New photo offers us another little glimpse of the external Galaxy Z Fold 6 display (and its bezels)
Depending on what sources and publications you choose to put your confidence in right now, we're either around six weeks or close to two months away from Samsung's next big Unpacked event. This is likely to center primarily on the Galaxy Z Fold 6 and Z Flip 6, both of which have been the subject of a cavalcade of revealing reports and leaks over the last few months.
By the looks of it, at least one of the company's next-gen foldable powerhouses will show off all of its design secrets way before its aforementioned announcement. Intriguingly (read annoyingly) enough, these are being uncovered small piece by piece on X, starting with the middle part of the Z Fold 6's secondary screen a few days ago and continuing with the top section of the same display today.
While there's nothing new to report on anything else about the Galaxy Z Fold 6 today, we don't think this bad boy holds many secrets anymore. According to multiple reliable sources, its internal hardware upgrades over the Z Fold 5 will sadly be limited to a (global) Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processor, for instance, which leaves us hoping the display crease will indeed be less visible and those obligatory new AI features will prove more useful out in the real world than they currently do for members of the non-foldable Galaxy S24 family.
Is this the real thing?
In addition to choosing such a painfully slow method to leak the visual appearance of the upcoming Galaxy Z Fold 6, prolific social media tipster and well-connected industry insider Ice Universe (aka @UniverseIce) is also being infuriatingly cryptic about what these images actually depict.
It's obvious that "the next fold" in the two pictures is Samsung's 2024 book-style flagship, but are we dealing with a real-world prototype here, a dummy unit made to resemble the device rendered by a computer a while back, or... something else?
This was the first puzzle piece revealed by Ice Universe.
Unfortunately, we have no way to answer that question at the moment (without speculating based on our gut feeling, at least), but in general, Ice Universe only vouches for highly trustworthy designs. That means we can be just about certain the Z Fold 6 will be overall sharper and boxier than its predecessor, exactly how those aforementioned factory CAD-based renders suggested three whole months ago.
The cover screen bezels are... not great, both at the top and on the sides of said panel, which certainly looks quite a bit wider than the 6.2-inch display on the back of last year's Galaxy Z Fold 5. The Z Fold 6 has been rumored a couple of different times to keep the 7.6 and 6.2-inch screen sizes of its predecessor largely unchanged, but of course, that doesn't mean the aspect ratios need to stay the same... necessarily.
On the other hand, this is an extremely close-up photo that could well mess with our perception and make us see things that aren't really there. Still, the bezels are undeniably chunky, the corners much sharper than ever before in the Galaxy Fold family's history, and the centered hole punch is definitely not going anywhere anytime soon.
What about the main screen... and everything else?
This remains our best, most complete, and trustworthy look at the Galaxy Z Fold 6 design.
Another very important thing Samsung needs to do if it wants the Z Fold 6 to have any chances at achieving global success is not increase the Z Fold 5's already extravagant price points. Not without more meaningful upgrades and visible design revisions.
Last but not least, we remain very curious about the fate of the Z Fold 6 Ultra, Z Fold 6 Slim, and Z Fold 6 FE variants, which may or may not be real, and according to the latest word on the street, which are highly unlikely to see daylight alongside the "vanilla" Z Fold 6, instead being expected out no earlier than in 2025.
Things that are NOT allowed: