Galaxy Z Fold 7 vs. Galaxy S25 Ultra: What should you buy?

The No. 1 question many people have when they look at the Galaxy Z Fold 7 is whether it's good enough to beat the Galaxy S25 Ultra. In my Galaxy Z Fold 7 review, I really loved the super thin and lightweight design and huge 8-inch display, plus the upgraded 200MP main camera.

In fact, the Galaxy Z Fold 7 is even lighter than the S25 Ultra. But as you'll see in my Galaxy S25 Ultra review, this big-screen phone has some advantages, including a much cheaper starting price, a bigger battery and S Pen support.

I Tested Galaxy Z Fold 7 vs. S25 Ultra, Here’s Which One I’d Buy! - YouTube

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So which Samsung flagship is right for you? I put the Galaxy Z Fold 7 vs. Galaxy S25 Ultra side by side to help you pick the best phone for you.

Galaxy Z Fold 7 vs. Galaxy S25 Ultra: Specifications

Galaxy Z Fold 7 vs. Galaxy S25 Ultra: Price

This one is an easy round for the S25 Ultra. The Galaxy S25 Ultra starts at $1,299/ £1,249 / AU$2,149 for 256GB of storage, while the Galaxy Z Fold 7 is super premium at $1,999 / £1,799 / AU$2,899 for 256GB.

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Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra: was $1,299 now $1,024 at Best Buy

Buy your Galaxy S25 Ultra via Best Buy and you'll get it for just $1,024. That's a whopping $275 off for a phone with a bright and colorful 6.9-inch display, powerful camera system with 100x Space Zoom and built-in S Pen.

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So the Galaxy S25 Ultra is a good $700 less than the Galaxy Z Fold 7. Of course, there are plenty of Galaxy Z Fold 7 deals, and the same goes for S25 Ultra deals, so you won't have to pay full price.

Galaxy Z Fold 7: up to $1,000 off w/ trade-in @ Samsung
Samsung is knocking up to $1,000 off its Galaxy Z Fold 7 when you trade-in an older phone. The phone features an 8-inch AMOLED (2184 x 1968) 120Hz main display, 6.5-inch AMOLED (2520 x 1080) 120Hz cover display, Snapdragon 8 Elite CPU, 12GB of RAM, and 256GB of storage. In the rear, you get a 200MP f/1.7 main wide-angle lens, 12MP f/2.2 ultra-wide lens, and 10MP f/2.4 telephoto lens. Selfie cams include a 10MP f/2.2 main display and cover camera. In our Galaxy Z Fold 7 review, we called it the first foldable we'd want to carry and use all day.

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But it's worth noting that you could get the 1TB version of the Galaxy S25 Ultra for $1,659, which is still $340 less than the entry-level Z Fold 7.

Winner: Galaxy S25 Ultra

Galaxy Z Fold 7 vs. Galaxy S25 Ultra: Design and durability

The funny thing about going back to using the Galaxy S25 Ultra after using the Galaxy Z Fold 7 is how chunky it feels. I'm not saying it's a brick, but the Z Fold 7 looks and feels more like the future.

The Galaxy Z Fold 7 measures 158.4 x 72.8 x 8.9 mm when folded and 143.2 x 158.4 x 4.2 mm when unfolded. Compare that to the Galaxy S25 Ultra, which is 162.8 x 77.6 x 8.2 mm. So unfolded the Fold 7 is thinner than the S25 Ultra, and it's only a smidge thicker when it's closed up.

The Z Fold 7 is somehow lighter than the S25 Ultra, weighing 215 grams (7.5 ounces) vs 218 (7.7 ounces) for the S25 Ultra. And while that might seem light a big difference, I notice it when putting both of these phones in my pockets.

In terms of colors, the S25 Ultra options are somewhat subdued with Titanium Silverblue, Titanium Whitesilver, Titanium Gray and Titanium Black. The Z Fold 7 has a bolder Blue Shadow option along with the more mundane Silver Shadow and Jet Black. And there's a Samsung.com exclusive color in Mint.

