Samsung just launched the highly-anticipated Galaxy S24 FE smartphone in four main colour options! Take a look at all four main colour options, and tell us which YOU prefer!
Samsung Galaxy S24 FE : 4 Main Colour Options!
Samsung just launched the new Galaxy S24 FE (Fan Edition) smartphone, and it will be available in four main pastel colours:
Graphite
Grey
Blue
Mint
Samsung will not be offering any exclusive colour options on its online store, but will instead offer a 5th colour option in certain regions:
Yellow
I was amongst the few to get an early look at the Galaxy S24 FE, and here is my comparison video of all four main colour options! Do let us know which YOU prefer!
Samsung is making all four colour options, as well as the fifth limited Yellow colour, available for purchase from 26 September 2024 onwards, at these price points :
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Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
Samsung just launched the highly-anticipated Galaxy S24 FE (Fan Edition) smartphone, and here is our hands-on preview in all four main colours!
Samsung Galaxy S24 FE : My Hands-On Experience
I was one of the few who had the rare opportunity to get my hands on not one, but four Samsung Galaxy S24 FE smartphones, which allowed us to do a proper colour comparison.
And now, I present to you – my own hands-on experience with the Samsung Galaxy S24 FE smartphone… in all four main colours!
I apologise for the slightly shaky video – Samsung still insists that I do not take photos or record videos with a smartphone, even though it’s their own Galaxy S24 Ultra!
The first thing you will notice is that Samsung maintained the same basic design from last year’s Galaxy S23 FE. It may not look like it, but the new S24 FE is slightly bigger thanks to a larger 6.7-inch Dynamic AMOLED 2X display – up from 6.3-inch.
What’s also not readily apparent is the upgraded protection courtesy of Corning Gorilla Glass Victus+, instead of last year’s Gorilla Glass 5. Overall, it feels slightly larger and heavier in my hands.
The Samsung Galaxy S24 FE now has a flat aluminium frame, instead of a rounded edge. This new design makes the device look thicker, even though it’s actually slightly thinner.
At the bottom, you will find the USB port, as well as the speaker and microphone ports. The Power and Volume control buttons are located on the right side. At the top, you will find more microphone ports, as well as the SIM tray.
In the front, the Galaxy S24 FE still sports the same 10 MP camera in a display punch hole. At the back, you will find the same triple camera combination of a 50 MP Dual Pixel camera, a 12 MP ultra wide-angle camera, and an 8 MP telephoto camera with 3X optical zoom.
The Galaxy S24 FE is powered by Samsung’s own Exynos 2400e, which is a slightly detuned 10-core flagship processor – its Cortex X4 core runs at just 3.11 GHz, instead of 3.21 GHz in the Exynos 2400. That said, it will be kept cool by a 11% larger vapour chamber.
All Galaxy S24 FE models will come with 8 GB of RAM, and storage options of 256 GB and 512 GB for most parts of the world, and 128 GB for certain regions. It is also IP68-rated for dust and water-resistance, so it will withstand immersion in up to 1.5 metres of freshwater for up to 30 minutes.
Finally, the Galaxy S24 FE comes with a slightly larger 4,700 mAh battery – up from 4,500 mAh in last year’s Galaxy S23 FE. Together with a more efficient 4nm processor, that larger battery should deliver better battery life. It supports 25 watt wired fast charging, as well as wireless charging at up to 15 watts.
Samsung Galaxy S24 FE Specifications
Here are the key specifications of the Samsung Galaxy S24 FE:
Samsung is making all four colour options, as well as the fifth limited Yellow colour, available for purchase from 3 October 2024 onwards, at these price points :
Support my work through a bank transfer / PayPal / credit card!
Name : Adrian Wong Bank Transfer : CIMB 7064555917 (Swift Code : CIBBMYKL)
Credit Card / Paypal : https://paypal.me/techarp
Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
Samsung is extending the One UI 6.1.1 upgrade to older mobile devices, bringing with it the latest Galaxy AI features! Here is what you need to know…
Samsung extends One UI 6.1.1 to older mobile devices!
Samsung just announced the rollout to One UI 6.1.1 to older mobile devices like the Galaxy S24 series, the Galaxy S23 series, Galaxy S23 FE, Galaxy Z Fold5, Galaxy Z Flip5, and even the Galaxy Tab S9 series of tablets.
The Samsung One UI 6.1.1 operating system will introduce new Galaxy AI features, as well as other communications and productivity upgrades.
Seamless Communication with Galaxy AI
The new Galaxy AI features in One UI 6.1.1 will allow for easier multilingual communication.
The new Interpreter feature includes Listening Mode and one-way translation for presentations, will now available on the wider range of devices. Chat Assist with Composer allows users to draft emails and social media posts by simply entering keywords, with Galaxy AI generating messages in the desired tone and style.
Additionally, Suggested Replies, once exclusive to the Galaxy Z Flip6, are now available on the Galaxy S24 series, providing quick response options when paired with the Galaxy Watch7 or Galaxy Watch Ultra.
Transform your Galaxy device into a productivity powerhouse with the latest Galaxy AI features.
Note Assist simplifies meeting note-taking with translation and summaries, while the new Transcript feature quickly generates notes from voice recordings. PDF Overlay Translation translates and overlays text in PDF files, and Sketch to Image enhances photos with generated image options based on simple sketches.
The advanced Circle to Search with Google now includes step-by-step math problem solutions and a new Sound Search feature for finding audio content.
Enhance Your Creativity with Ease
Galaxy AI enables users to create professional-quality content effortlessly. With Portrait Studio, transform photos into various styles, including 3D cartoon or watercolor. Instant Slow-mo lets users smoothly slow down videos while preserving image quality, making it easy to save and share.
Availability of Samsung One UI 6.1.1 for older mobile devices
The software update for the Samsung Galaxy S24 series will begin rolling out from 9 September 2024 onwards. Software updates for additional Galaxy devices will be available in the coming weeks.
Please Support My Work!
Support my work through a bank transfer / PayPal / credit card!
Name : Adrian Wong Bank Transfer : CIMB 7064555917 (Swift Code : CIBBMYKL)
Credit Card / Paypal : https://paypal.me/techarp
Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
Here is my comprehensive review of the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 foldable smartphone! Find out why this foldable smartphone won our Editor’s Choice Award!
Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 : Colour Options + Price
Samsung just launched the new Galaxy Z Flip 6 smartphone at the Galaxy Unpacked 2024 event, and it will be available in four main colours with a matte finish:
Silver Shadow
Yellow
Mint
Blue
Samsung will also offer three other colour options exclusively on its online store:
Crafted Black
White
Peach
I was amongst the few to get an early look at the Galaxy Z Flip 6, and here is my comparison video of all four main colour options! Do let us know which YOU prefer!
The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 will be available in four main colour options, as well as the three exclusive online colours. Pre-order begins immediately, with general available from 24 July 2024 onwards, at these price points :
I managed to get my hands on the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 foldable smartphone BEFORE it actually ships! Take a look at my unboxing video, and share it out!
In our unboxing video, you can see that the Galaxy Z Flip 6 package is sparse, and only consists of:
Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 smartphone
Set of documents – quick start guide in two languages, and a warranty card
USB Type C to Type C cable
SIM card extractor pin
As the unboxing video shows, the Galaxy Z Flip 6 does not come with any charger, or earphones. Not even a TPU case to hold you over until you get a better case.
Samsung maintained the same basic design from last year’s Galaxy Z Flip 5, but with a bold new camera ring design.
Even though it’s the same in every other aspect as the Z Flip 5, the thicker camera ring design means new Z Flip 6 won’t be compatible with the Flip 5 covers.
3.4-inch Flex Window
The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 also retained the much larger 3.4-inch Flex Window display from the Z Flip 5, which was its biggest upgrade last year.
The Flex Window has a bright Super AMOLED panel, and a resolution of 720 x 748 pixels. Thanks to its large size, it is much more useful. Not only can you check notifications, and send quick replies to text messages, you can customise the Flex Window with widgets, video wallpapers, clock faces and styles.
The larger display makes it so much easier to take selfies with its awesome rear cameras!
The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 comes with the same large 6.7-inch Infinity Flex display as the Galaxy Z Flip 5. This foldable display has a Dynamic AMOLED 2X panel with a refresh rate of up to 120 Hz, and a resolution of 1080 x 2640 pixels.
Its No-Gap Flex Hinge has been improved with better shock distribution. It also appears to allow the Z Flip 6 to close even tighter, with a small reduction in its folded thickness.
In case you are wondering – the crease is still visible if you view it from an angle, and you can feel it if you run your finger over it. But it appears to be less noticeable in the Galaxy Z Flip 6, making it easier to forget it after using it some time – you will forget it’s even there.
The Galaxy Z Flip 6 display is, of course, large and really beautiful – with excellent resolution, colour gamut and brightness. And it folds into a really compact device about the size of a pager – if you are old enough to remember what that is!
Like previous Flip models, its foldable display comes with a protective film made from stretchable PET, so you should never stick any screen protector on it!
If you are new to foldable phones, you will be really tentative about folding it. But over time, it will become really natural – you won’t even think twice about folding it before shoving it down your pocket. The Ultra Thin Glass (UTG) is rated for at least 200,000 folds, so even if you fold it 100 times a day, it should last at least 5.5 years!
But while the display can withstand a lot of folding, you must still take care not to SCRATCH it. Avoid putting it together in your pocket or handbag with hard objects like coins, another phone, etc.
Performance + Storage
The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 runs on the most powerful mobile SoC available for Android devices – the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 for Galaxy, which is a specially-binned and slightly-overclocked version that Qualcomm created for Samsung Galaxy flagship smartphones.
Fabricated on the latest 4nm TSMC process technology, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 for Galaxy comes with eight processor cores in a quad-cluster architecture :
1 x Arm Cortex-X4 core (3.39 GHz, instead of 3.3 GHz)
3 x Arm Cortex-A720 cores
2 x Arm Cortex-A720 cores
2 x Arm Cortex-A520 cores
This mobile SoC also comes with the Qualcomm Adreno 750 GPU which supports ray-tracing, an improved Hexagon NPU, and the Snapdragon X75 5G modem that supports Sub-6Ghz and mmWave connectivity.
Our review sample came with 12 GB of memory, and 256 GB of fast UFS 3.1 storage. It is also available with 512 GB of storage. There is no option to increase storage, but generally 256 GB of storage is more than enough for most people.
Battery + Charging
The Galaxy Z Flip 6 now comes with a 4,000 mAh battery, which is 8% larger than last year’s Galaxy Z Flip 5.
It supports 25 watt fast charging, and 10 watt wireless charging. It can even wireless recharge other devices, albeit at just 4.5 watts. However, it does not come with an in-box charger. So you will have to use your old charger, or buy a new one.
Buttons
The only buttons you will find are on the upper right side of the Galaxy Z Flip 6 – the Volume control buttons and the Power button, which doubles as the fingerprint sensor.
Pressing the Power button twice activates the Quick Shot mode, which lets you take selfies using the rear cameras with the Flex Window for preview and control.
Only One Port
The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 comes with a USB Type C port, which supports USB 3.2 connectivity. It does not come with a 3.5 mm audio jack, or a USB-C to 3.5 mm adapter in the box.
Dual SIM Support
The Galaxy Z Flip 6 has a SIM card tray that supports a single nano SIM card. It also supports an eSIM, so technically, you can use up to two SIMs at the same time.
Protection
The Galaxy Z Flip 6 has an Enhanced Armour Aluminium frame, which offers 10% better scratch resistance, and its Flex Window is protected by Gorilla Glass Victus 2.
And for the first time, it is IP48-rated. In addition to its water resistance at up to 1.5 metres for up to 30 minutes, the Galaxy Z Flip 6 is now protected against solid objects larger than 1 millimeter. It is still not dust-resistant, but it will keep small stones out of its delicate innards.
In addition, its chassis has an Armor Aluminium frame, and the Flex Window is protected by Corning Gorilla Glass Victus 2. Its Dual Pixel main camera is also protected by Gorilla Glass with DX.
Samsung flagship smartphones are notable for featuring cutting-edge cameras, but the Galaxy Z Flip 6 stayed with older cameras.
In the front, it uses a 10 MP punch hole camera with an f/2.2 aperture, built around the Samsung ISOCELL 3J1 (S5K3J1) sensor with a 1.22 µm pixel size. This isn’t a new sensor, being first used in the Galaxy S20 series.
This camera can record video at up to 4K resolution at 60 fps, but you will likely end up using this selfie camera only for video calls, and use the better cameras at the back for your “selfies”!
Improved Dual Cameras At The Back
While the front camera remained the same, the Galaxy Z Flip 6 now has a new dual-camera system at the back, which consists of:
a 50 MP main camera, with f/1.8 aperture
a 12 MP ultra-wide camera, with 123° field of view, and f/2.2 aperture
The new 50 MP camera is the same camera used in the Galaxy S24 and S24+ smartphones. It uses the Samsung ISOCELL GN3 (S5K) sensor, which is a 1/1.57-inch sensor, with 1.0 µm pixels. This camera can record 4K videos at up to 60 fps.
The ultra-wide angle camera is built around the Sony IMX258 sensor, which dates back to 2017. It also has rather small 1.12 µm pixels. It’s a shame Samsung hasn’t gotten around to upgrading it.
Galaxy Z Flip 6 users will quickly realise that it’s better to use these two rear cameras for better selfies. Just double-press the Power button with the Galaxy Z Flip 6 folded to activate these cameras. You can easily switch between the two using the Flex Window.
Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 : Photo Samples
The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 now features a new 50 MP Dual Pixel camera, which is the same main camera used in the Galaxy S24 and Galaxy S24+ smartphone.
Even though it supports 50 MP, it will take 12 MP photos by default – combining four physical pixels into one large virtual pixel for better low light performance, and a smaller file size of about 3 MB (HEIC format) with a resolution of 4000 x 3000 pixels – similar to the 12 MP ultra wide-angle camera.
