traditional smartphone, combined with the enhanced power and flexibility of a larger, unfolded display – all in one device. With its ultra thin and light design and wider cover display, Galaxy Z Fold7 delivers a seamless on-the-go experience that makes typing and browsing effortless when it is folded.
- At just 215 grams, Galaxy Z Fold7 is even lighter than Galaxy S25 Ultra.
- It is just 8.9 mm thick when folded and 4.2 mm thick when unfolded.
- The device comes with 6.5-inch Dynamic AMOLED 2x cover display, a wider screen with a new 21:9 aspect ratio.
Most Expansive Screen on Galaxy Smartphone
When unfolded, Galaxy Z Fold7 becomes more than just a smartphone. It transforms into another device entirely and reveals an expansive screen that expands the workspace for editing, multitasking and immersive viewing – getting more out of Galaxy AI. The main display on Galaxy Z Fold7 is 11% larger than the previous generation, providing even more screen real estate for content editing and multitasking across multiple apps.
- The 8-inch Dynamic AMOLED 2x main display offers ultra-rich contrast, true blacks and vibrant detail that makes everything pop — from movies to tabs open while multitasking.
- With Vision Booster and up to 2,600 nits of peak brightness, Galaxy Z Fold7 stays brilliantly visible even in direct sunlight.
Looks Sleek, Built Tough
Thin and light, Galaxy Z Fold7 is built to move with users, confidently. From repeated folding to being tossed in a bag, it’s engineered for everyday durability and built to last longer, with a restructured hinge and foldable display.
- The Armor FlexHinge is thinner and lighter, thanks to an enhanced water droplet design and newly implemented multi-rail structure that reduces visible creasing and strengthens durability by evenly dispersing stress.
- The cover display is made with Corning Gorilla Glass Ceramic 2, a new glass ceramic that has crystals intricately embedded within its glass matrix. This secures the screen’s durability and crack deflection capabilities and delivers protection in a remarkably thin form factor.
- Advanced Armor Aluminum in the frame and hinge housing increases strength and hardness by 10%.
- The main display is restructured to be thinner and lighter – yet stronger. This was achieved by implementing the Titanium plate layer. Additionally, Ultra-Thin Glass (UTG) was increased to be 50% thicker, making the display tougher.
The Most Powerful Processor Customised for Galaxy
Under the hood, Galaxy Z Fold7 is powered by the best-in-class processor used in Galaxy devices. It’s uniquely customised and makes on-device AI processing tasks – like real-time language translation and Generative Edits – faster and more seamless.
- The Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy delivers performance boosts of 41% in NPU, 38% in CPU, and 26% in GPU compared to the previous generation. This power fuels Galaxy Z Fold7’s ability to process more AI experiences on-device without compromise.
Ultra 200MP Camera
Ultra Detailed, Ultra Clear Photos
Galaxy Z Fold7 now brings the best of the Galaxy’s pro-grade camera experience to a foldable, combining advanced hardware with intelligent processing for consistently stunning results. Its high-resolution camera captures incredible detail, vibrant colour and rich texture, pulling users back into every moment. AI-enhanced imaging automatically optimises lighting, detail and realism, so photos and videos stay sharp and vivid, even in low light settings such as milestone dinners and late-night café scenes.
- Featuring the first 200MP wide-angle camera in the Galaxy Z series, it captures 4x more detail, producing images that are 44% brighter.
- The 10MP 100° camera on the main display expands the frame, so when users unfold their phone, it’s easy to capture group selfies, valuable moments and more of the world in a single shot.
- Samsung’s next generation ProVisual Engine processes images faster, enabling every photo and video to be more crisp, vibrant and full of detail.
- With Night Video, intelligent motion detection now separates moving subjects from still backgrounds to reduce noise.
- 10-bit HDR provides more colour depth. The result is videos with richer colour, deeper contrast and more lifelike detail, no matter the time of day.
Creative Editing with Big Screen
Galaxy Z Fold7 puts a pro-grade creative studio in users’ pocket, with AI-powered tools optimised for its large display. Users can capture stunning photos and videos and then edit with ease. From cleaning up clutter in product shots to removing background noise from café recordings, studio-quality enhancements can be done in a few easy steps. The intuitive and intelligent features on the Galaxy Z Fold7 make it effortless to transform photos and videos into pro-level content, with no extra tools required.
- Shots look flawless with Photo Assist, which moves, erases or enlarges objects and adjusts angles and fills in backgrounds with AI-powered precision. Users can seize vibrant expressions, including pet profiles with Portrait Studio and refine their photos using Galaxy’s enhanced Generative Edit. The ability to seamlessly remove distractions and fill in backgrounds has made Generative Edit a fan favorite, and now it’s even smarter. It offers proactive suggestions with the new Suggest Erases, which automatically detects passersby with the tap of a button.
- Side-by-Side Editing and Show Original enables real-time comparison of original images and edited versions on the large screen, making it easier to decide what to modify and what to keep.