The S25 Ultra pulls ahead in durability, though. It's IP68 rated for water and dust resistance. The Z Fold 7 is rated only IP48 for water resistance, so I would not bring this flagship to the beach.

It's definitely worth noting that only the S25 Ultra has a built-in S Pen. The Z Fold 7 dropped support for the accessory for the sake of thinness, and I think it's a worthy trade-off. But others do not agree!

Winner: Galaxy Z Fold 7

Galaxy Z Fold 7 vs Galaxy S25 Ultra: Displays

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The Galaxy Z Fold 7 enters this round with a built-in advantage in that it packs dual displays. There's a 6.5-inch OLED panel up front and a whopping 8-inch screen on the inside.

The Galaxy S25 Ultra has a 6.9-inch screen, which is by no means small. But here's where you'll really notice the difference. Hint: it's not when watching videos.

Because of the Z Fold 7's aspect ratio, watching movies gives you about the same size window on the S25 Ultra. You can zoom in on the former, but you'll lose some detail on either side of the frame.

However, the Z Fold 7's extra real estate definitely comes in handy for apps like Google Sheets. I can see a lot more rows and columns at once. And in apps like Chrome, I can easily switch between tabs right up top. Plus, in apps like Gmail you get a handy dual-pane view so you can see your messages on the left and their content on the right.

Games are particularly more immersive on the Z Fold 7, especially when playing console-like titles with top-notch graphics like Wuthering Waves.

In our labs, the Galaxy Z Fold 7's main display delivered higher brightness scores, but the color reproduction and accuracy were quite similar between the two phones.

So what about the crease on the Fold 7? Samsung has worked pretty hard to minimize it, to the point where it's barely noticeable. So it's not a reason to skip this phone at all.

More noticeable is the punch hole camera on the Z Fold 7's interior display. It's no longer hidden like the under display camera on the Z Fold 6. But the pay-off is a higher resolution one (10MP vs 4MP).

Winner: Galaxy Z Fold 7

Galaxy Z Fold 7 vs. Galaxy S25 Ultra: Cameras

The Galaxy Z Fold 7 steps up to Ultra-level status with its 200MP main wide camera, matching the Galaxy S25 Ultra. However, the S25 Ultra still has a couple of advantages.

For one, the Galaxy S25 Ultra has two zoom lenses with a 50MP 5x telephoto and 10MP 3x lens, and it has a max digital zoom of 100x. The Z Fold 7 maxes out at 30x digital zoom with its 10MP 3x telephoto lens.

The S25 Ultra also benefits from a sharper 50MP ultra-wide shooter, compared to 12MP for the Z Fold 7, though at least the latter now has autofocus and can capture macro shots.

So how about the image quality? In this first Galaxy Z Fold 7 vs. Galaxy S25 Ultra comparison, I slightly prefer the Z Fold 7's shot as the water up top looks sharper. But both cameras do an excellent job bringing out the details in the fountain while keeping the flowers in focus.

I'm kind of torn by this ultra-wide shot of Bryant Park. The buildings have more detail in the Z Fold 7 photo, but the S25 Ultra delivers a brighter pic overall and the grass in particular looks more vibrant.

I give the edge to the Galaxy S25 Ultra in this portrait. It's a brighter overall image, and I pop more off of the background. The Galaxy Z Fold 7 image if a bit too dim and it's not something I'd be keen to share.

To test the zoom of these camera phones I pointed them at a building across the street at 30x zoom, and it's not even close. The figure on the Z Fold 7 is downright blurry, while the S25 Ultra provides more detail around the head and back and shoulder muscles. It's not close.

Both the Galaxy Z Fold 7 and Galaxy S25 Ultra deliver an exceptional macro shot of this Rose of Sharon flower. You can make out even fine particles of pollen around the stamen. But thanks to the Ultra's sharper 50MP ultra-wide lens, you can make out even more detail in the petals.

In low light the Galaxy Z Fold 7 shines as evidenced by this pic of a checkered lamp in near darkness. The images from both phones are almost equally bright, but the S25 Ultra does a better job rendering the light from the faux candle.