When set to its full 50 MP resolution, the camera takes photos with a resolution of 8160 x 6120 pixels, and a file size of about 10-12 MB. Unless you enjoy pixel peeping, it’s best to use the 50 MP mode only when you need to take photos of faraway objects without resorting to digital zoom.
When used in the selfie mode, the rear cameras deliver Instagram-friendly square 9 MP photos with a resolution of 2992 x 2992 pixels, and a file size of about 1.3 MB (HEIC format).
Here are eight unedited photo samples for you to check out.
The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 comes with a larger 4,000 mAh battery, which is 300 mAh (8%) larger than last year’s Galaxy Z Flip 5.
To test its battery life, we turned off Automatic Brightness, fix the brightness level, and make sure the screen brightness does not change as the ambient brightness changes.
We also set its display brightness to 50%, which is slightly higher than the average indoor brightness level of 40% during the day.
We then ran the PCMark Work 3.0 battery life test until its battery capacity dropped to 20% several times, and this was the best result we obtained with the Standard and Adaptive refresh rates :
Even though the Galaxy Z Flip 6 only comes with 8% higher battery capacity, it actually delivered a significantly longer battery life of just over 11.75 hours using its default Adaptive refresh mode. That’s 2.5 hours of extra battery life over the Galaxy Z Flip 5!
When we switched to the Standard refresh mode, it delivered almost 14 hours of battery life. That’s almost 3 hours longer than the Galaxy Z Flip 5!
Let’s compare its battery life at 60 Hz and 120 Hz, against the Z Flip 5, Z Flip 4, and S24 Ultra smartphones.
Standard Refresh Rate (60 Hz)
The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 naturally has the best battery life with the refresh rate set to 60 Hz (Standard) – lasting just almost 14 hours.
You can see just how more power-efficient the Z Flip 6 is compared to its predecessor – it uses 14.3% less power than the Z Flip 5. Coupled with an 8% larger battery capacity, the Galaxy Z Flip 6 offers 26% longer battery life at the Standard refresh rate!
Work 3.0
S24 Ultra
Z Flip 6
Z Flip 5
Z Flip 4
Battery Capacity
5,000 mAh
4,000 mAh
3,700 mAh
3,700 mAh
Battery Life
16 hrs 25 mins
13 hrs 57 mins
11 hrs 4 mins
10 hrs 14 mins
Utilisation
per min.
4.06 mAh
3.82 mAh
4.46 mAh
4.82 mAh
Adaptive Refresh Rate (120 Hz)
The Galaxy Z Flip 6 continues to deliver much better battery life, even with the Adaptive refresh rate enabled – lasting just over 12.75 hours!
The Galaxy Z Flip 6’s power consumption per minute dropped by 16%, compared to Z Flip 5. When combined with the 8% larger battery capacity, the Galaxy Z Flip 6 offers 29% longer battery life at the Adaptive refresh rate!
Work 3.0
S24 Ultra
Z Flip 6
Z Flip 4
Z Flip 5
Battery Capacity
5,000 mAh
4,000 mAh
3,700 mAh
3,700 mAh
Battery Life
13 hrs
49 mins
11 hrs 48 mins
9 hrs
12 mins
9 hrs
9 mins
Utilisation
per min.
4.83 mAh
4.52 mAh
5.36 mAh
5.39 mAh
Whether you wish to enable Adaptive refresh rate for smoother graphics is really up to you. On one hand, you get almost 12 hours of battery life with Adaptive refresh rate. On the other hand, switching to the Standard mode buys you two full hours of extra battery life.
Personally, I rather go with Standard mode for a longer battery life. I may not need the extra 2 hours, but using less power means less wear and tear on the battery over time.
Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 Battery Recharging Speed!
The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 supports up to 25 watts of wired fast charging, but unfortunately, does not come with the charger in-the-box.
So we tested it using the standard 15 watt and 25 watt Samsung fast chargers that shipped with their previous smartphones, which is what we believe most users will end up doing.
Charging Speed
S24 Ultra
S24 Ultra
Z Flip 6
Z Flip 5
Z Flip 6
Z Flip 5
Battery Capacity
5,000 mAh
5,000 mAh
4,000 mAh
3,700 mAh
4,000 mAh
3,700 mAh
Charger Output
25 watts
15 watts
25 watts
25 watts
15 watts
15 watts
Charging Time
68 min
106.5 min
101.5 min
105 min
119.5 min
129.5 min
Charging Speed
(per minute)
58.8 mAh
37.6 mAh
31.5 mAh
28.2 mAh
26.8 mAh
22.9 mAh
One “problem” with the Samsung Galaxy Z-series smartphones is that they charge pretty slowly, probably to avoid producing excessive heat, and to keep its thin batteries healthy.
The good news is – the Galaxy Z Flip 6 charges faster than last year’s Galaxy Z Flip 5. But you will still need to put up with relatively slow recharging speeds – the Galaxy Z Flip 6 charges slower with a 25W charger, than the Galaxy S24 Ultra with a 15W charger!
With the standard 15 watt fast charger, you will need 2 hours to fully recharge the Galaxy Z Flip 6. Upgrading to a 25 watt ultra fast charger only speeds this up by 18 minutes (15%). So if you don’t already have a 25 watt charger, there’s no real need to buy one.
Ultimately, the Galaxy Z Flip 6 has a battery life to recharging time ratio of about 7:1, which is 65% better than the Galaxy Z Flip 5 – mostly thanks to its much longer battery life. You get about an hour’s worth of battery life for every 8.5 minutes you recharge.
You don’t really need the optional 25 watt USB-C super fast charger, but if you feel it’s worth buying it for a slightly faster recharging time, here are some online purchase options:
We first tested the Galaxy Z Flip 6 using PCMark, which simulates work applications like web browsing, playing video, writing text and editing photos.
Work 3.0
Z Flip
6
S23
Ultra
S24
Ultra
Z Flip
5
Z Flip
4
Mobile Platform
SD 8
Gen 3
SD 8
Gen 2
SD 8
Gen 3
SD 8
Gen 2
SD 8+
Gen 1
Performance Score
17784
16408
14931
14655
14429
Web Browsing
14520
15680
11663
11404
12097
Video Editing
8117
7879
6474
7943
7387
Writing
23424
22257
20333
19525
17593
Photo Editing
33048
35533
34350
324420
31762
Data Manipulation
19501
12171
14070
11788
12523
Will you look at that? The Galaxy Z Flip 6 was able to deliver 19% better performance with the same Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 as the Galaxy S24 Ultra, and 21% better performance than the SD 8 Gen 2 used in the Galaxy Z Flip5.
This is likely due to its vapour chamber – the first in a Galaxy Z Flip smartphone, and 150% larger than the one used in the Galaxy S23 Ultra.
Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 Storage Performance
PCMark also has an Android Storage 2.0 benchmark that measures the smartphone’s storage I/O performance.
Storage 2.0
Z Flip
5
Z Flip
6
S23
Ultra
S24
Ultra
Z Flip
4
Mobile Platform
SD 8
Gen 2
SD 8
Gen 3
SD 8
Gen 2
SD 8
Gen 3
SD 8+
Gen 1
Storage Score
48435
47552
41647
33005
27271
Sequential Read (MB/s)
2676.53
2696.61
2592.42
2907.37
1350.51
Random Read (MB/s)
49.95
59.23
38.25
60.98
33.94
Sequential Write (MB/s)
2631.38
2956.52
603.29
3084.95
256.81
Random Write (MB/s)
76.66
100.39
81.44
106.34
50.29
The Galaxy Z Flip 6 appears to be using flash memory with significantly faster random read and write speeds compared to the Galaxy S24 Ultra.
Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 Gaming Performance
For gaming, we tested the Galaxy Z Flip 6 using 3DMark, with these results :
3DMark
(Unlimited)
S24
Ultra
Z Flip
6
S23
Ultra
Z Flip
5
Z Flip
4
Mobile Platform
SD 8
Gen 3
SD 8
Gen 3
SD 8
Gen 2
SD 8
Gen 2
SD 8+
Gen 1
Steel Nomad Light
1470
1447
NA
659
NA
Solar Bay
8576
8588
NA
5481
NA
Wild Life Extreme
5020
4810
3814
3705
2636
Wild Life
20534
20291
14554
14823
11144
Sling Shot Extreme
19653
11570
13904
13558
6912
Sling Shot
22656
19341
16344
16661
10690
Despite having an ultra-slim, foldable design, the Galaxy Z Flip 6 is no gaming slouch. It handily outperforms last year’s Galaxy Z Flip5 by 16% to 37%.
This comes as no surprise as the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 really shines in gaming performance. Its Adreno 750 GPU not only supports ray tracing, it does a fantastic job of delivering top-notch 3D graphics performance.
On top of that, the Galaxy Z Flip 6 now boasts a vapour chamber, and one that is 150% larger than the one used in the Galaxy S23 Ultra. This allows its CPU and GPU to better sustain peak performance during intense gaming sessions.
Although ray tracing games are far and few in between for now, the Solar Bay benchmark shows that the Galaxy Z Flip 6 delivers 57% better 3D with ray tracing performance than the Galaxy Z Flip5!
Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 Overall Performance
We then tested the Galaxy Z Flip 6 using AnTuTu, yielding these results :
AnTuTu
S24
Ultra
Z Flip 6
S23
Ultra
Z Flip
5
Z Flip
4
Device
SD 8 Gen 3
SD 8
Gen 3
SD 8
Gen 2
SD 8
Gen 2
SD 8+
Gen 1
AnTuTu Score
1826776
1419487
1212174
1187296
856357
CPU
456400
364215
261886
393404
205939
GPU
682555
525041
538823
282780
362669
Memory
380519
253538
236163
291048
135707
UX
307302
276693
175302
220064
152042
Not bad! The AnTuTu benchmark shows that the Galaxy Z Flip 6 is 17% and 20% faster than the Galaxy S23 Ultra, and Galaxy Z Flip 5 respectively – both powered by last year’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 2. Very nice!
Let’s do a quick wrap of what I really like, and don’t like, about the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6.
Much Longer Battery Life
The biggest problem with the Galaxy Z Flip 5 was its battery life, and the Galaxy Z Flip 6 fixed that. Not only does it come with a 8% larger battery, it actually delivers 26% to 29% longer battery life!
Personally, that’s the most important upgrade in the Galaxy Z Flip 6 for me. No more battery life anxiety, with 12-13 hours of battery life on a single charge!
Great Performance
Even though it looks real sleek, it is powered by the incredibly powerful Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 mobile SoC.
For the first time, it also boasts a vapour chamber, which is 150% larger than the one used in the Galaxy S23 Ultra. This allows its CPU and GPU to better sustain peak performance during intense gaming sessions.
The Galaxy Z Flip 6 will easily handle EVERYTHING you throw at it – even graphics-intensive games. It gets toasty when you game, but hey, at least it doesn’t feel like a brick!
50 MP Dual Pixel Camera
The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 now has a new 50 MP camera – the same used in the Galaxy S24 and S24+ smartphones. While it defaults to 12 MP like the previous main camera, it uses a newer and better sensor.
On top of that, its 50 MP sensor gives you the flexibility to take ultra-high resolution photos when you need to, or use them to zoom into faraway objects without resorting to digital zoom. It basically works like a 2X optical zoom.
Zilch In-Box Freebies
For a premium product, it comes with zilch freebies in-the-box. As mentioned before, there is no fast charger.
There is also no USB-C to 3.5 mm audio jack, not even a pair of USB-C earphones. Neither did Samsung provide even a cheap clear case to tide you over until you get something better.
It’s More Expensive
Finally, the Galaxy Z Flip 6 is a fair bit more expensive (~US$100 / RM500-600) than the Galaxy Z Flip 5.
Samsung Galaxy Z Flip6 : My Verdict + Award
As Samsung’s sixth iteration of the foldable Flip series, the Galaxy Z Flip6 doesn’t offer anything particularly revolutionary. It is an evolutionary upgrade of last year’s Galaxy Z Flip 5, to be sure, but it offers enough to make it a tempting upgrade for users of the Galaxy Z Flip 4 or older devices.
Not only does the Galaxy Z Flip6 offer a big boost in performance and memory, it comes with a significantly improved battery life. Its fold flat design is not only “cooler”, it is less likely to damage, while its large 3.4-inch Flex Window is much more useful than the tiny display of previous generations.
Samsung has also refined the Galaxy Z Flip6 to the point that it will also appeal to even people unfamiliar with foldable smartphones.
While the Galaxy Z Flip6 is now a bit more pricey, I think it addressed enough of the deficits in Galaxy Z Flip 5 to deserve our Editor’s Choice Award! Great job, Samsung!
Samsung Galaxy Z Flip6 : Where To Buy
Here are some online per-order and purchase options for the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip6 :
Support my work through a bank transfer / PayPal / credit card!
Name : Adrian Wong Bank Transfer : CIMB 7064555917 (Swift Code : CIBBMYKL)
Credit Card / Paypal : https://paypal.me/techarp
Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
Let’s take a look at the performance of the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 smartphone, which is powered by an overclocked Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 mobile SoC!
Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 : Flagship Class Performance!
The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 is powered exclusively by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 for Galaxy, which has a slightly overclocked prime core. It has eight processor cores in a quad-cluster architecture:
1 x Arm Cortex-X4 core (3.39 GHz, instead of 3.3 GHz)
3 x Arm Cortex-A720 cores
2 x Arm Cortex-A720 cores
2 x Arm Cortex-A520 cores
This mobile SoC also comes with the Qualcomm Adreno 750 GPU which supports ray-tracing, an improved Hexagon NPU, and the Snapdragon X75 5G modem that supports Sub-6Ghz and mmWave connectivity.
We first tested the Galaxy Z Flip 6 using PCMark, which simulates work applications like web browsing, playing video, writing text and editing photos.
Work 3.0
Z Flip
6
S23
Ultra
S24
Ultra
Z Flip
5
Z Flip
4
Mobile Platform
SD 8
Gen 3
SD 8
Gen 2
SD 8
Gen 3
SD 8
Gen 2
SD 8+
Gen 1
Performance Score
17784
16408
14931
14655
14429
Web Browsing
14520
15680
11663
11404
12097
Video Editing
8117
7879
6474
7943
7387
Writing
23424
22257
20333
19525
17593
Photo Editing
33048
35533
34350
324420
31762
Data Manipulation
19501
12171
14070
11788
12523
Will you look at that? The Galaxy Z Flip 6 was able to deliver 19% better performance with the same Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 as the Galaxy S24 Ultra, and 21% better performance than the SD 8 Gen 2 used in the Galaxy Z Flip5.
This is likely due to its vapour chamber – the first in a Galaxy Z Flip smartphone, and 150% larger than the one used in the Galaxy S23 Ultra.
Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 Storage Performance
PCMark also has an Android Storage 2.0 benchmark that measures the smartphone’s storage I/O performance.
Storage 2.0
Z Flip
5
Z Flip
6
S23
Ultra
S24
Ultra
Z Flip
4
Mobile Platform
SD 8
Gen 2
SD 8
Gen 3
SD 8
Gen 2
SD 8
Gen 3
SD 8+
Gen 1
Storage Score
48435
47552
41647
33005
27271
Sequential Read (MB/s)
2676.53
2696.61
2592.42
2907.37
1350.51
Random Read (MB/s)
49.95
59.23
38.25
60.98
33.94
Sequential Write (MB/s)
2631.38
2956.52
603.29
3084.95
256.81
Random Write (MB/s)
76.66
100.39
81.44
106.34
50.29
The Galaxy Z Flip 6 appears to be using flash memory with significantly faster random read and write speeds compared to the Galaxy S24 Ultra.
Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 Gaming Performance
For gaming, we tested the Galaxy Z Flip 6 using 3DMark, with these results :
3DMark
(Unlimited)
S24
Ultra
Z Flip
6
S23
Ultra
Z Flip
5
Z Flip
4
Mobile Platform
SD 8
Gen 3
SD 8
Gen 3
SD 8
Gen 2
SD 8
Gen 2
SD 8+
Gen 1
Steel Nomad Light
1470
1447
NA
659
NA
Solar Bay
8576
8588
NA
5481
NA
Wild Life Extreme
5020
4810
3814
3705
2636
Wild Life
20534
20291
14554
14823
11144
Sling Shot Extreme
19653
11570
13904
13558
6912
Sling Shot
22656
19341
16344
16661
10690
Despite having an ultra-slim, foldable design, the Galaxy Z Flip 6 is no gaming slouch. It handily outperforms last year’s Galaxy Z Flip5 by 16% to 37%.
This comes as no surprise as the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 really shines in gaming performance. Its Adreno 750 GPU not only supports ray tracing, it does a fantastic job of delivering top-notch 3D graphics performance.
On top of that, the Galaxy Z Flip 6 now boasts a vapour chamber, and one that is 150% larger than the one used in the Galaxy S23 Ultra. This allows its CPU and GPU to better sustain peak performance during intense gaming sessions.
Although ray tracing games are far and few in between for now, the Solar Bay benchmark shows that the Galaxy Z Flip 6 delivers 57% better 3D with ray tracing performance than the Galaxy Z Flip5!
Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 Overall Performance
We then tested the Galaxy Z Flip 6 using AnTuTu, yielding these results :
AnTuTu
S24
Ultra
Z Flip 6
S23
Ultra
Z Flip
5
Z Flip
4
Device
SD 8 Gen 3
SD 8
Gen 3
SD 8
Gen 2
SD 8
Gen 2
SD 8+
Gen 1
AnTuTu Score
1826776
1419487
1212174
1187296
856357
CPU
456400
364215
261886
393404
205939
GPU
682555
525041
538823
282780
362669
Memory
380519
253538
236163
291048
135707
UX
307302
276693
175302
220064
152042
Not bad! The AnTuTu benchmark shows that the Galaxy Z Flip 6 is 17% and 20% faster than the Galaxy S23 Ultra, and Galaxy Z Flip 5 respectively – both powered by last year’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 2. Very nice!
Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 Performance Summary
The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 may look like Galaxy Z Flip 5, but it offers significantly faster performance, particularly in 3D and ray-traced games. While not reflected in these benchmarks, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 also offers significantly better AI performance thanks to its upgrade NPU.
It also worth pointing out, yet again, that the Galaxy Z Flip 6 finally has a vapour chamber to keep the CPU and GPU cool, for better sustained performance. This is also a rather large vapour chamber – 150% larger than the one used in Galaxy S23 Ultra.
It really shows in the benchmarks, allowing the Z Flip 6 to deliver performance levels close to that of the Galaxy S24 Ultra. The Galaxy Z Flip 6 is particularly strong in 3D graphics and ray tracing performance. With strong gaming performance in such a thin and foldable device, it seems rather pointless to spend good money on large, clunky “gaming smartphones”.
The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 will be available in four main colour options, as well as the three exclusive online colours. Pre-order begins immediately, with general available from 24 July 2024 onwards, at these price points :
Just in case you are wondering, the launch prices for the Galaxy Z Flip 6 went up a fair bit (~US$100 / RM500-600) over the launch prices for the Galaxy Z Flip 5.
Please Support My Work!
Support my work through a bank transfer / PayPal / credit card!
Name : Adrian Wong Bank Transfer : CIMB 7064555917 (Swift Code : CIBBMYKL)
Credit Card / Paypal : https://paypal.me/techarp
Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
Samsung sent me their new Galaxy Z Flip 6 foldable smartphone, and here is my unboxing video, as well as my first impressions!
Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 Unboxing : What’s In The Box?
I managed to get my hands on the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 foldable smartphone BEFORE it actually ships! Take a look at my unboxing video, and share it out!
In our unboxing video, you can see that the Galaxy Z Flip 6 package is sparse, and only consists of:
Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 smartphone
Set of documents – quick start guide in two languages, and a warranty card
USB Type C to Type C cable
SIM card extractor pin
As the unboxing video shows, the Galaxy Z Flip 6 does not come with any charger, or earphones. Not even a TPU case to hold you over until you get a better case.
Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 : My First Impressions!
A week before its launch, I managed to get my hands on not one, but four Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 smartphones, which allowed us to do a proper colour comparison.
And now, I present to you – my own hands-on experience with the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 smartphone… in all four main colours!
I apologise for the slightly shaky video – Samsung still insists that I do not take photos or record videos with a smartphone, even though it’s their own Galaxy S24 Ultra!
Samsung maintained the same basic design from last year’s Galaxy Z Flip 5, but with a bold new camera ring design. Even though it’s the same in every other aspect as the Z Flip 5, the thicker camera ring design means new Z Flip 6 won’t be compatible with the Flip 5 covers.
It also retained the much larger 3.4-inch Flex Window display from the Z Flip 5, but Samsung says its Dual Rail hinge mechanism has been improved to deliver better shock distribution. It also appears to allow the Z Flip 6 to close even tighter, with a small reduction in its folded thickness.
On the left side of the foldable display, you will find the SIM card tray, which only supports a single nano SIM card. But for those who need more – the Galaxy Z Flip 6 supports multiple eSIMs.
At the bottom, you will find the USB port, as well as the speaker and microphone ports. On the right side are the Power button with a built-in fingerprint sensor, and the Volume control buttons.
In the front, the Galaxy Z Flip 5 has a punch hole camera hidden at the top of its foldable display. This is the same 10 MP camera from Galaxy Z Flip 4, albeit with a slightly larger f/2.2 aperture. So you can expect it to perform slightly better in low-light conditions.
At the back, the Galaxy Z Flip 6 now has a 50 MP Dual Pixel camera – the same camera used in the Galaxy S24 and S24+ smartphones. But its ultra-wide angle camera remained the same, with a 12 MP sensor, a 123° field of view, and f/2.2 aperture.
The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 mobile SoC, and for the first time in a Z Flip series smartphone, it comes with a vapour chamber! Samsung tells us that this vapour chamber is 150% larger than the one used in the Galaxy S23 Ultra, which should allow for better sustained performance.
In addition, the Z Flip 6 now comes with 12 GB of RAM, bringing it up to par with the Galaxy Z Fold 6. However, it is limited to storage options of 256 GB or 512 GB. There is currently no 1 TB storage option.
The Z Flip 6 is protected by Gorilla Glass Victus 2, and Enhanced Armour Aluminium frame, which offers 10% better scratch resistance. And for the first time, it is IP48-rated. In addition to its water resistance at up to 1.5 metres for up to 30 minutes, the Galaxy Z Flip 6 is now protected against solid objects larger than 1 millimeter. It is still not dust-resistant, but it will keep small stones out of its delicate innards.
Finally, the Galaxy Z Flip 6 comes with a 4,000 mAh battery, which is 8% larger than last year’s Galaxy Z Flip 5, which should offer significantly better battery life.
Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 Specifications
Here are the key specifications for the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 smartphone :
Specifications
Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 5G
Main Display
6.7-inch Infinity Flex Display
Dynamic AMOLED 2X panel
1080 x 2640 pixels, 425 ppi
1~120 Hz adaptive refresh rate
Cover Display
3.4-inch Super AMOLED display
720 x 748 pixels, 306 ppi
60 Hz refresh rate
Protection
Gorilla Glass Victus 2 (front + back)
IP48 Dust + Water Resistance
Enhanced Armor Aluminum
OS
Android 14 with One UI 6.1.1
Platform
Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 5G (SM8650)
CPU
1 x Cortex-X4 (3.3 GHz)
5 x Cortex-A720 (up to 3.15 GHz)
2 x Cortex-A520 (up to 2.27 GHz)
GPU
Qualcomm Adreno 750
Memory
12 GB
Storage
256 GB / 512 GB UFS 3.1
Front Camera
10 MP camera (f/2.2)
Main Cameras
50 MP Dual Pixel camera (f/1.8)
12 MP ultra-wide angle camera (f/2.2)
Audio
Stereo speakers tuned by AKG
Surround sound with Dolby Atmos
UHQ 32-bit and DSD64/128 support
Connectivity
Network : 5G / 4G
Wi-Fi : Wi-Fi 6E
Bluetooth : BT 5.3
USB : USB-C 3.2
The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 will be available in four main colour options, as well as the three exclusive online colours. Pre-order begins immediately, with general available from 24 July 2024 onwards, at these price points :
Just in case you are wondering, the launch prices for the Galaxy Z Flip 6 went up a fair bit (~US$100 / RM500-600) over the launch prices for the Galaxy Z Flip 5.
Please Support My Work!
Support my work through a bank transfer / PayPal / credit card!
Name : Adrian Wong Bank Transfer : CIMB 7064555917 (Swift Code : CIBBMYKL)
Credit Card / Paypal : https://paypal.me/techarp
Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
Samsung just launched the Galaxy Z Flip 6, and here is my hands-on preview of its latest compact foldable smartphone in all 4 main colour options!
Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 : My Hands-On Experience!
I was one of the few who had the rare opportunity to get my hands on not one, but four Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 smartphones, which allowed us to do a proper colour comparison.
And now, I present to you – my own hands-on experience with the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 smartphone… in all four main colours!
I apologise for the slightly shaky video – Samsung still insists that I do not take photos or record videos with a smartphone, even though it’s their own Galaxy S24 Ultra!
Samsung maintained the same basic design from last year’s Galaxy Z Flip 5, but with a bold new camera ring design. Even though it’s the same in every other aspect as the Z Flip 5, the thicker camera ring design means new Z Flip 6 won’t be compatible with the Flip 5 covers.
It also retained the much larger 3.4-inch Flex Window display from the Z Flip 5, but Samsung says its Dual Rail hinge mechanism has been improved to deliver better shock distribution. It also appears to allow the Z Flip 6 to close even tighter, with a small reduction in its folded thickness.
On the left side of the foldable display, you will find the SIM card tray, which only supports a single nano SIM card. But for those who need more – the Galaxy Z Flip 6 supports multiple eSIMs.
At the bottom, you will find the USB port, as well as the speaker and microphone ports. On the right side are the Power button with a built-in fingerprint sensor, and the Volume control buttons.
In the front, the Galaxy Z Flip 5 has a punch hole camera hidden at the top of its foldable display. This is the same 10 MP camera from Galaxy Z Flip 4, albeit with a slightly larger f/2.2 aperture. So you can expect it to perform slightly better in low-light conditions.
At the back, the Galaxy Z Flip 6 now has a 50 MP Dual Pixel camera – the same camera used in the Galaxy S24 and S24+ smartphones. But its ultra-wide angle camera remained the same, with a 12 MP sensor, a 123° field of view, and f/2.2 aperture.
The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 mobile SoC, and for the first time in a Z Flip series smartphone, it comes with a vapour chamber! Samsung tells us that this vapour chamber is 150% larger than the one used in the Galaxy S23 Ultra, which should allow for better sustained performance.
In addition, the Z Flip 6 now comes with 12 GB of RAM, bringing it up to par with the Galaxy Z Fold 6. However, it is limited to storage options of 256 GB or 512 GB. There is currently no 1 TB storage option.
The Z Flip 6 is protected by Gorilla Glass Victus 2, and Enhanced Armour Aluminium frame, which offers 10% better scratch resistance. And for the first time, it is IP48-rated. In addition to its water resistance at up to 1.5 metres for up to 30 minutes, the Galaxy Z Flip 6 is now protected against solid objects larger than 1 millimeter. It is still not dust-resistant, but it will keep small stones out of its delicate innards.
Finally, the Galaxy Z Flip 6 comes with a 4,000 mAh battery, which is 8% larger than last year’s Galaxy Z Flip 5, which should offer significantly better battery life.
Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 Specifications
Here are the key specifications for the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 smartphone :
Specifications
Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 5G
Main Display
6.7-inch Infinity Flex Display
Dynamic AMOLED 2X panel
1080 x 2640 pixels, 425 ppi
1~120 Hz adaptive refresh rate
Cover Display
3.4-inch Super AMOLED display
720 x 748 pixels, 306 ppi
60 Hz refresh rate
Protection
Gorilla Glass Victus 2 (front + back)
IP48 Dust + Water Resistance
Enhanced Armor Aluminum
OS
Android 14 with One UI 6.1.1
Platform
Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 5G (SM8650)
CPU
1 x Cortex-X4 (3.3 GHz)
5 x Cortex-A720 (up to 3.15 GHz)
2 x Cortex-A520 (up to 2.27 GHz)
GPU
Qualcomm Adreno 750
Memory
12 GB
Storage
256 GB / 512 GB UFS 3.1
Front Camera
10 MP camera (f/2.2)
Main Cameras
50 MP Dual Pixel camera (f/1.8)
12 MP ultra-wide angle camera (f/2.2)
Audio
Stereo speakers tuned by AKG
Surround sound with Dolby Atmos
UHQ 32-bit and DSD64/128 support
Connectivity
Network : 5G / 4G
Wi-Fi : Wi-Fi 6E
Bluetooth : BT 5.3
USB : USB-C 3.2
The Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 will be available in four main colour options, as well as the three exclusive online colours. Pre-order begins immediately, with general available from 24 July 2024 onwards, at these price points :
Just in case you are wondering, the launch prices for the Galaxy Z Flip 6 went up a fair bit (~US$100 / RM500-600) over the launch prices for the Galaxy Z Flip 5.
Please Support My Work!
Support my work through a bank transfer / PayPal / credit card!
Name : Adrian Wong Bank Transfer : CIMB 7064555917 (Swift Code : CIBBMYKL)
Credit Card / Paypal : https://paypal.me/techarp
Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
Samsung just launched the Galaxy Z Fold 6, and here is my hands-on preview of its latest foldable smartphone in all 3 main colour options!
Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 : My Hands-On Preview!
I was one of the few who had the rare opportunity to get my hands on not one, but three Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 smartphones, which allowed us to do a proper colour comparison.
And now, I present to you – my own hands-on experience with the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 smartphone… in all three main colours!
I apologise for the slightly shaky video – Samsung still insists that I do not take photos or record videos with a smartphone, even though it’s their own Galaxy S24 Ultra!
When folded, the new Z Fold 6 looks like a rather tall and chunky smartphone. Its 6.3-inch Cover Screen is large but has a tall aspect ratio. You can use it like any regular smartphone, without opening the foldable display.
The Dual Rail hinge mechanism is similar to the Galaxy Z Fold 5, allowing the main display to fold completely flat. According to Samsung, it has been improved in the Galaxy Z Fold 6 to deliver better shock distribution.
The SIM tray is now located on the left side of the foldable display. In addition to two physical nanoSIM cards, the Z Fold 6 also supports multiple eSIMs.
On the right side, you will find the Power button, with a built-in fingerprint sensor; and the volume buttons. At the bottom, you will find the USB port, together with the lower speaker and microphone ports; while at the top are another row of speaker ports with what looks like three more microphone ports.
Samsung retained the same cameras from the Galaxy Z Fold 5. The Cover Display itself features a 10 MP punch hole camera with an f/2.2 aperture, while at the back, it features the same triple camera setup, which consists of:
a 50 megapixels Dual Pixel camera
a 10 megapixel telephoto camera, and
a 12 megapixel ultra wide angle camera
When unfolded, you will get a massive 7.6-inch display with a squarish 20.9 by 18 ratio, which offers about twice the screen space as a regular smartphone. This super large display is what makes the Galaxy Z Fold 6 such a productivity powerhouse. It also features a hidden 4 megapixel camera under this large main display.
The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 mobile SoC, and it is kept cool by a 60% larger vapour chamber, which should allow for better sustained performance. Like the Galaxy Z Fold 5, it comes with 12 GB of RAM, and storage options of 256 GB, 512 GB, or 1 TB.
The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 is protected by Gorilla Glass Victus 2, and Enhanced Armour Aluminium frame, which offers 10% better scratch resistance. And for the first time, it is IP48-rated. In addition to its water resistance at up to 1.5 metres for up to 30 minutes, the Galaxy Z Fold 6 is now protected against solid objects larger than 1 millimeter. It is still not dust-resistant, but it will keep small stones out of its delicate innards.
The Galaxy Z Fold 6 retains the same 4,400 mAh battery from the Galaxy Z Fold 5, but Samsung says it will have a longer battery life.
Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 Specifications
Here are the key specifications for the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 smartphone :
Specifications
Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 5G
Main Display
7.6-inch Infinity Flex Display
Dynamic AMOLED 2X panel
1856 x 2160 pixels, 374 ppi
1~120 Hz refresh rate
Cover Display
6.3-inch Dynamic AMOLED 2X display
968 x 2376 pixels, 410 ppi
1~120 Hz refresh rate
Protection
Gorilla Glass Victus 2
Enhanced Armor Aluminum
IP48 Dust + Water Resistance
OS
Android 14 with One UI 6.1.1
Platform
Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 5G (SM8650)
CPU
1 x Cortex-X4 (3.3 GHz)
5 x Cortex-A720 (up to 3.15 GHz)
2 x Cortex-A520 (up to 2.27 GHz)
GPU
Qualcomm Adreno 750
Memory
12 GB
Storage
256 GB / 512 GB / 1 TB UFS 3.1
Cover Camera
10 MP camera (f/2.2)
Front Camera
4 MP under-display camera (f/1.8)
Main Cameras
50 MP Dual Pixel camera (f/1.8)
10 MP 3X telephoto camera (f/2.4)
12 MP ultra-wide angle camera (f/2.2)
Audio
Stereo speakers tuned by AKG
Surround sound with Dolby Atmos
UHQ 32-bit and DSD64/128 support
Connectivity
Network : 5G / 4G
Wi-Fi : Wi-Fi 6E
Bluetooth : BT 5.3
USB : USB-C 3.2
The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 will be available in three main colour options, as well as the two exclusive online colours. Pre-order begins immediately, with general available from 24 July 2024 onwards, at these price points :
Just in case you are wondering, the launch prices for the Z Fold 6 are slightly higher than the launch prices for the Z Fold 5.
Please Support My Work!
Support my work through a bank transfer / PayPal / credit card!
Name : Adrian Wong Bank Transfer : CIMB 7064555917 (Swift Code : CIBBMYKL)
Credit Card / Paypal : https://paypal.me/techarp
Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
Samsung just launched the new Galaxy Z Flip 6 smartphone in four main colour options, and three online exclusive colours! Take a look at our four main colour options, and tell us which YOU prefer!
Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 : 4 Colour Options!
Samsung just launched the new Galaxy Z Flip 6 smartphone at the Galaxy Unpacked 2024 event, and it will be available in four main colours with a matte finish:
Silver Shadow
Yellow
Mint
Blue
Samsung will also offer three other colour options exclusively on its online store:
Crafted Black
White
Peach
I was amongst the few to get an early look at the Galaxy Z Flip 6, and here is my comparison video of all four main colour options! Do let us know which YOU prefer!
Just in case you are wondering, the launch prices for the Galaxy Z Flip 6 went up a fair bit (~US$xx / £xx / A$xx / S$xx) over the launch prices for the Galaxy Z Flip 5.
Please Support My Work!
Support my work through a bank transfer / PayPal / credit card!
Name : Adrian Wong Bank Transfer : CIMB 7064555917 (Swift Code : CIBBMYKL)
Credit Card / Paypal : https://paypal.me/techarp
Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
Samsung just launched the new Galaxy Z Fold 6 smartphone in three main colour options, and two online exclusive colours! Take a look at all three main colour options, and tell us which YOU prefer!
Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 : 3 Main Colour Options!
Samsung just launched the new Galaxy Z Fold 6 smartphone at the Galaxy Unpacked 2024 event, and it will be available in three main colours with a matte finish:
Silver Shadow
Navy
Pink
Samsung will also offer two other colour options exclusively on its online store:
Crafted Black
White
I was amongst the few to get an early look at the Galaxy Z Fold 6, and here is my comparison video of all three main colour options! Do let us know which YOU prefer!
Here are renders of the three colour options for the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 smartphone:
Silver Shadow Colour Option
Navy Colour Option
Pink Colour Option
Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 : Colour Options + Price
Samsung is making all three colour options, as well as the two exclusive online colours, available for purchase from 24 July 2024 onwards, at these price points :
Just in case you are wondering, the launch prices for the Galaxy Z Fold 6 are slightly higher than the launch prices for the Galaxy Z Fold 5.
Please Support My Work!
Support my work through a bank transfer / PayPal / credit card!
Name : Adrian Wong Bank Transfer : CIMB 7064555917 (Swift Code : CIBBMYKL)
Credit Card / Paypal : https://paypal.me/techarp
Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
Based on a Harvey Norman leak, the price of the upcoming Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 will likely be 8% to 9% more! Here is what we know so far…
Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 : Price Increase Leaked!
Samsung is about to unveil the Galaxy Z Flip 6 foldable smartphone in its 2024 Galaxy Unpacked event, but it looks like the cat is out of the bag – its price is likely to be 8% to 9% higher!
Harvey Norman in Australia appeared to have accidentally posted listings for the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 ahead of its official launch. According to the information on those pages, the Galaxy Z Flip 6 will cost A$150 more than last year’s Galaxy Z Flip 5, at least in Australia:
Screenshots of the (now taken down) listing on the Harvey Norman website also gave us a sneak peek at some Galaxy Z Flip 6 details:
Two Storage Capacities
This is not a surprise – Samsung will continue to offer two storage capacities – 256 GB, 512 GB. There is no sign of any 1 TB option, and I seriously doubt Samsung would offer a 128 GB for such a premium device.
Gorilla Glass Victus 2 + Armor Aluminum
The Harvey Norman listing also shows that the Galaxy Z Flip 6 will be protected by Corning Gorilla Glass Victus 2 on the Cover display, with Armor Aluminum on the frame and hinge cover.
Four Main Colours
Samsung will offer the Galaxy Z Flip 6 in four main colours – Silver Shadow, Blue, Yellow, and Mint. However, we expect Samsung to also introduce four (still unknown) exclusive colours for sale on their online website.
Support my work through a bank transfer / PayPal / credit card!
Name : Adrian Wong Bank Transfer : CIMB 7064555917 (Swift Code : CIBBMYKL)
Credit Card / Paypal : https://paypal.me/techarp
Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
Based on a Harvey Norman leak, the price of the upcoming Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 will likely be 5% to 6% more! Here is what we know so far…
Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 : Price Increase Leaked!
Samsung is about to unveil the Galaxy Z Fold 6 foldable smartphone in its 2024 Galaxy Unpacked event, but it looks like the cat is out of the bag – its price is likely to be 5% to 6% higher!
Harvey Norman in Australia appeared to have accidentally posted listings for the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 ahead of its official launch. According to the information on those pages, the Galaxy Z Fold 6 will cost A$150 more than last year’s Galaxy Z Fold 5, at least in Australia:
Screenshots of the (now taken down) listing on the Harvey Norman website also gave us a sneak peek at some Galaxy Z Fold 6 details:
Only 8GB of Memory???
The Harvey Norman listing shows storage capacities of 256 GB, 512 GB and 1 TB. But what was most surprising is that it appears to show that the Galaxy Z Fold 6 would only have 8 GB of RAM.
That is rather shocking, as the Galaxy Z Fold 5 debut with 12 GB of memory last year! It seems rather unlikely that Samsung would cut down the amount of memory on the Galaxy Z Fold 6.
Even if they come up with AI improvements (everything’s attributed to AI these days!) to reduce memory usage, it would still be bad marketing to drop memory capacity in an expensive flagship device.
Three Storage Capacities
What’s not surprising is that Samsung will continue to offer three storage capacities – 256 GB, 512 GB, and 1 TB.
Three Main Colours
Samsung will offer the Galaxy Z Fold 6 in three main colours – Silver Shadow, Navy, and Pink. However, we believe Samsung will also introduce two exclusive (but still unknown) colours for sale on their website.
The Harvey Norman listing also shows that the Galaxy Z Fold 6 will be protected by Corning Gorilla Glass Victus 2, with Armor Aluminum on the frame and hinge cover.
Slightly Lighter
Finally, the Harvey Norman listing shows that the Galaxy Z Fold 6 will be slightly lighter at 239 grams. This shaves off 14 grams (5.5%) off last year’s Galaxy Z Fold 5, which itself slimmed down by 10 grams.
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Support my work through a bank transfer / PayPal / credit card!
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Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
The four main colours for the upcoming Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 smartphone just leaked! Take a look at the four Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 colours, and tell us which you prefer!
Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 : Colours + Other Leaked Details!
Samsung is about to unveil the Galaxy Z Flip 6 foldable smartphone in its 2024 Galaxy Unpacked event on July 10, but it looks like the cat is out of the bag – the four main colours have leaked!
These photos were not only leaked by Evan Blass recently, they were also (accidentally) leaked earlier by Australian retailer Harvey Norman! You can check out all 16 photos in the next section of this article.
If these photos are correct, the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 will be available in four main colours – Silver Shadow, Blue, Yellow, and Mint. We expect Samsung to also introduce four (still unknown) exclusive colours for their online website.
Screenshots of the (now taken down) listing on the Harvey Norman website also gave us a sneak peek at some Galaxy Z Flip 6 details:
Two Storage Capacities
This is not a surprise – Samsung will continue to offer two storage capacities – 256 GB, 512 GB. There is no sign of any 1 TB option, and I seriously doubt Samsung would offer a 128 GB for such a premium device.
Higher Prices
Unfortunately, it appears that prices have gone up by A$150 (about) across the board, at least in Australia:
The Harvey Norman listing also shows that the Galaxy Z Flip 6 will be protected by Corning Gorilla Glass Victus 2 on the Cover display, with Armor Aluminum on the frame and hinge cover.
Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 : 4 Main Colours Leaked!
Here are the four main colours of the Galaxy Z Fold 6, as leaked online:
Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 – Silver Shadow
Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 – Blue
Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 – Yellow
Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 – Mint
Please Support My Work!
Support my work through a bank transfer / PayPal / credit card!
Name : Adrian Wong Bank Transfer : CIMB 7064555917 (Swift Code : CIBBMYKL)
Credit Card / Paypal : https://paypal.me/techarp
Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
The three main colours for the upcoming Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 smartphone just leaked! Take a look at the three Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 colours, and tell us which you prefer!
Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 : Colours + Other Leaked Details!
Samsung is about to unveil the Galaxy Z Fold 6 foldable smartphone in its 2024 Galaxy Unpacked event on July 10, but it looks like the cat is out of the bag – the 3 main colours have leaked!
These photos were not only leaked by Evan Blass recently, they were also (accidentally) leaked earlier by Australian retailer Harvey Norman! You can check out 12 photos in the next section of this article.
If these photos are correct, the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 will be available in three main colours – Silver Shadow, Navy, and Pink. We expect Samsung to also introduce two (still unknown) exclusive colours for their online website.
Screenshots of the (now taken down) listing on the Harvey Norman website also gave us a sneak peek at some Galaxy Z Fold 6 details:
Only 8GB of Memory???
The Harvey Norman listing shows storage capacities of 256 GB, 512 GB and 1 TB. But what was most surprising is that it appears to show that the Galaxy Z Fold 6 would only have 8 GB of RAM.
That is rather shocking, as the Galaxy Z Fold 5 debut with 12 GB of memory last year! It seems rather unlikely that Samsung would cut down the amount of memory on the Galaxy Z Fold 6.
Even if they come up with AI improvements (everything’s attributed to AI these days!) to reduce memory usage, it would still be bad marketing to drop memory capacity in an expensive flagship device.
Three Storage Capacities
What’s not surprising is that Samsung will continue to offer three storage capacities – 256 GB, 512 GB, and 1 TB.
The Harvey Norman listing also shows that the Galaxy Z Fold 6 will be protected by Corning Gorilla Glass Victus 2, with Armor Aluminum on the frame and hinge cover.
Slightly Lighter
Finally, the Harvey Norman listing shows that the Galaxy Z Fold 6 will be slightly lighter at 239 grams. This shaves off 14 grams (5.5%) off last year’s Galaxy Z Fold 5, which itself slimmed down by 10 grams.
Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 : 3 Main Colours Leaked!
Here are the three main colours of the Galaxy Z Fold 6, as leaked online:
Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 – Silver Shadow
Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 – Navy
Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 – Pink
Please Support My Work!
Support my work through a bank transfer / PayPal / credit card!
Name : Adrian Wong Bank Transfer : CIMB 7064555917 (Swift Code : CIBBMYKL)
Credit Card / Paypal : https://paypal.me/techarp
Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
Samsung just teamed up with Insomniacks to promote the Galaxy A55 and Galaxy A35 smartphones, and there is a giveaway too! Here is what you need to know…
Insomniacks Teams Up With Samsung On Galaxy A55 / A35!
If you’re thinking the Samsung Galaxy A Series has got just about everything you need to make your life bigger, better, and all-around awesome, wait’ll you see – and hear – what else is in store for you.
Samsung Malaysia Electronics has teamed up with the Insomniacks to sing a sweet serenade to the power of unshakeable companionships – featuring their latest hit single ‘Teman’.
With lyrics that express a strong commitment to loyalty and support for one’s companion, there is no better musical pairing to celebrate the reliability and steadfastness the Samsung Galaxy A55 and Galaxy A35 can bring to your life.
Malam ini dan selamanya,
Aku dan dirimu akan bersama, Walau kita tidak bisa bertemu,
“Samsung’s collaboration with the Insomniacks represents a harmonious fusion of cutting-edge technology and the artistry of music.Insomniacks’ hit song ‘Teman’ resonates perfectly with the theme of connectivity and companionship that defines the Galaxy A55 5G,” says Denny Kim, President of Samsung Malaysia Electronics.
“All in all, the A series embodies Samsung’s commitment togiving our customers trusted companions that enrich and elevate the everyday into all things awesome. Truly, you can’t find a better companion than the Galaxy A55 5G and we at Samsung are proud to be an indispensable part of your life.”
If you haven’t heard, Samsung Malaysia Electronics is also giving you the opportunity to celebrate being awesome with the “Lebih Awesome, Lebih Menang!” A-series Giveaway Contest.
The “Lebih Awesome, Lebih Menang!” contest offers prizes worth up to RM 1,000,000 including a brand-new Yamaha Y15ZR motorcycle , a Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 FE tablet or Samsung Galaxy Buds FE earbuds!
Participating is quick and convenient. Simply purchase any of the Galaxy A05, A15, A25, A35 and A55 series model and follow these steps:
Install the Samsung Members App
Existing members can log into their Samsung Members account, while new members need to create a Samsung account to get started.
After logging in, agree to the Terms and Conditions of the contest.
Answer the Question: Share “What do you like about Samsung Galaxy A-series?“, and submit your entry for a chance to win!
The Samsung Galaxy A55 comes with 8 GB of RAM, and either 128 GB or 256 GB of storage, with the option to add a microSD card in the hybrid SIM tray. It is covered by a 2-year warranty, with the following launch prices:
8 GB + 128 GB : £439 / A$699 / S$618
8 GB + 256 GB : RM1,999 / £489 / S$698
Surprisingly, Samsung decided not to bring the Galaxy A55 to the United States, and suggested that customers consider the Galaxy S23 and Galaxy S23 FE instead. However, it is possible to purchase Latin American unlocked devices in the US (see below).
There are four colour options, which are not available in all countries – Awesome Iceblue, Awesome Lilac, Awesome Lemon, and Awesome Navy.
Here are online purchase options (we may get commission from your purchase) :
Support my work through a bank transfer / PayPal / credit card!
Name : Adrian Wong Bank Transfer : CIMB 7064555917 (Swift Code : CIBBMYKL)
Credit Card / Paypal : https://paypal.me/techarp
Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
Read our comprehensive review of the Samsung Galaxy A55 smartphone, and find out why it won our Editor’s Choice Award!
Samsung Galaxy A55 : Price + Availability
The Samsung Galaxy A55 comes with 8 GB of RAM, and either 128 GB or 256 GB of storage, with the option to add a microSD card in the hybrid SIM tray. It is covered by a 2-year warranty, with the following launch prices:
8 GB + 128 GB : £439 / A$699 / S$618
8 GB + 256 GB : RM1,999 / £489 / S$698
Surprisingly, Samsung decided not to bring the Galaxy A55 to the United States, and suggested that customers consider the Galaxy S23 and Galaxy S23 FE instead. However, it is possible to purchase Latin American unlocked devices in the US (see below).
There are four colour options, which are not available in all countries – Awesome Iceblue, Awesome Lilac, Awesome Lemon, and Awesome Navy.
Here are online purchase options (we may get commission from your purchase) :
The Samsung Galaxy A55 smartphone comes in a thin white cardboard box, which tells you that it definitely does not come with a USB charger inside. It is protected by two security stickers. Please make sure they are intact when you receive the box. Do not accept it, if any of the security stickers have been cut or tampered with.
After cutting the security stickers and taking off the top of the box, you will find the Galaxy A55 smartphone wrapped in plastic. But don’t chuck away the box cover yet. Hidden underneath is a cardboard packet containing its documents and accessories.
Now, let us go through its key features, and show you why the Samsung Galaxy A55 is worthy of our Editor’s Choice Award!
Same Design, Slightly Larger Display
Samsung retained the same design as last year’s Galaxy A54. It is slightly larger, thanks to its slightly larger 6.6-inch Super AMOLED display, which now supports a maximum brightness of 1000 nits.
Otherwise, the display has the same Full HD+ resolution of 1080 x 2340 pixels, with a refresh rate of up to 120 Hz for smoother graphics.
Better Protection
The first thing you will notice when you pick it up is the heft. It’s quite a thick and solid-feeling phone, with a thick metal frame wrapping all around the sides.
The display is protected by Gorilla Glass Victus+, which is tougher and more damage-resistant. The back is likely protected by Gorilla Glass 5 like in the Galaxy A54, although Samsung never explicitly revealed what glass it’s using.
Samsung also retained the IP67 dust- and water-resistance, from last year’s Galaxy A54.
The Samsung Galaxy A55 is built around the new 4nm Samsung Exynos 1480 mobile platform, which is fabricated on Samsung’s own 4 nm EUV process technology.
It comes with a Samsung Xclipse 530 GPU, an improved 6K MAC NPU, as well as eight CPU cores arranged in two performance clusters:
four Arm Cortex-A78 high-performance cores, and
four Arm Cortex-A55 low-power cores.
The Samsung Exynos 1480 has an integrated 5G modem that supports Sub-6GHz and mmWave standards, as well as LTE Cat.18 uploads and downloads for current 4G networks.
It also supports Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3, as well as the four main GPS networks – GPS, GLONASS, BeiDou and Galileo.
32 MP Front Camera
Hidden in its display is a punch hole camera, with a 32 MP sensor and an f/2.2 aperture. As far as I can tell, it’s the same camera as Galaxy A54, with an 80˚ field of view.
This front camera takes 12 MP photos by default, for better low-light performance. But you can switch it to 32 MP if you need the higher resolution. I recommend you stick with 12 MP though.
This front camera can record 4K (UHD) videos with video stabilisation, albeit at just 30 fps. If you want smoother videos though, you can record 1080p (FHD) videos with video stabilisation at 60 fps.
Triple Camera System
At the back, the Samsung Galaxy A55 sports a triple camera system, that consists of:
a 50 MP main camera, with f/1.8 aperture,
a 12 MP ultra-wide angle camera, with f/2.2 aperture, and
a 5 MP macro camera, with f/2.4 aperture
By default, the main camera takes 12 MP photos – combining four pixels into one larger pixel for better low-light performance. You can switch it to the full 50 MP, but unless you need the higher resolution, you are better off sticking with the default 12 MP mode.
Like the front camera, the rear cameras record 4K (UHD) videos with video stabilisation at just 30 fps. I recommend you stick with 1080p (FHD) video recording with video stabilisation enabled, at 60 fps.
Large 5,000 mAh Battery
The Samsung Galaxy A55 is powered by a large 5,000 mAh battery, which supports up to 25 watt fast charging.
It does not come with an in-box USB charger, but it comes with a USB cable that supports up to 45 watt fast charging.
Hybrid SIM + microSD Tray
The Samsung Galaxy A55 comes with a hybrid tray that supports two nano SIM cards, or one nano SIM card and a microSD card (of up to 1 TB in capacity).
It also supports an eSIM, so it is possible to use two phone numbers using a nano SIM and an eSIM, as well as a microSD card.
Samsung Knox Vault
You may not know this, but the Samsung Galaxy A55 comes with Samsung Knox Vault, which helps to protect your sensitive information like your PIN, password, and security patterns.
You can also store sensitive data and files in the encrypted Samsung Knox Vault storage, which is completely isolated and separate from the main operating system.
Samsung Guarantee
Finally, Samsung guarantees up to 4 generations of OS upgrades, and 5 years of security updates, as well as 2 years of warranty for the Galaxy A55!
To test its battery life, we turned off Automatic Brightness, and set its display brightness to 50%.
Why 50%? That is actually slightly higher than the average indoor brightness level of 40% during the day, and is what we usually use in all our mobile battery life tests.
It is important to fix the brightness level, to make sure the screen brightness does not change as the ambient brightness changes.
We then ran the PCMark Work 3.0 battery life test until its battery capacity dropped to 20% several times, and this was the best result we obtained with 60 Hz and 120 Hz refresh rates :
Not bad at all! The Samsung Galaxy A55 has a battery life of 11.5 hours with Adaptive refresh rate enabled, and just over 13 hours with the Standard refresh rate. That’s about an hour shorter than the Galaxy A54.
But let’s also compare its battery life at 60 Hz and 120 Hz, against the Galaxy A73, Galaxy A54, and S24 Ultra smartphones.
Standard Refresh Rate (60 Hz)
The Samsung Galaxy A55 lasted just over 13 hours with the refresh rate set to 60 Hz – a 5.5% shorter battery life than the Galaxy A54.
Work 3.0 (60 Hz)
S24 Ultra
Galaxy A73
Galaxy A54
Galaxy A55
Battery Capacity
5,000 mAh
5,000 mAh
5,000 mAh
5,000 mAh
Battery Life
16 hrs 25 mins
13 hrs 4 mins
13 hrs 57 mins
13 hrs 13 mins
Utilisation
per min.
4.06 mAh
5.10 mAh
4.78 mAh
5.04 mAh
Adaptive Refresh Rate (120 Hz)
The Samsung Galaxy A55 lasted just over 11.5 hours when the refresh rate was set to 120 Hz – a drop of just over 1.5 hours (14.6%). That was also just 4% shorter than last year’s Galaxy A54.
Based on what we see here, I definitely recommend turning on the Adaptive Refresh Rate on the Galaxy A55, unless you absolutely need the extra 1.5 hours of battery life.
Work 3.0 (120 Hz)
S24 Ultra
Galaxy A54
Galaxy A55
Galaxy A73
Battery Capacity
5,000 mAh
5,000 mAh
5,000 mAh
5,000 mAh
Battery Life
13 hrs 49 mins
12 hrs 25 mins
11 hrs 32 mins
10 hrs 42 mins
Utilisation
per min.
4.83 mAh
5.52 mAh
5.78 mAh
6.23 mAh
Samsung Galaxy A55 : Battery Recharging Speed!
The Samsung Galaxy A55 supports up to 25 watts of wired fast charging, but unfortunately, does not come with the charger in-the-box.
