Last week was Samsung Unpacked, specifically Unpacked focusing on the Galaxy Z Fold 7, Z Flip 7, and Galaxy Watch 8 series. These launches mark a pivotal moment for the broader smartphone market, signaling Samsung’s drive to make foldables mainstream by marrying a familiar phone feel with flagship‑grade capabilities. The Fold 7 is probably the best foldable on the global market, and finally hits an important milestone for foldables: it feels like a completely normal phone while closed.

I want to start by talking about the Fold 7 because unlike previous foldable, these feel very similar to candy bar phones. In general, large changes, like upgrading their phone, can be stressful and annoying. Users are pushing it off longer. Upgrade cycles are roughly 36 months now for smartphones, exclusive generational software changes aren’t cutting it. I think most of this is because users are just happy with the phone they have. Now I mention this because if you’re content with a device and finally decide to upgrade, the user probably wants what will either be most familiar just because it’s easy in a new device.

Foldables really never hit this mark until now, the feel and experience was always close to expectations but weird shapes, aspect ratios, cameras, etc always broke a bit of that immersion with the device. It was hard to jump from what users used for 15 years to something new, unexpected, but unique and full of value. This was a hard sell, even when priced similarly to a flagship Android device, like OnePlus Open attempted.

That changes now. The Fold 7 has Ultra-level cameras, feels like an S25 Ultra, is somehow lighter than said S25 Ultra but provides the full value of a foldable. This is a bigger moment than it seems, really no foldable has felt as close before. I think Samsung has probably hit this key point now, there is no trade off in the experience or form factor of a foldable.

Now onto the Flip 7, it’s just better. Slightly larger, better outer display and inner crease, better cameras, better SoC. Samsung has improved the Flip quite a bit. It’s much harder to explain without holding the phone, so I recommend you try to find it to really see.

The Fold 7 and Flip 7 also have quite a bit of improvements on the AI and software side. They are Samsung’s first devices to ship with One UI 8 based on Android 16, which are actually the first devices to launch with Android 16! Now Briefing now includes quite a few new improvements, recommending more information from more apps. Ambient AI becoming more useful is a great trend, but so is active AI like Gemini Live!

Gemini Live is now optimized for all the displays of both foldables, outer and inner with access to apps like Samsung Notes and Calendar as well. More tools, more ways to access it, and just an all around better AI experience.

All of this to say: The past roughly 7 years of foldables were building up to the Fold 7, and now we have a device that has a chance of being successful in the competitive consumer market. There are rumors of Apple getting into the foldable game in the next few years, and that’s likely to drive a lot more interest in foldables when it launches. Even the rumors of Apple entering the market is likely to drive more interest. With a device as good as Samsung’s is now, that fits a good hole in this market from a company with a sizable brand and history of innovative products.

This isn’t to say up until today foldables weren’t successful or that we haven’t had good hardware, that would be unequivocally false. The reality is the market expected foldables to move more units in 2025 than they are. In 2020, most analyst expected roughly 25 million annual foldables to be shipped by 2024. IDC estimated around 17.7M were shipped in 2024.

There are a lot of fantastic foldables on the market, I’ve actually used almost all of them! The devices were great, but there were things holding the mass market adoption back. Samsung now has the best one that has fixed nearly every factor that could hold users off, with one of the strongest brands, great messaging around being an Ultra device, and Google’s AI expertise to back it up in a likely target demographic that will care significantly more about AI workflows than almost any other.

I think if any foldable were to reignite interest in the market and drive growth before Apple enters the market, the Fold 7 is likely the device.

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