I put the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 vs. Galaxy S24 Ultra through a 7-round face-off — this is Samsung’s ultimate phone

If you have some coin to spend, you might be debating between the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 vs. Galaxy S24 Ultra, and which is the best for you. They're two of the best phones around, with unique attributes that make each stand out.

The newer Galaxy Z Fold 6 is Samsung's best foldable yet, tweaking the outside design and inner specs to make a stronger, more capable device. But the Galaxy S24 Ultra shares many of the same specs, while also offering more in the way of camera tech, and at a lower price too.

To help find the winner, we've put together this face-off to find out which is Samsung's new ultimate phone. Strap yourselves in for an exciting fight.

Galaxy Z Fold 6 vs. Galaxy S24 Ultra: Specs

Galaxy Z Fold 6 vs. Galaxy S24 Ultra: Price and availability

For a regular-shaped smartphone, the Galaxy S24 Ultra is pretty expensive, starting at $1,299 for the 256GB storage version. But the foldable Galaxy Z Fold 6 is even more pricey, with its newly raised pricing meaning you now have to spend at least $1,899 to buy it.

Both phones are available to buy right now. However the Galaxy S24 Ultra is the older of the two devices, having been out for five months at the time of the Galaxy Z Fold 6's launch.

Winner: Galaxy S24 Ultra

Galaxy Z Fold 6 vs. Galaxy S24 Ultra: Design

There are some similarities between each device, such as right-angled corners (new for the Galaxy Z Fold series) and flattened sides, plus some familiar colors. But there's plenty to differentiate one from the other too.

Because it's a foldable, the Galaxy Z Fold 6 has two displays, one larger one inside and another more conventionally sized one on the outside. It also carries an extra camera as a result, although it's hidden beneath the display in the case of the inside screen.

You'll find a more conventional design in the Galaxy S24 Ultra. Other than having a built-in S Pen stylus housed within, it's a regular smartphone with a single display, one front-facing camera but four rear-facing ones due to its dual-telephoto system.

The Galaxy S24 Ultra is also the more durable of the two. It features titanium side rails for a light but tough frame, a Gorilla Glass Armor display that aims to reduce the chance of scratches and cracks to the screen, and an IP68 dust/water resistance rating. The Z Fold 6, with its aluminum sides, soft and flexible inner screen (but Gorilla Glass Victus 2 outer display) and an improved but still inferior IP48 ingress protection rating, just doesn't match up.

Winner: Galaxy S24 Ultra

Galaxy Z Fold 6 vs. Galaxy S24 Ultra: Display

It's hard to compare a phone with two screens versus one with just a single screen, but we're going to give it a go anyway.

The Galaxy Z Fold 6's inner display measures 7.8 inches across, and its outer display 6.3 inches. The one display found on the Galaxy S24 Ultra is a 6.8-inch model, similar in shape to the Z Fold 6's cover screen, but wider.

All three of these displays are OLED-based, and all offer adaptive 120Hz refresh rates. But there's a greater difference to be found in the lab test results.

The Z Fold 6 can get much brighter when you enable Samsung's Extra Brightness mode, but under strictly identical conditions it's only a touch brighter. The S24 Ultra covers a little more of the DCI-P3 color space, but is also a little less accurate, letting the Z Fold 6 gain a minor technical advantage alongside its form factor-based ones.

Winner: Galaxy Z Fold 6

Galaxy Z Fold 6 vs. Galaxy S24 Ultra: Cameras

The only similarity between the Galaxy Z Fold 6 and Galaxy S24 Ultra's camera loadouts are their 12MP ultrawide cameras. Everything else is slightly or drastically different.

For main cameras, the Galaxy Z Fold 6 puts up a 50MP sensor against the Galaxy S24 Ultra's 200MP shooter. For telephoto purposes, the two phones both use a 10MP 3x camera, but the Galaxy S24 Ultra adds a 50MP 5x camera into the mix too. Then for selfie snappers, the Galaxy Z Fold 6 brings two (a 10MP punch-hole camera on the outside and a 4MP under-display one on the inside) to the Galaxy S24 Ultra's single 12MP front camera.

Now let's see how those differences manifest in practice, starting with a main camera shot of a market on London's Brick Lane. The two phones produced fairly similar shots, but the Galaxy S24 Ultra has done a slightly better job of bringing out the shadows more - important given how stark the contrast between different parts of the scene was on this bright day.

I also tried a night mode scene while viewing the Lego art of Nathan Sawaya at the nearby Art of the Brick exhibition. This piece, titled "Incomplete" looks a bit washed out in the Galaxy S24 Ultra image, while it looks almost like it's glowing in the Z Fold 6 version. Neither seems to have much advantage when it comes to detail, both showing off the blocky edges of the sculpture well.

This ultrawide shot was taken outside London Bridge train station, beneath the city's tallest building, The Shard. There's more color in the Galaxy S24 Ultra's shot, making the scene come to life more. The Galaxy Z Fold 6's photo isn't lacking in detail, but it's slightly plainer to look at.

A 3x photo of this sculpture hanging nearby is sharper in the Galaxy Z Fold 6's image thanks to it having greater contrast to help us make out the different elements of the artwork. The Galaxy S24 Ultra would win hands-down if we swapped to 5x magnification, where it can use its higher-res sensor and the Z Fold 6 would have to rely on digital zoom to make up the difference. But here the Z Fold 6's done the better job.

Now for two pairs of selfies. This first one is the outer camera of the Galaxy Z Fold 6 next to the Galaxy S24 Ultra's one and only front camera. I'm marginally better lit in the S24 Ultra's shot, but both have produced a well-detailed depiction of my face, and with well-done portrait effect that cuts around my head and glasses accurately.

Lastly, this is how the Galaxy Z Fold 6's outer and inner selfie cameras compare to one another. The inside camera, which has to deal with both a lower pixel count and understandably produces a much worse image. It's fuzzy, and with weird artifacts in the brightest parts of the image. You can get away with using this one for conference calls, but don't use it for proper photography if you can help it.

While this camera comparison ended up closer than I expected, the Galaxy S24 Ultra is ultimately the better phone for taking photos. The Galaxy Z Fold 6 isn't designed with the cameras as such a high priority, and therefore isn't quite as versatile.

Winner: Galaxy S24 Ultra

Galaxy Z Fold 6 vs. Galaxy S24 Ultra: Performance

Here we have basically identical specs. The two phones in this comparison use the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 for Galaxy chipset, with 12GB RAM and the same selection of 256GB, 512GB and 1TB storage options. But the table of results below shows that the Galaxy S24 Ultra seems to make better use of its hardware overall, with higher scores in the Geekbench CPU and 3DMark GPU tests.

The fact the Galaxy S24 Ultra's much cheaper helps give it an edge too. Even if you don't care about the slight margin the S24 Ultra has over the Galaxy Z Fold 6, the fact you're paying $600 more for no difference in power still seems unreasonable.

Winner: Galaxy S24 Ultra

Galaxy Z Fold 6 vs. Galaxy S24 Ultra: Battery and charging

The 5,000 mAh battery in the Galaxy S24 Ultra is visibly larger on paper than the 4,400 mAh twin-cells in the Galaxy Z Fold 6. And with two displays to drive, it's not looking good for the foldable in this battery comparison.

Sure enough, our test results shows a huge 6.5-hour difference in battery life between these phones. You would get longer life if you used the outer display of the Galaxy Z Fold 6 more, or even exclusively, but if you're not using that inner screen, there's no point in buying the foldable in the first place.

Things don't look up for the Galaxy Z Fold 6 when it comes to charging. The Galaxy S24 Ultra offers 45W charging with compatible power bricks, while the Z Fold 6 maxes out at 25W. Both offer 15W wireless charging too, but this one draw doesn't prevent the Z Fold 6's defeat.

Winner: Galaxy S24 Ultra

Galaxy Z Fold 6 vs. Galaxy S24 Ultra: Software and special features

Samsung has given both of these phones the same One UI 6 software update, and seven years of full software updates, the joint longest update pledge of any smartphone on sale today. So we can't find a difference here.

Both phones feature Galaxy AI software features too. The Galaxy Z Fold 6 gets some unique ways to make use of them, such as the interpreter mode that lets you use both displays to talk to someone else in another language, and the Sketch to Image tool for turning your doodles into more realistic artworks or photo edits. But otherwise it's the same set of features between the two.

The Galaxy S24 Ultra and Galaxy Z Fold 6 are both S Pen stylus compatible, but in subtly different ways. On the S24, the S Pen comes by default, stored within a silo on the bottom of the phone. It's Bluetooth enabled too, which lets you use the S Pen without even touching the screen. The Galaxy Z Fold 6's S Pen is sold as a separate accessory, and can only be stored with the phone via a specialized case. There's no Bluetooth either, which is a further blow to the utility of the stylus on the larger screen of the foldable.

Winner: Draw/Galaxy Z Fold 6

Galaxy Z Fold 6 vs. Galaxy S24 Ultra: Verdict

You probably don't need to see the numbers to know that the S24 Ultra is the winner of this comparison. But here's our scoring breakdown all the same.

While the Galaxy Z Fold 6 isn't a bad phone, the Galaxy S24 Ultra is the one that'll suit more people in terms of its price, the versatility of its cameras and its charging and battery life performance. The Galaxy Z Fold 6 can do things that the S24 Ultra could never do thanks to its flexible nature. But outside of its folding-based abilities, there's little reason to go for the Z Fold 6.

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