Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 battery life tested — I've got some bad news
Here's how Samsung's latest foldable phone stacks up
The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 is not the type of a phone you would expect to outlast traditional handsets. After all, it sports a huge 7.6-inch OLED display, compared to 6.8 to 6.9 inches for the biggest slab-style, non-folding flagships.
And yet I was pretty surprised by the results in the Tom's Guide battery test, which involves continuous web surfing over 5G (in this case T-Mobile) with the display set to 150 nits of screen brightness. And the reason I'm surprised is because I was expecting much better results due to the system-on-chip that powers the Fold 6.
Chipset | Battery mAh | Hrs:min | |
Galaxy Z Fold 6 | Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 | 4,400 mAh | 10:35 |
Galaxy Z Fold 5 | Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 | 4,400 mAh | 11:15 |
OnePlus Open | Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 | 4,805 mAh | 11:31 |
Google Pixel Fold | Tensor G2 | 4,821 mAh | 10:21 |
Across four tests the Galaxy Z Fold 6 averaged 10 hours and 35 minutes, which is not bad. This runtime beats the Google Pixel Fold (10:21), but it falls behind the OnePlus Open (11:31), which has a bigger battery than Samsung's foldable.
More important, the Galaxy Z Fold 5 averaged a longer 11 hours and 15 minutes. To be fair, the Z Fold 6's highest result on our testing was 11:13, but that's still on a par with last year's model.
By contrast, the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra lasted an average of 16 hours, putting it on our list of the best phone battery life. The devices that make this list all last 13 hours or longer in our testing. To put the S24 Ultra's performance in context, the Galaxy S23 Ultra hit 12:22, so that's a huge improvement for the newer Samsung model.
At the time, I thought the battery life improvement for the S24 Ultra was due to its more efficient Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip. This is the same chip inside the Galaxy Z Fold 6, which Qualcomm says can add up to 10% more power savings. But that didn't make that much difference for the Z Fold 6.
So why didn't the Galaxy Z Fold 6 deliver a jump in endurance like the S24 Ultra? It's hard to say, as they are different types of phones. Both the Z Fold 6 and Z Fold 5 have the same battery capacity, so that should not have been a factor in results from one generation to the next.
Sign up now to get the best Black Friday deals!
Discover the hottest deals, best product picks and the latest tech news from our experts at Tom’s Guide.
In daily use, I found the Z Fold 6 to deliver fairly strong battery life. With mixed usage, the battery indicator typically drops to the 20% to 25% range by 8 p.m., which is when I reach for a charger anyway. But I would certainly wish for more staying power on those days where I'm traveling or just constantly using Slack.
So the bottom line is that the Galaxy Z Fold 6 battery life results are fairly good. They're just not as good as I was expecting given the precedent the S24 Ultra set.
More from Tom's Guide
Mark Spoonauer is the global editor in chief of Tom's Guide and has covered technology for over 20 years. In addition to overseeing the direction of Tom's Guide, Mark specializes in covering all things mobile, having reviewed dozens of smartphones and other gadgets. He has spoken at key industry events and appears regularly on TV to discuss the latest trends, including Cheddar, Fox Business and other outlets. Mark was previously editor in chief of Laptop Mag, and his work has appeared in Wired, Popular Science and Inc. Follow him on Twitter at @mspoonauer.