So we relied on the standard 15 watt Samsung fast charger than shipped with their previous smartphones – something we believe most users will end up doing, and added the 25 watt Samsung ultra-fast charger.
Recharging Speed
S24
Ultra
Galaxy
A73
Galaxy
A55
S24
Ultra
Galaxy
A54
Galaxy
A55
Battery Capacity
3,300 mAh
5,000 mAh
5,000 mAh
5,000 mAh
5,000 mAh
5,000 mAh
Charger Output
25 watts
15 watts
25 watts
15 watts
15 watts
15 watts
Battery Life
68 min
85 min
88.5 min
106.5 min
120.7 min
138 min
Charging Speed
(per minute)
58.8 mAh
47.0 mAh
45.2 mAh
37.6 mAh
33.1 mAh
29.0 mAh
The Samsung Galaxy A55 fully recharges from 20% to 100% in 2 hours and 18 minutes with the standard 15 watt Samsung charger. Oddly enough, this is significantly (14.33%) slower than the Galaxy A54.
That’s a pretty poor battery life : recharging ratio of just 5:1 – 28.5% less than the Galaxy A54. As a rule of thumb, you need to charge it for 12 minutes for each hour of battery life.
But if you upgrade to the 25 watt Samsung super-fast charger, you can cut it down to under 1.5 hours – an improvement of 56%. That also improves its battery life : recharging ratio to a much better 7.8:1.
When I tested last year’s Galaxy A54, I pointed out that while the Exynos 1380 has a fast CPU, it has a weak GPU That changed with the new Exynos 1480 – it retains the same fast CPU, but has a much more powerful Xclipse 530 GPU.
In addition to snappy performance in web browsing and work applications, the Exynos 1480 now offers much improved gaming performance, making it a great all-rounder mid-range mobile platform.
Samsung Galaxy A55 : Work Performance
We first tested the Galaxy A55 using PCMark, which simulates work applications like web browsing, playing video, writing text and editing photos.
Work 3.0
S23
Ultra
Galaxy
A55
Galaxy
A54
S22
Ultra
Galaxy
A73
Mobile Platform
SD 8
Gen 2
Exynos
1480
Exynos
1380
SD 8
Gen 1
SD
778G
Performance Score
16408
13583
13523
12860
12522
Web Browsing
15680
11453
10659
10442
11736
Video Editing
7879
7393
7363
7444
7082
Writing
22257
17915
17485
15471
14796
Photo Editing
35533
25962
28805
30177
26340
Data Manipulation
12171
11742
11443
9691
9502
Look at that – the Samsung Exynos 1480 was virtually identical in performance as last year’s Exynos 1380, that powered the Galaxy A54. Perhaps that’s not surprising since they both use the same A78 and A55 cores.
The Exynos 1480 has its four A78 high-performance cores running at 2.75 GHz, instead of 2.4 GHz, but it appears that work applications don’t need all that much performance so the 14.5% higher clock speed did not matter.
Even so, the Samsung Exynos 1480 remains a fast mid-range mobile SoC, coming within 17.5% of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 mobile SoC, which powers the Galaxy S23 Ultra flagship smartphone!
Samsung Galaxy A55 : Gaming Performance
For gaming, we tested the Galaxy A55 using 3DMark, with these results :
3DMark
S23
Ultra
S22
Ultra
Galaxy
A55
Galaxy
A54
Galaxy
A73
Device
SD 8
Gen 2
SD 8
Gen 1
Exynos
1480
Exynos
1380
SD
778G
Sling Shot
16344
11094
9058
6195
6620
Sling Shot Extreme
13904
7291
6908
4943
5358
Wild Life
14554
9106
3996
2860
2487
Wild Life
Extreme
3814
2220
954
799
689
This is where the Samsung Galaxy A55’s Exynos 1480 improved the most – it’s much better at gaming than the Exynos 1380, outperforming it by 19% to 46%. Very impressive!
Just in case you are wondering – no, the Xclipse 530 GPU used in the Exynos 1480 does not support ray-tracing.
Samsung Galaxy A55 : Overall Performance
We then tested the Galaxy A55 using AnTuTu, yielding these results :
AnTuTu
S23 Ultra
S22 Ultra
Galaxy A55
Galaxy
A73
Galaxy
A54
Device
SD 8
Gen 2
SD 8
Gen 1
Exynos
1480
SD
778G
Exynos
1380
AnTuTu Score
1212174
889167
720595
523209
522411
CPU
261886
203090
234309
159238
153230
GPU
538823
402617
177275
159364
149596
Memory
236163
146002
148103
88705
86578
UX
175302
137458
160908
115902
133007
Look at that! AnTuTu shows that the Samsung Exynos 1480 is 38% faster than both the Galaxy A73, and the Galaxy A54!
The Samsung Galaxy A55’s 50 MP camera takes 12.5 MP photos by default, with a resolution of 4080 x 3060 pixels. Each JPEG photo using the High Efficiency Image File (HEIF) format, each photo is about 2.5 MB to 3.5 MB in size.
Without HEIF, the file sizes are much larger, so please remember to turn on the HEIF file format to save space.
Open the Camera app
Tap on Settings
Turn on High efficiency pictures.
As this photo sample shows, the 50 MP main camera of the Samsung Galaxy A55 offers a nice bokeh, thanks to its wide f/1.8 aperture.
However, that wide aperture presents a problem too – a narrow depth of field, as these sample photos of star anise and black pepper show.
If multiple objects are present at different distances from the camera, only some of them will remain in focus, while the others will be out-of-focus.
That makes for nice portraits, but if you do not tap on the area or subject you want to be in focus, the camera may auto-focus on the wrong area or subject, and you will end up with an out-of-focus shot.
As this photo of rock melons shows, only a small area around the stem is in focus, and that’s only because I intentionally tapped on the centre.
Otherwise, the camera would naturally focus on the nearest part of the rock melon, and the photo would look out-of-focus.
Its colour reproduction tends to be on the vivid side, which may be pleasing to most users, but some users may prefer a more natural tone.
You need to be careful with close-up shots though. This isn’t a macro camera, and so it has trouble focusing if the subject is too close.
The problem is – the Samsung camera app does not warn you if the 50 MP camera cannot focus properly on the subject. It may look like it is focused properly in the camera app, but when you open it up later, you will see that it’s completely out-of-focus.
I definitely recommend you tapping on the subject to “force” the camera app to visibly try to focus. If it fails, you know that you are much too close. It’s also a good habit to tap to focus anyway, as this 50 MP camera has a narrow depth-of-field.
There is no need to worry about the “loss” in resolution by using the default 12.5 MP resolution, instead of the full 50 MP resolution. In most cases, you probably won’t even realise that the camera defaults to just 12.5 MP!
Even at 12.5 MP, there is more than enough detail in the photos that the Galaxy A55’s 50MP camera delivers, even if you want to zoom in.
But that does not mean that its 50 MP sensor is pure marketing. You can use it to take 50 MP shots, but you will have to live with significantly larger file sizes.
The full 50 MP resolution isn’t needed for 90% of the photos that most people take, but it is useful for long-distance shots. The Samsung Galaxy A55 does not have a telephoto camera, so taking photos in 50 MP effectively gives you a 4X zoom capability.
For example, if you need to take a faraway shot of a bell tower, you can switch to 50 MP before taking the photo. Then you can zoom into the 50 MP photo you took and crop out a much closer looking shot of that bell tower without using software or digital zoom.
Samsung Galaxy A55 : Camera Performance Summary
Samsung used the same 50 MP camera as last year’s Galaxy A54, using the larger and better Sony IMX766 image sensor, with 25% larger pixels.
This 50 MP main camera continue to perform well in our tests, generally delivering good photos with vivid colours, with a good level of detail, even at 12.5 MP.
The biggest problem I have with it is its minimum focus distance. The camera seems to work best with subjects that are at least 50 cm away, or so. If I get too close to the subject, the shot ends up out-of-focus, especially if I tried to let the camera auto-focus by itself.
This is not readily apparent in the camera app, so you need to tap to focus. That triggers the camera to seek a better focus. That’s when you can see whether it can really focus properly. Even then, I sometimes end up with out-of-focus shots, because I was simply too close to the subject.
For most people, this won’t a problem if you are taking the usual photos – people standing at a distance, landscapes and buildings at a distance, etc. Just keep this in mind if you are taking close shots of products or food, etc.
The Samsung Galaxy A55 is proof that you don’t need to pay top dollar to get a great smartphone. For less than half the cost of a flagship smartphone, it offers most of the features that you need, in a well-protected device.
It comes with a large, excellent Super AMOLED display which supports 120 Hz refresh rate, and is protected in the front by Gorilla Victus+, and in the rear by Gorilla Glass 5. It is also IP67-rated against the ingress of dust and water.
Built around the 4 nm Samsung Exynos 1480 mobile platform, the Galaxy A55 offers excellent performance in work apps, performing as fast as the Snapdragon 8 Gen 1, and last year’s Galaxy A54.
Where it really shines is in gaming – it offers far better gaming performance than the Galaxy A54’s Exynos 1380, outperforming it by 19% to 46%! That was the Galaxy A54‘s chief weakness, and the Galaxy A55 fixed that.
However, I should point out that the Galaxy A55 has a significantly shorter battery life than its predecessor, the Galaxy A54 – about an hour shorter. That said – it will last 11.5 hours with Dynamic Refresh rate enabled, or 13 hours with the standard 60 Hz refresh rate.
When it comes to photography, it comes with the same cameras as the Galaxy A54 – a high-resolution 32 MP front camera, and the 50 MP Sony IMX766 camera at the back, with an ultra-wide-angle camera, and a macro camera.
The 50 MP main camera is still as good as it was with the Galaxy A54 excellent, albeit with improved performance under indoor lighting. It still has trouble focusing at closer distances, which is probably why Samsung added the macro camera, which would normally be a waste of time for most users.
While I miss the telephoto camera which is a fixture in flagship smartphones, the 12 MP ultra-wide angle camera is arguably a better trade-off – most people would prefer to use it for landscape and group shots, rather than take long-distance shots with the telephoto camera.
The Galaxy A55 takes pretty good videos too, but there are some limitations (for market segmentation reasons?) :
it can support 30/60 fps @ 1080p, but only 30 fps for 4K video recording,
it is limited to 30 fps, regardless of resolution, when using its ultra-wide angle camera.
If you really love taking videos at 4K especially at 60 fps or higher, then these limitations will be a deal breaker. Video recording is where flagship devices like the Galaxy S24 Ultra shine.
The good news is the Galaxy A55 now supports video image stabilisation at 60 fps! It was previously limited to 30 fps video in the Galaxy A54. So if you are happy enough with 1080p video recording, the Galaxy A55 is now a great choice.
Overall, the Samsung Galaxy A55 offers an excellent combination of features and capabilities at a far lower cost. On top of that, you get two years of warranty, three years of Android updates, and four years of security updates.
For these reasons, we gladly award the Samsung Galaxy A55 our Editor’s Choice Award! Great work, Samsung!
Samsung Galaxy A55 : Price + Availability
The Samsung Galaxy A55 comes with 8 GB of RAM, and either 128 GB or 256 GB of storage, with the option to add a microSD card in the hybrid SIM tray. It is covered by a 2-year warranty, with the following launch prices:
8 GB + 128 GB : £439 / A$699 / S$618
8 GB + 256 GB : RM1,999 / £489 / S$698
Surprisingly, Samsung decided not to bring the Galaxy A55 to the United States, and suggested that customers consider the Galaxy S23 and Galaxy S23 FE instead. However, it is possible to purchase Latin American unlocked devices in the US (see below).
There are four colour options, which are not available in all countries – Awesome Iceblue, Awesome Lilac, Awesome Lemon, and Awesome Navy.
Here are online purchase options (we may get commission from your purchase) :
Support my work through a bank transfer / PayPal / credit card!
Name : Adrian Wong Bank Transfer : CIMB 7064555917 (Swift Code : CIBBMYKL)
Credit Card / Paypal : https://paypal.me/techarp
Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
Take a look at the battery recharging speed of the new Samsung Galaxy A55, and find out how its two refresh rate options affect its battery life!
Samsung Galaxy A55 : Two Fixed Refresh Rate Options
The new Samsung Galaxy A55 offers two refresh rate options (Settings > Display > Motion smoothness) :
Adaptive : Get smoother animation and scrolling by automatically adjusting your screen refresh rate up to 120 Hz.
Standard : Get longer battery life with a 60 Hz screen refresh rate.
Although the description seems to suggest that the display switches dynamically between 60 Hz to 120 Hz, that’s not accurate. By turning on the frame rate counter, we can see that the Galaxy A55 switches between two fixed refresh rates – 60 Hz or 120 Hz in the Dynamic mode, and uses just 60 Hz in the Standard mode.
The true Adaptive refresh rate offered in the Galaxy S24 Ultra is variable, changing from 1 Hz to 120 Hz according to the situation. This not only reduces power consumption, it also prevents “screen tearing” – a visual artifact that occurs when the game frame rate does not match the display’s refresh rate.
In the next section, we will look at how the two refresh rate options affect the Galaxy A55’s battery life.
To test its battery life, we turned off Automatic Brightness, and set its display brightness to 50%.
Why 50%? That is actually slightly higher than the average indoor brightness level of 40% during the day, and is what we usually use in all our mobile battery life tests.
It is important to fix the brightness level, to make sure the screen brightness does not change as the ambient brightness changes.
We then ran the PCMark Work 3.0 battery life test until its battery capacity dropped to 20% several times, and this was the best result we obtained with 60 Hz and 120 Hz refresh rates :
Not bad at all! The Samsung Galaxy A55 has a battery life of 11.5 hours with Adaptive refresh rate enabled, and just over 13 hours with the Standard refresh rate. That’s about an hour shorter than the Galaxy A54.