- Audio Eraser has also been upgraded to be more intelligent and convenient. There’s a new toggle in Gallery, and it now proactively detects and removes unwanted background noise like wind or traffic from video recordings.
Ultra AI Experience
The Next Era of Galaxy AI on the Large Screen
Galaxy Z Fold7 harnesses the power of the foldable display to amplify the power and convenience of AI, delivering experiences that are instinctive, adaptive and effortlessly efficient. With the new One UI 8 that is context-aware and naturally responsive, optimised for Galaxy Z Fold7’s flexible format and expansive screen offer a more intuitive and immersive way to interact with AI. There’s less jumping between apps and screens and more frictionless creativity and productivity happening seamlessly in one place.
- Designed as a true multimodal agent, One UI 8 seamlessly combines large-screen multitasking with intelligent tools that understand what users type, say and even see. And with an AI-powered camera and privacy built into every layer, Galaxy Z Fold7 becomes a smart and secure personal assistant, ready to help anytime, anywhere.
- Launching with the all-new One UI 8 on Android 16, Galaxy Z Fold7 debuts Samsung’s latest AI-powered platform on foldables, delivering the latest Android experience straight out of the box.
- Gemini Live is now enhanced with multimodal AI that understands what users see, say and do, making it possible to seamlessly type or speak contextual questions and get answers without having to toggle back and forth between apps. And with screen sharing on Gemini Live or camera sharing on Gemini Live, you can simply show Gemini what users are looking at on the screen or on the camera, then ask questions to get instant insights.
- With Circle to Search, gaming tips appear exactly when and where you need them. Just circle an item on screen and get instant results, tips or tactics in a floating view that ensures a smooth, uninterrupted experience.
- With Galaxy AI Optimised for Large Screens, Galaxy Z Fold7 delivers experiences that maximise the benefits of the expansive foldable display to boost productivity. AI Results View displays results from AI features in a separate Split View or in a Floating View, so the user’s original content remains unobstructed and visible. Users can be more efficient with Drag & Drop AI-generated content, including images and text, directly from Multi Window. With tools like Drawing Assist or Writing Assist, it’s easier than ever to move ideas and visuals, enabling a smoother creative process.
Future-Ready Mobile Security
As mobile experiences grow ever more intelligent and interconnected, Samsung is reinforcing the foundations that protect them – unveiling new protections for on-device AI, expanding cross-device threat detection and enhancing network security with quantum-resistant encryption. One UI 8 brings enhanced privacy to personalised AI experiences with the new Knox Enhanced Encrypted Protection (KEEP). KEEP creates encrypted, app-specific storage environments within the device’s secure storage area, ensuring each app can access only its own sensitive information and nothing more. With One UI 8, Samsung is advancing Knox Matrix to deliver more proactive and user-friendly protection across the Galaxy ecosystem. Furthermore, as part of its ongoing commitment to quantum-safe security, Samsung is integrating post-quantum cryptography into Secure Wi-Fi. This enhancement secures the key exchange process at the core of encrypted connections, helping ensure robust privacy even over public networks.
Availability & Offers
The Galaxy Z Fold7 will be available for pre-order starting July 9, with general availability beginning July 25. The Galaxy Z Fold7 comes in Blue Shadow, Silver Shadow and Jetblack colour options.
The Galaxy Z Fold7 will be available at these recommended retail prices:
- Galaxy Z Fold7 1TB – R49,999
- Galaxy Z Fold7 512GB – R45,999
- Galaxy Z Fold7 256GB – R42,999
For your peace of mind, Samsung Care+ offers comprehensive coverage for accidental damage, repairs, and replacements.
Get expanded access to Google AI Pro and 2TB of cloud storage for 6 months at no cost with Galaxy Z Fold7.
For more information about the Galaxy Z Fold7, Galazy Z Flip7 and Galazy Z Flip7 FE, please visit: Samsung Global Newsroom or Samsung.com.
