Galaxy Z Fold 6 battery and charging: Some good and some bad news
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Battery life and charging have—historically speaking—not been the strongest aspects of Samsung's Galaxy Z Fold series. Has the new Galaxy Z Fold 6 changed that?
Well, there isn't much in the specs sheet of the Z Fold 6 that would hint at meaningful battery upgrades with this year's large Samsung foldable phone, but our battery life tests show otherwise!
Although the battery capacity hasn't increased significantly, the Galaxy Z Fold 6 lasts longer than the Galaxy Z Fold 5, and is currently among the foldable phones with the highest battery endurance.
However, in the large scale of things, the Galaxy Z Fold 6 is pretty average when it comes to overall battery life when compared to standard non-foldable devices. With an average result of five hours and 33 minutes, it's below our average battery life metric of six hours and 39 minutes. However, for a foldable, the Galaxy Z Fold 6 is alright in terms of battery life.
Let's explore how it stacks up against its rivals.
Browsing Test results
First is our web browsing test, which emulates a browsing flow with the screen manually set at 200 nits of brightness. In this particular test, the Galaxy Z Fold 6 does a perfect job and ranks in the upper tier in terms of battery life with a result of 12 hours and 42 minutes, comfortably outpacing the Galaxy Z Fold 5. However, both the OnePlus Open and the Pixel Fold technically last longer, but the difference is mostly marginal.
YouTube Test results
In our video streaming battery test, which is once again run at 200 nits of brightness, the Galaxy Z Fold 6 once again achieves a very decent battery life with seven hours. That's slightly better than the Galaxy Z Fold 5, but both the OnePlus Open and the Pixel Fold last slightly longer. Yet, all four rivals are in the same ZIP code.
3D Gaming test results
Just like the Galaxy Z Flip 6, the Galaxy Z Fold 6 truly aces our 3D gaming test. It achieves 10 hours and a half, which is better than the Galaxy Z Fold 5, the OnePlus Open, and especially the Google Pixel Fold. The reason for that could be the much faster and efficient GPU inside the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3. We're not complaining, that's good news for those gamers who were already eyeing the latest Samsung foldable!
Galaxy Z Fold 6 charging upgrades
For charging, things have remained the same for the past couple of years.
Unlike the battery life of the Galaxy Z Fold 6, which scored a decent uptick, there's a lack of pleasant surprises with the charging speeds. Samsung says the Z Fold 6 will charge to 50% in around 30 minutes with a 25W Adapter and a 3A USB-C cable, which is the same wording it used for the last generation. There's also no word on increased wireless charging capabilities.
Here are the Galaxy Z Fold 6 charging speeds.
- 25W wired charging
- 15W wireless charging
- 4.5W reverse wireless charging
- No charger in the box
Wired charging
How does of all that transfer to wired charging speeds? Here's the data:
The Galaxy Z Fold 6 charges slightly slower than the Galaxy Z Fold 5––both phones take slightly less than an hour and a half for a full charge. Generally, the Galaxy Z Fold 6 charges slower than its predecessor both after 15 and 30 minutes of charge, so it's apparent that charging speeds have been lowered, probably to minimize the heat generated from the charging process.
The OnePlus Open is the undisputed champ in the charging test thanks to its speedy 67W wall adapter, which juices up the phone in roughly 40 minutes. The Pixel Fold, on the other hand, is at the other end of the spectrum, charging the slowest among all four foldables.
Wireless Charging
In terms of wireless charging, the Galaxy Z Fold 6 also charges much slower than the Galaxy Z Fold 5 as per our tests. The difference is pretty drastic: three hours and 20 minutes for the new device and a little over two hours for the Galaxy Z Fold 5.
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