But let’s also compare its battery life at 60 Hz and 120 Hz, against the Galaxy A73, Galaxy A54, and S24 Ultra smartphones.
Standard Refresh Rate (60 Hz)
The Samsung Galaxy A55 lasted just over 13 hours with the refresh rate set to 60 Hz – a 5.5% shorter battery life than the Galaxy A54.
Work 3.0 (60 Hz)
S24 Ultra
Galaxy A73
Galaxy A54
Galaxy A55
Battery Capacity
5,000 mAh
5,000 mAh
5,000 mAh
5,000 mAh
Battery Life
16 hrs 25 mins
13 hrs 4 mins
13 hrs 57 mins
13 hrs 13 mins
Utilisation
per min.
4.06 mAh
5.10 mAh
4.78 mAh
5.04 mAh
Adaptive Refresh Rate (120 Hz)
The Samsung Galaxy A55 lasted just over 11.5 hours when the refresh rate was set to 120 Hz – a drop of just over 1.5 hours (14.6%). That was also just 4% shorter than last year’s Galaxy A54.
Based on what we see here, I definitely recommend turning on the Adaptive Refresh Rate on the Galaxy A55, unless you absolutely need the extra 1.5 hours of battery life.
Work 3.0 (120 Hz)
S24 Ultra
Galaxy A54
Galaxy A55
Galaxy A73
Battery Capacity
5,000 mAh
5,000 mAh
5,000 mAh
5,000 mAh
Battery Life
13 hrs 49 mins
12 hrs 25 mins
11 hrs 32 mins
10 hrs 42 mins
Utilisation
per min.
4.83 mAh
5.52 mAh
5.78 mAh
6.23 mAh
Samsung Galaxy A55 : Battery Recharging Speed!
The Samsung Galaxy A55 supports up to 25 watts of wired fast charging, but unfortunately, does not come with the charger in-the-box.
So we relied on the standard 15 watt Samsung fast charger than shipped with their previous smartphones – something we believe most users will end up doing, and added the 25 watt Samsung ultra-fast charger.
Recharging Speed
S24
Ultra
Galaxy
A73
Galaxy
A55
S24
Ultra
Galaxy
A54
Galaxy
A55
Battery Capacity
3,300 mAh
5,000 mAh
5,000 mAh
5,000 mAh
5,000 mAh
5,000 mAh
Charger Output
25 watts
15 watts
25 watts
15 watts
15 watts
15 watts
Battery Life
68 min
85 min
88.5 min
106.5 min
120.7 min
138 min
Charging Speed
(per minute)
58.8 mAh
47.0 mAh
45.2 mAh
37.6 mAh
33.1 mAh
29.0 mAh
The Samsung Galaxy A55 fully recharges from 20% to 100% in 2 hours and 18 minutes with the standard 15 watt Samsung charger. Oddly enough, this is significantly (14.33%) slower than the Galaxy A54.
That’s a pretty poor battery life : recharging ratio of just 5:1 – 28.5% less than the Galaxy A54. As a rule of thumb, you need to charge it for 12 minutes for each hour of battery life.
But if you upgrade to the 25 watt Samsung super-fast charger, you can cut it down to under 1.5 hours – an improvement of 56%. That also improves its battery life : recharging ratio to a much better 7.8:1.
Samsung Galaxy A55 : Price + Availability
The Samsung Galaxy A55 comes with 8 GB of RAM, and either 128 GB or 256 GB of storage, with the option to add a microSD card in the hybrid SIM tray. It is covered by a 2-year warranty, with the following launch prices:
8 GB + 128 GB : £439 / A$699 / S$618
8 GB + 256 GB : RM1,999 / £489 / S$698
Surprisingly, Samsung decided not to bring the Galaxy A55 to the United States, and suggested that customers consider the Galaxy S23 and Galaxy S23 FE instead. However, it is possible to purchase Latin American unlocked devices in the US (see below).
There are four colour options, which are not available in all countries – Awesome Iceblue, Awesome Lilac, Awesome Lemon, and Awesome Navy.
Here are online purchase options (we may get commission from your purchase) :
Support my work through a bank transfer / PayPal / credit card!
Name : Adrian Wong Bank Transfer : CIMB 7064555917 (Swift Code : CIBBMYKL)
Credit Card / Paypal : https://paypal.me/techarp
Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
Take a look at the performance of the Samsung Galaxy A55, and find out how well the Exynos 1380 performs against the competition!
Samsung Galaxy A55 : Powered By Exynos 1480
The Samsung Galaxy A55 is built around the new Samsung Exynos 1480 mobile platform that officially launched on 11 March 2024.
Fabricated on Samsung’s own 4 nm EUV process technology, the Exynos 1480 comes with a Samsung Xclipse 530 GPU, an improved 6K MAC NPU, as well as eight CPU cores arranged in two performance clusters:
four Arm Cortex-A78 high-performance cores, and
four Arm Cortex-A55 low-power cores.
The Samsung Exynos 1480 has an integrated 5G modem that supports Sub-6GHz and mmWave standards, as well as LTE Cat.18 uploads and downloads for current 4G networks.
It also supports Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3, as well as the four main GPS networks – GPS, GLONASS, BeiDou and Galileo.
On paper, this is a powerful mid-range mobile platform, but let’s take a look at how it actually performs!
We first tested the Galaxy A55 using PCMark, which simulates work applications like web browsing, playing video, writing text and editing photos.
Work 3.0
S23
Ultra
Galaxy
A55
Galaxy
A54
S22
Ultra
Galaxy
A73
Mobile Platform
SD 8
Gen 2
Exynos
1480
Exynos
1380
SD 8
Gen 1
SD
778G
Performance Score
16408
13583
13523
12860
12522
Web Browsing
15680
11453
10659
10442
11736
Video Editing
7879
7393
7363
7444
7082
Writing
22257
17915
17485
15471
14796
Photo Editing
35533
25962
28805
30177
26340
Data Manipulation
12171
11742
11443
9691
9502
Look at that – the Samsung Exynos 1480 was virtually identical in performance as last year’s Exynos 1380, that powered the Galaxy A54. Perhaps that’s not surprising since they both use the same A78 and A55 cores.
The Exynos 1480 has its four A78 high-performance cores running at 2.75 GHz, instead of 2.4 GHz, but it appears that work applications don’t need all that much performance so the 14.5% higher clock speed did not matter.
Even so, the Samsung Exynos 1480 remains a fast mid-range mobile SoC, coming within 17.5% of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 mobile SoC, which powers the Galaxy S23 Ultra flagship smartphone!
Samsung Galaxy A55 : Gaming Performance
For gaming, we tested the Galaxy A55 using 3DMark, with these results :
3DMark
S23
Ultra
S22
Ultra
Galaxy
A55
Galaxy
A54
Galaxy
A73
Device
SD 8
Gen 2
SD 8
Gen 1
Exynos
1480
Exynos
1380
SD
778G
Sling Shot
16344
11094
9058
6195
6620
Sling Shot Extreme
13904
7291
6908
4943
5358
Wild Life
14554
9106
3996
2860
2487
Wild Life
Extreme
3814
2220
954
799
689
This is where the Samsung Galaxy A55’s Exynos 1480 improved the most – it’s much better at gaming than the Exynos 1380, outperforming it by 19% to 46%. Very impressive!
Just in case you are wondering – no, the Xclipse 530 GPU used in the Exynos 1480 does not support ray-tracing.
Samsung Galaxy A55 : Overall Performance
We then tested the Galaxy A55 using AnTuTu, yielding these results :
AnTuTu
S23 Ultra
S22 Ultra
Galaxy A55
Galaxy
A73
Galaxy
A54
Device
SD 8
Gen 2
SD 8
Gen 1
Exynos
1480
SD
778G
Exynos
1380
AnTuTu Score
1212174
889167
720595
523209
522411
CPU
261886
203090
234309
159238
153230
GPU
538823
402617
177275
159364
149596
Memory
236163
146002
148103
88705
86578
UX
175302
137458
160908
115902
133007
Look at that! AnTuTu shows that the Samsung Exynos 1480 is 38% faster than both the Galaxy A73, and the Galaxy A54!
Samsung Galaxy A55 : Performance Summary
When I tested last year’s Galaxy A54, I pointed out that while the Exynos 1380 has a fast CPU, it has a weak GPU That changed with the new Exynos 1480 – it retains the same fast CPU, but has a much more powerful Xclipse 530 GPU.
In addition to snappy performance in web browsing and work applications, the Exynos 1480 now offers much improved gaming performance, making it a great all-rounder mid-range mobile platform.
Samsung Galaxy A55 : Price + Availability
The Samsung Galaxy A55 comes with 8 GB of RAM, and either 128 GB or 256 GB of storage, with the option to add a microSD card in the hybrid SIM tray. It is covered by a 2-year warranty, with the following launch prices:
8 GB + 128 GB : £439 / A$699 / S$618
8 GB + 256 GB : RM1,999 / £489 / S$698
Surprisingly, Samsung decided not to bring the Galaxy A55 to the United States, and suggested that customers consider the Galaxy S23 and Galaxy S23 FE instead. However, it is possible to purchase Latin American unlocked devices in the US (see below).
There are four colour options, which are not available in all countries – Awesome Iceblue, Awesome Lilac, Awesome Lemon, and Awesome Navy.
Here are online purchase options (we may get commission from your purchase) :
Support my work through a bank transfer / PayPal / credit card!
Name : Adrian Wong Bank Transfer : CIMB 7064555917 (Swift Code : CIBBMYKL)
Credit Card / Paypal : https://paypal.me/techarp
Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
Samsung just launched the Galaxy A55 smartphone, and here is our hands-on video and our first impressions!
Samsung Galaxy A55 Hands-On + First Impressions!
The Galaxy A55 is Samsung’s latest mid-range smartphone, and here is our hands-on video and our first impressions!
Same Design, Slightly Larger Display
Samsung retained the same design as last year’s Galaxy A54. It is slightly larger, thanks to its slightly larger 6.6-inch Super AMOLED display, which now supports a maximum brightness of 1000 nits.
Otherwise, the display has the same Full HD+ resolution of 1080 x 2340 pixels, with a refresh rate of up to 120 Hz for smoother graphics.
Better Protection
The first thing you will notice when you pick it up is the heft. It’s quite a thick and solid-feeling phone, with a thick metal frame wrapping all around the sides.
The display is protected by Gorilla Glass Victus+, which is tougher and more damage-resistant. The back is likely protected by Gorilla Glass 5 like in the Galaxy A54, although Samsung never explicitly revealed what glass it’s using.
Samsung also retained the IP67 dust- and water-resistance, from last year’s Galaxy A54.
The Samsung Galaxy A55 is built around the new 4nm Samsung Exynos 1480 mobile platform, which is fabricated on Samsung’s own 4 nm EUV process technology.
It comes with a Samsung Xclipse 530 GPU, an improved 6K MAC NPU, as well as eight CPU cores arranged in two performance clusters:
four Arm Cortex-A78 high-performance cores, and
four Arm Cortex-A55 low-power cores.
The Samsung Exynos 1480 has an integrated 5G modem that supports Sub-6GHz and mmWave standards, as well as LTE Cat.18 uploads and downloads for current 4G networks.
It also supports Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3, as well as the four main GPS networks – GPS, GLONASS, BeiDou and Galileo.
32 MP Front Camera
Hidden in its display is a punch hole camera, with a 32 MP sensor and an f/2.2 aperture. As far as I can tell, it’s the same camera as Galaxy A54, with an 80˚ field of view.
This front camera takes 12 MP photos by default, for better low-light performance. But you can switch it to 32 MP if you need the higher resolution. I recommend you stick with 12 MP though.
This front camera can record 4K (UHD) videos with video stabilisation, albeit at just 30 fps. If you want smoother videos though, you can record 1080p (FHD) videos with video stabilisation at 60 fps.
Triple Camera System
At the back, the Samsung Galaxy A55 sports a triple camera system, that consists of:
a 50 MP main camera, with f/1.8 aperture,
a 12 MP ultra-wide angle camera, with f/2.2 aperture, and
a 5 MP macro camera, with f/2.4 aperture
By default, the main camera takes 12 MP photos – combining four pixels into one larger pixel for better low-light performance. You can switch it to the full 50 MP, but unless you need the higher resolution, you are better off sticking with the default 12 MP mode.
Like the front camera, the rear cameras record 4K (UHD) videos with video stabilisation at just 30 fps. I recommend you stick with 1080p (FHD) video recording with video stabilisation enabled, at 60 fps.
Large 5,000 mAh Battery
The Samsung Galaxy A55 is powered by a large 5,000 mAh battery, which supports up to 25 watt fast charging.
It does not come with an in-box USB charger, but it comes with a USB cable that supports up to 45 watt fast charging.
Hybrid SIM + microSD Tray
The Samsung Galaxy A55 comes with a hybrid tray that supports two nano SIM cards, or one nano SIM card and a microSD card (of up to 1 TB in capacity).
It also supports an eSIM, so it is possible to use two phone numbers using a nano SIM and an eSIM, as well as a microSD card.
Samsung Knox Vault
You may not know this, but the Samsung Galaxy A55 comes with Samsung Knox Vault, which helps to protect your sensitive information like your PIN, password, and security patterns.
You can also store sensitive data and files in the encrypted Samsung Knox Vault storage, which is completely isolated and separate from the main operating system.
Samsung Guarantee
Finally, Samsung guarantees up to 4 generations of OS upgrades, and 5 years of security updates, as well as 2 years of warranty for the Galaxy A55!