Galaxy Z Fold 7 vs. Galaxy S25 Ultra: Performance

Because the Galaxy Z Fold 7 and Galaxy S25 Ultra have the same powerful Snapdragon 8 Elite chip and 12GB of RAM, it's not a surprise that the turned in very similar results on our lab tests.

On Geekbench, which measures overall performance, the Fold 7 turned in scores on the single- and multi-core portion of the test that are nearly identical to the S25 Ultra.

We saw the same thing on our video editing test using Adobe Premiere Rush, with both phones needing 52 seconds to transcode a 4K video to 1080p. The S25 Ultra had a slightly higher graphics score on 3DMark, but not enough to be significant.

Where the Z Fold 7 pulls ahead is multitasking, as you can run three apps on screen at once. The S25 Ultra can run only two apps at once via its split screen view.

Winner: Draw

Galaxy Z Fold 7 vs. Galaxy S25 Ultra: Battery life and charging

Here comes the bad news. The Galaxy Z Fold 7's battery life is way behind the S25 Ultra based on our testing.

Anecdotally, I could get through a full work day with the Fold 7 and still have 40% juice left, but the S25 Ultra has a lot more endurance due to the size of it's battery and the fact that it has a smaller screen to power.

On the Tom's Guide Battery Test, which involves continuous web surfing at 150 nits of screen brightness, the Galaxy Z Fold 7's 4,400 mAh battery lasted 10 hours and 55 minutes on T-Mobile's 5G networks.

The Galaxy S25 Ultra's beefier 5,000 mAh battery lasted for a much longer 17 hours and 14 minutes, landing it a spot on our best phone battery life list.

The charging picture doesn't get much better. The Galaxy Z Fold 7 has a charging speed of 25W, allowing it to get to 54% charge in 30 minutes. The S25 Ultra reached 71% in the same time span.

Winner: Galaxy S25 Ultra

Galaxy Z Fold 7 vs. Galaxy S25 Ultra: Software, AI and updates

As you might expect, AI is front and center on both of these phones, but the Z Fold 7 goes a bit further than the S25 Ultra.

For example, with Samsung's One UI 8 software, you can load Gemini in a floating window on the Z Fold 7's bigger display without covering up much other content. The S25 Ultra simply doesn't have that kind of real estate.

But you can certainly do a lot with Gemini Live on both of these phones. Just long press the side key and you can enjoy multi-modal AI advice on the fly. You can speak to Gemini, show it your live camera view or even share your screen and ask questions in real time.

You can also perform cross-app actions with AI on these two flagships. So, for example, you can ask about nearby steakhouses, send them to a friend via text and create a calendar reminder for your night out with one command.

The Z Fold 7 is a bit more versatile, though. You can see the before and after of what happens when you remove people or objects from an image with Photo Assist. And you can drag and drop AI images you generate from one window into another.

For now only the Galaxy Z Fold 7 runs the latest Android 16, which delivers new features like live updates for ride-share and food delivery apps. And you get grouped notifications from a single app. But the S25 Ultra should be getting this update soon.

Speaking of updates, both the Z Fold 7 and S25 Ultra get 7 years of OS and security updates.

Galaxy Z Fold 7 vs. Galaxy S25 Ultra: Verdict

This might sound surprising but I actually like the Galaxy Z Fold 7 more than the Galaxy S25 Ultra, at least for my needs. You get a compact phone when you want it and a big-screen tablet in one device — without the usual compromise of carrying around a thick and heavy device.

The Z Fold 7 is a marvel of engineering, and it's backed by smart software that's is well suited to the form factor. I really like, for example, that I can run three apps at once, look at spreadsheets without going blind and get side-by-side comparisons of before and after edits on my photos.

However, the Galaxy S25 Ultra is the more practical choice. It not only costs hundreds of dollars less, it delivers much longer battery life and an S Pen for those who want it. And while the Z Fold 7 and S25 Ultra both share a 200MP main camera, the S25 Ultra pulls ahead with its more robust zoom and sharper ultra-wide shooter.

So I personally prefer the Z Fold 7 as a multitasker who likes the idea of leaving my laptop behind more often. But if you prefer a more traditional phone design, the S25 Ultra is a more well-rounded flagship.

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