It has a new camera, hinge, cover screen, software, and more AI, and a new price.

Let's unpack it.

So the Z Flip has all these new things.

There's now a 50 megapixel main camera.

The hinge is smaller and helps reduce the screen crease.

It has a new chip, the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, and 12 gigabytes of RAM.

There's even more AI.

For all intents and purposes, the new Z Flip 6 is a Galaxy S24 that can fold in half, which is fantastic.

So the Z Flip 6 should be a slam dunk, right?

Right?

Well, it would be if it weren't for two things.

You see, Samsung raised the price from an already hefty $1,000 to $1,100.

And that changes the value ratio of the Flip.

In recent years, previous Flips offered an incredible amount of features for the dollar.

And yeah, you may be able to get a good trade-in deal for a discount on the Z Flip 6, but it's still $1,100.

And then there are Samsung's competitors, like Motorola and its new Razr Plus, that But it costs $1,000.

All this makes it hard to appreciate the Galaxy Z Flip 6 for the absolute great phone that it is.

And indeed, it is an outstanding phone.

But so is the Razr Plus, and it costs less.

With that being said, let me explain why the new Z Flip 6 is a fantastic phone.

And let's start with the design that is nearly identical to last year's Z Flip 5.

Now, gone is the glossy back, and instead we have a lovely matte finish.

The review unit I've been testing comes in this quiet blue color, which is also used for highlights around the rings of the dual cameras in the cover screen.

I absolutely love the way this thing looks.

It has a striking Bauhaus-like style that would make Dieter Rams happy.

When I hold the phone, it feels rigid, solid, like one continuous piece.

It has an IP48 rating for water and dust resistance, meaning it can be submerged under 1.5 meters of water for 30 minutes.

But it's that first number that's particularly exciting.

We have dust resistance.

This is amazing.

Aside from last year's Motorola Razr Plus, this is the only other flip phone that I know of that has dust resistance.

Does this mean you can take the Z Flip 6 out sandcastle building on the beach?

Well, not quite yet.

See, that number 4 means that the Flip 6 can resist an ingress of materials greater than 1 millimeter.

So those fine particles are still an enemy.

The Z Flip 6 has a 3.4-inch cover screen with that trademark Samsung folder file tab cut out for the dual cameras.

It's small, but there are widgets optimized for it, playful wallpapers for it, and with some chicanery, you can pretty much run any Android app you want on it.

I just wish this ability was set up out of the box, kind of like the Razr Plus.

I still think the Razr Plus's 4-inch cover screen and its software is better overall, but this is the best cover screen experience I've used on any Z Flip phone so far.

Now, let's talk about the cameras.

The Z Flip 6 has the same 10-megapixel selfie camera in the internal display as last year's Z Flip 5.

The 12-megapixel ultrawide camera gets a new sensor, and there's a new 50-megapixel main camera that's similar to the one on the S24, which is similar to the one found on the S23 and the S22 before it.

But this is the best Flip phone camera I've used, period.

When compared to non-Flip phones like the Pixel 8 Pro and the S24 Ultra, well, those are still much better.

Take a look at some of the photos and videos I shot with the Z Flip 6.

Images from the main camera have good details.

Some textures, like leaves, look a bit crispy from over-sharpening.

And this is not a freeze-the-action kind of camera.

This is more of a good-enough-to-post-on-Instagram-and-TikTok kind of camera, which is totally fine.

Some photos, like this one of CNET's video producer, Jaday, show the literal marks of processing.

Notice the strange mark in the sky to the right of Jaday's lights on his camera, and notice the cloud cutout around the edge of the trees just above that.

I absolutely love the ultrawide cameras on Samsung's phones.

The lenses they use offer this sweet spot, making subjects look dramatic without skewing too much into fish-eye territory.

Overall, ultrawide images from the Z Flip 6 look decent, but they're soft and process, especially if you look at things like clouds.

One of the new camera features that's been fun to play with is the new auto-zoom in-and-out.

It's powered by Galaxy AI, and perfect for those selfies you want to take, or maybe pictures of yourself with friends.

In use, it works, but it can be a bit slow, especially picking up on changes in position or distance.

Now, this actually might be one of the more useful AI features on the Z Flip 6.

I did an entire other video about the Z Flip 6's AI features and tested them out during a day in Paris, so I'm not going to go into too much detail here, but I do want to talk about a couple things.

The first is the ability to draw on a photo and turn your sketch into a photorealistic-looking object or animal.

It's wild, and I wish I could use it to draw mustaches or eye patches on friends' faces, because otherwise, I'm just not sure when I'd ever use this feature.

Then there's the interpreter mode on the Z Flip 6, which uses both screens on the phone to show each speaker what the other person is saying in their own language.

I find the feature very useful, but the translation seems to be done word-by-word and is accurate but not perfect.

Now, I tried it from English to Korean and English to French.

Now, one consequence I didn't think about at the moment while I was using the feature is that the translation's lack of perfection could make a speaker feel self-conscious or even, well, embarrassed.

When I used the mode to order coffee in Paris, the phone's translation was good, but got words and phrases slightly wrong.

Like, instead of translating something to, yes, no problem, it said, agree on problems.

Now, the French speaker apologized, saying it was her accent that may have caused the translation to be off.

And I'm not saying that this stressed her out, but the last thing I want to do is make someone else feel embarrassed because an AI couldn't understand what they were saying.

Then there's Portrait Studio, which turns portraits of people into artwork.

It's silly, and it's fun, and the results are far from accurate.

Again, not sure when I'd use this, all this to say, while AI-powered tools like Circle to Search and the autofocus reframe in and out are nifty, they shouldn't be the main reason you get a phone like the Z Flip 6.

Though I'm curious, are there AI features on the Z Flip 6 or other phones that make you want to buy them?

Let me know in the comments.

Lastly, let's talk about performance and battery life.

The Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 and 12GB of RAM make the Z Flip 6 peppy, fast, and fun to use.

Even high-demanding tasks like video recording or playing video games don't seem to stress the phone out too much.

The Z Flip 6 has a built-in vapor chamber cooling system, which no doubt helps keep things from getting hot.

And remember, this is a super tiny, thin, foldable phone.

Occasionally it did get warm, but nothing I'd worry about.

And that same cooling system, along with a larger 4000mAh battery, has meant that this is an all-day phone.

Over the week I've used it, it's finished every day with 10-50% of a charge left.

And there were days where I had the screen cranked up to full brightness and was shooting tons of photos and videos.

So, to wrap things up, the Galaxy Z Flip 6 is an outstanding phone.

The fact that Samsung offers 7 years of OS and security software upgrades is amazing.

The problem is, there's the Razer Plus, which is also an outstanding phone and $100 cheaper.

Now, I'm working on a Razer Plus and Z Flip 6 in-depth comparison, but for more about the Z Flip 6, check out my full written review on CNET.

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And last, thank you for watching.