Specifications
| Galaxy Z Fold7 | ||
|---|---|---|
| Display | Main Screen | 8.0-inch QXGA+*Dynamic AMOLED 2X (2184 x 1968), 368ppi120Hz adaptive refresh rate (1~120Hz) |
| *Measured diagonally, Galaxy Z Fold7’s Main Screen size is 8.0-inch in the full rectangle and 8.0-inch accounting for the rounded corners; actual viewable area is less due to the rounded corners. | ||
| Cover Screen | 6.5-inch FHD+Dynamic AMOLED 2X(2520 x 1080, 21:9), 422ppi120Hz adaptive refresh rate (1~120Hz) | |
| *Measured diagonally, Galaxy Z Fold7’s Cover Screen size is 6.5-inch in a full rectangle and 6.5-inch accounting for the rounded corners. The actual viewable area is smaller due to the rounded corners and camera hole. | ||
| Dimension & Weight | Folded | 72.8 x 158.4 x 8.9mm |
| *Thickness of Galaxy Z Fold7 when folded measured from top to bottom of the glasses of Galaxy Z Fold7. | ||
| Unfolded | 143.2 x 158.4 x 4.2mm | |
| *The thickness of Galaxy Z Fold7 when unfolded does not include the frame of the Main Screen. | ||
| Weight | 215g | |
| Camera | Cover Camera | 10MP Selfie CameraF2.2, Pixel size: 1.12μm, FOV: 85˚ |
| Front Camera | 10MP Main CameraF2.2, Pixel size: 1.12μm, FOV: 100˚ | |
| Rear Triple Camera | 200MP Wide-angle CameraQuad Pixel AF, OIS, F1.7, Pixel size: 0.6μm, FOV: 85˚ | |
| 12MP Ultra-Wide CameraDual Pixel AF, F2.2, Pixel size: 1.4μm, FOV: 120˚ | ||
| 10MP Telephoto CameraPDAF, OIS, F2.4, Pixel size: 1.0μm, FOV: 36˚, 3X optical zoom | ||
| *30X Space Zoom includes 3x Optical Zoom and 10x digital zoom with AI Super Resolution technology. Zooming in past 3x may cause some image deterioration | ||
| AP | Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy | |
| *Snapdragon is a product of Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. and/or its subsidiaries. Snapdragon is a trademark or registered trademark of Qualcomm Incorporated. | ||
| Memory & Storage | 16GB Memory with 1TB internal storage 12GB Memory with 512GB internal storage12GB Memory with 256GB internal storage | |
| *Availability may vary by market or channel. Actual storage space may vary by market, model, file size and format. | ||
| Battery | 4,400mAh (typical) dual battery | |
| *Typical value tested under third-party laboratory condition. Typical value is the estimated average value considering the deviation in battery capacity among the battery samples tested under IEC 61960 standard. Rated capacity is 4272mAh for Galaxy Z Fold7. Actual battery life may vary depending on network environment, usage patterns and other factors. | ||
| Charging | Wired Charging: Up to 50% charge in around 30 min. with 25W Adapter and 3A USB-C cable Fast Wireless Charging 2.0 Wireless PowerShare | |
| *Wired charging compatible with QC2.0 and AFC. Results from internal Samsung lab tests, conducted with 25W Travel Adapter while it has 0% of power remaining, with all the services, features and screen turned off. Actual charging speed may vary depending on the actual usage, charging conditions and other factors. 25W Power Adapter sold separately. Use only Samsung-approved chargers and cables. Wireless charging compatible with WPC. Wireless PowerShare is limited to Samsung or other brand smartphones with WPC Qi wireless charging, such as Galaxy Z Fold7, Z Flip6, Galaxy Z Fold5, Z Flip5, Galaxy Z Fold4, Z Flip4, S22 series, Z Fold3 5G, Z Flip3 5G, S21 FE 5G, S21 series, Z Fold2, Note20 series, S20 series, Z Flip, Note10 series, S10 series, S9 series, S8 series, S7 series, S6 series, Note9, Note8, Note FE, Note5, and wearables such as Galaxy Buds2 Pro, Buds2, Buds Pro, Buds Live, Watch6, Watch6 Classic, Watch5, Watch5 Pro, Watch4, Watch4 Classic, Watch3, Watch Active2, Watch Active, Gear Sport, Gear S3, Galaxy Watch, and Galaxy Buds. May not work with certain accessories, covers, or other brand devices. May affect call reception or data services, depending on your network environment. | ||
| Water Resistance | IP48 | |
| *Based on lab test conditions for submersion in up to 1.5 metres of freshwater for up to 30 minutes. Not advised for beach or pool use. Rinse residue/dry if wet. Water resistance of device is not permanent and may diminish over time because of normal wear and tear. | ||
| Glass/Metal | Cover | Corning Gorilla Glass Ceramic 2 |
| Back | Corning Gorilla Glass Victus 2 | |
| Frame | Advanced Armor Aluminum | |
| OS | Android 16One UI 8 | |
| Network & Connectivity | 5G, LTE, Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth v5.4 | |
| * Requires optimal 5G network connection, available in select markets. Check with your carrier for availability and details. Download and streaming speeds may vary based on content provider, server connection and other factors. Availability of LTE model varies by market and carrier. Actual speed may vary depending on market, carrier, and user environment. Wi-Fi 7 network availability may vary by market, network provider and user environment. Requires optimal connection and a Wi-Fi 7 router. | ||
| Sensors | Capacitive Fingerprint sensor (side), Accelerometer, Barometer, Gyro sensor, Geomagnetic sensor, Hall sensor, Proximity sensor, Light sensor | |
| Security | Samsung Knox with Samsung Knox Vault | |
| SIM Card | Up to two Nano SIM and Multi eSIM | |
| *SIM card sold separately. Availability may vary depending on market and carrier. eSIM availability may vary depending on software version, region and carrier. Check with your carrier if your mobile network plan supports eSIM. | ||
| Colours | Blue Shadow, Silver Shadow, Jet-black | |
| *Availability of colour may vary by market, region or carrier. Online exclusive colours only available on Samsung.com. | ||