Samsung Galaxy A55 : Specifications
Here are the Samsung Galaxy A55’s key specifications:
Specifications
Samsung Galaxy A55
Display
6.6-inch Super AMOLED
– 1080 x 2340 pixels (390 ppi)
– 60 Hz / 120 Hz refresh rate
The Samsung Galaxy A55 comes with 8 GB of RAM, and either 128 GB or 256 GB of storage, with the option to add a microSD card in the hybrid SIM tray. It is covered by a 2-year warranty, with the following launch prices:
8 GB + 128 GB : £439 / A$699 / S$618
8 GB + 256 GB : RM1,999 / £489 / S$698
Surprisingly, Samsung decided not to bring the Galaxy A55 to the United States, and suggested that customers consider the Galaxy S23 and Galaxy S23 FE instead. However, it is possible to purchase Latin American unlocked devices in the US (see below).
There are four colour options, which are not available in all countries – Awesome Iceblue, Awesome Lilac, Awesome Lemon, and Awesome Navy.
Here are online purchase options (we may get commission from your purchase) :
Support my work through a bank transfer / PayPal / credit card!
Name : Adrian Wong Bank Transfer : CIMB 7064555917 (Swift Code : CIBBMYKL)
Credit Card / Paypal : https://paypal.me/techarp
Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
Samsung just launched the Galaxy A55 smartphone, and here is our preview and unboxing article!
Samsung Galaxy A55 : A Quick Primer
The Galaxy A55 is Samsung’s latest mid-range smartphone, built around the new 4nm Samsung Exynos 1480 mobile platform, which features:
four Arm Cortex-A78 high-performance cores,
four Arm Cortex-A55 low-power cores, and
a Samsung Xclipse 530 GPU
It has a slightly larger 6.6-inch Super AMOLED display than last year’s Galaxy A54, with the same Full HD+ resolution of 1080 x 2340 pixels. This display is also capable of supporting a refresh rate of up to 120 Hz for smoother graphics.
To protect it better, the display is protected by Gorilla Glass Victus+, which is tougher and more damage-resistant. Otherwise, Samsung retained the other features of the Galaxy A54, including its design, and its IP67 dust- and water-resistance.
Hidden in its display is a punch hole camera, with a 32 MP sensor and an f/2.2 aperture. At the back, it sports a triple camera system, that consists of:
a 50 MP main camera, with f/1.8 aperture,
a 12 MP ultra-wide angle camera, with f/2.2 aperture, and
a 5 MP macro camera, with f/2.4 aperture
All that is powered by a large 5,000 mAh battery, which supports up to 25 watt fast charging.
On top of that, Samsung guarantees up to 4 generations of OS upgrades, and 5 years of security updates, as well as 2 years of warranty for the Galaxy A55!
Samsung Galaxy A55 : Specifications
Here are the Samsung Galaxy A55’s key specifications:
Specifications
Samsung Galaxy A55
Display
6.6-inch Super AMOLED
– 1080 x 2340 pixels (390 ppi)
– 60 Hz / 120 Hz refresh rate
The Samsung Galaxy A55 smartphone comes in a thin white cardboard box, which tells you that it definitely does not come with a USB charger inside. It is protected by two security stickers. Please make sure they are intact when you receive the box. Do not accept it, if any of the security stickers have been cut or tampered with.
After cutting the security stickers and taking off the top of the box, you will find the Galaxy A55 smartphone wrapped in plastic. But don’t chuck away the box cover yet. Hidden underneath is a cardboard packet containing its documents and accessories.
Once you remove everything, you should find these items inside the box:
Samsung Galaxy A55 smartphone
One set of documents : Quick Start Guide in two languages, warranty card, Regional Lock Guide
Samsung EP-DN980 Type C to Type C USB cable
SIM tray pin
The package is pretty sparse. There is no USB charger, and no, it doesn’t come with a basic TPU case either.
Samsung Galaxy A55 : Price + Availability
The Samsung Galaxy A55 comes with 8 GB of RAM, and either 128 GB or 256 GB of storage, with the option to add a microSD card in the hybrid SIM tray. It is covered by a 2-year warranty, with the following launch prices:
8 GB + 128 GB : £439 / A$699 / S$618
8 GB + 256 GB : RM1,999 / £489 / S$698
Surprisingly, Samsung decided not to bring the Galaxy A55 to the United States, and suggested that customers consider the Galaxy S23 and Galaxy S23 FE instead. However, it is possible to purchase Latin American unlocked devices in the US (see below).
There are four colour options, which are not available in all countries – Awesome Iceblue, Awesome Lilac, Awesome Lemon, and Awesome Navy.
Here are online purchase options (we may get commission from your purchase) :
Support my work through a bank transfer / PayPal / credit card!
Name : Adrian Wong Bank Transfer : CIMB 7064555917 (Swift Code : CIBBMYKL)
Credit Card / Paypal : https://paypal.me/techarp
Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
Take a look at the battery charging speed of the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra, and find out how fast you can recharge with the official 15W, 25W and 45W chargers!
Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra Supports Up To 45W Charging!
The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra supports up to 45 watts of wired fast charging, but unfortunately, does not come with the charger in-the-box. You can either use the standard 15 watt fast charger from your previous Samsung smartphone, or purchase a 25 watt or 45 watt super fast charger.
Best To Use Samsung Fast Charger
You can use non-Samsung fast chargers, but while they may charge your Galaxy S24 Ultra, they will likely not charge at full speed.
For example, I tested the Galaxy S24 Ultra using 65W and 96W PD fast chargers, but they failed to charge faster than 25 watts. It would only charge beyond 25 watts with an official Samsung 45W fast charger… 🙁
How To Tell If You’re Charging At Full Speed
The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra doesn’t make clear how fast you are charging, so how do you know if you are charging fast enough?
When you plug in the charger, the charging protocol will flash for a few seconds on the display of your Galaxy S24 Ultra:
Fast charging : you’re charging at up to 15 watts
Super fast charging : you’re charging at up to 25 watts
Super fast charging 2.0 : you’re charging at up to 45 watts
The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra has fast charging enabled by default. But if you are using a Samsung fast charger, and it somehow isn’t charging at full speed, here is how you can verify if fast charging is enabled.
Go to Settings > Battery > Charging settings
Make sure Fast charging is enabled.
If not, tap on Fast charging to enable it.
Please note that this setting cannot be changed while the Galaxy S24 Ultra is charging. You will need to pull out the cable before making any changes.
You Must Use Correct Cable
Samsung fast charging protocols also require you to comply with minimum cable requirements:
25W super fast charging : 3A cable minimum
45W super fast charging 2.0 : 5A cable minimum
The Galaxy S24 Ultra comes with the Samsung EP-DN980, which is USB-C to USB-C cable that supports up to 5A of current. So this cable will readily support 45W charging.
In the next section, we will look at how fast the Galaxy S24 Ultra charges with the official 15W, 25W and 45W chargers!
We tested the Galaxy S24 Ultra using the official 15W, 25W and 45W Samsung fast chargers, and the results are really surprising!
Galaxy S24 Ultra
Charging Time
Charging Speed
15 Watts
106.5 minutes
37.6 mAh per min.
25 Watts
68 minutes
58.8 mAh per min.
45 Watts
66 minutes
60.6 mAh per min.
The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra charges really fast with a 15 watt charger, and even faster with a 25 watt charger. It basically needs just over 1.75 hours to fully recharge with a 15 watt charger, and just over one hour with a 25 watt charger.
Unfortunately, upgrading to the 45 watt charger doesn’t improve its charging speed much. It only shaved 2 minutes off the charging time with a 25 watt charger!
In fact, that’s actually its best time. On two other occasions, it charged slower than the 25 watt charger! Really quite unexpected.
Just in case you are wondering – it does charge at 45 watts, but only at the beginning for a short time. After that it charged at between 12 watts to 24 watts for most of the charge.
With such results, I can only recommend purchasing the optional 25 watt USB-C super fast charger. It will cut your charging time by a considerable 38.5 minutes for a full recharge:
Support my work through a bank transfer / PayPal / credit card!
Name : Adrian Wong Bank Transfer : CIMB 7064555917 (Swift Code : CIBBMYKL)
Credit Card / Paypal : https://paypal.me/techarp
Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
We got our hands on the new Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra smartphone right after its official launch. Let’s take a quick look at the box before we check out what’s inside!
Once you fully unbox the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra, this is what you will find inside:
the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra smartphone
a Quick Start Guide in two languages, and a warranty card
a USB Type C to USB Type C data and charging cable
a SIM tray extraction pin
That’s it! While the Galaxy S24 Ultra supports 45 watt fast charging, it does not come with the charger. You will need to purchase it separately. Neither does it come with a TPU bumper case to tide you over until you get a better one.
Now, let us go through its key features, and show you why the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra is worthy of our Editor’s Choice Award!
Boosted Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 Performance!
The Galaxy S24 Ultra is powered exclusively by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 for Galaxy in all regions of the world. It comes with a slightly overclocked prime core.
1 x Arm Cortex-X4 core (3.39 GHz, instead of 3.3 GHz)
3 x Arm Cortex-A720 cores
2 x Arm Cortex-A720 cores
2 x Arm Cortex-A520 cores
This mobile SoC also comes with the Qualcomm Adreno 750 GPU which supports ray-tracing, an improved Hexagon NPU, and the Snapdragon X75 5G modem that supports Sub-6Ghz and mmWave connectivity.
Improved Cooling
To ensure that the processor remains cool, the Galaxy S24 Ultra sports a 90% larger vapour chamber. This should allow it to better sustain peak performance during intense gaming sessions or AI photo / video editing,
The Galaxy S24 Ultra sports the same 200 MP Adaptive Pixel main camera, which was first introduced in last year’s Galaxy S23 Ultra.
It is built around the Samsung ISOCELL HP2 (S5KHP2) sensor, which is a large 1/1.3-inch sensor with 200 million pixels, each of which is 0.6 μm in size. The Galaxy S24 Ultra camera can combine up to 16 pixels to form a single large pixel for much better low-light performance.
The Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra can also record 8K videos at 30 frames per second, instead of just 24 fps in the Galaxy S22 Ultra. It also boasts better Adaptive VDIS capability, and improved optical image stabilisation (OIS), delivering silky smooth videos by doubling the angle to ±3°, from the Galaxy S22 Ultra’s camera‘s ±1.5°.
50 MP Telephoto Camera
The main camera upgrade in the Galaxy S24 Ultra is its new 50 MP telephoto camera, with a 5X optical zoom. It is said to be built around the Sony IMX854 sensor, which is a 1/2.52″ sensor with 0.7 μm pixels.
While its optical zoom reach has halved from 10X, a combination of its higher resolution sensor, and deep learning AI algorithms, allow Samsung to deliver better digital zoom. This new zoom camera also has the advantage of a wider f/3.4 aperture (compared to just f/4.9), which should improve its low-light performance.
The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra reuses the same 3X zoom and 12 MP ultra-wide angle cameras from the Galaxy S23 Ultra.
12 MP Selfie Camera
The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra also reuses the Galaxy S23 Ultra‘s 12 MP camera, with the same f/2.2 aperture. This is a Dual Pixel camera, which allows for faster and more accurate auto-focus.
SIM Tray Without SD Card Slot
The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra supports two physical SIM cards, as well as a single eSIM. The SIM tray is located at the bottom, next to the USB port.
S Pen
The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra comes with the same S Pen as the Galaxy S23 Ultra. It too boasts a very quick 2.8 ms latency.
We tried swapping them and both S Pens appear to fit both devices. From what we can tell – they are physically and functionally similar, if not exactly the same.
USB Type C Port
At the bottom of the Galaxy S24 Ultra, you will find a SIM card tray, next to the USB port, as well as the S Pen in its slot. The USB port is, of course, the bidirectional Type C port, which is now the EU standard.
The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra is protected in the front by Corning Gorilla Armour glass, which is not only tougher against scratches, but also reduces reflection by up to 75%.
Titanium Frame
The Galaxy S24 Ultra is the first Samsung smartphone to feature a titanium frame, which is not only tougher, but also allows for a thinner chassis.
5,000 mAh Fast-Charging Battery
The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra comes with a large 5,000 mAh lithium-ion polymer battery, which supports 45 watt fast wired charging, and 15 watt fast wireless charging.
To test its battery life, we turned off Automatic Brightness, to fix the brightness level and make sure the screen brightness does not change as the ambient brightness changes.
We also set its display brightness to 50%, which is slightly higher than the average indoor brightness level of 40% during the day.
We then ran the PCMark Work 3.0 battery life test until its battery capacity dropped to 20% several times, and this was the best result we obtained with the Standard and Adaptive refresh rates :
Look at that! The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra lasted almost 14 hours with the Adaptive refresh mode enabled, and lasted almost 16.5 hours with the Standard refresh mode!
This is a 6-7% improvement in battery life over last year’s Galaxy S23 Ultra – approximately an extra hour of battery life, at the same battery capacity. Very nice!
Now, let’s compare its battery life at 60 Hz and 120 Hz, against the Z Flip5, the S23 Ultra, and the S22 Ultra smartphones.
Standard Refresh Rate (60 Hz)
The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra naturally has the best battery life with the refresh rate set to 60 Hz (Standard) – lasting just under 16.5 hours.
Even though it runs on powerful Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, the Galaxy S24 Ultra is more power-efficient than Samsung’s older flagship devices like the Z Flip5, the S23 Ultra, and the S22 Ultra.
Work 3.0
S24 Ultra
S23 Ultra
S22 Ultra
Z Flip 5
Battery Capacity
5,000 mAh
5,000 mAh
5,000 mAh
3,700 mAh
Battery Life
16 hrs 25 mins
15 hrs 18 mins
14 hrs 15 mins
11 hrs 4 mins
Utilisation
per min.
4.06 mAh
4.36 mAh
4.68 mAh
4.46 mAh
Adaptive Refresh Rate (120 Hz)
The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra’s Adaptive refresh rate is so efficient, it lasts almost 14 hours. Even so, the higher refresh rate uses a significant amount of power.
Even with the same battery capacity and similar Adaptive Mode enabled, the Galaxy S24 Ultra uses 6% less power than the Galaxy S23 Ultra, and 23% less power than the Galaxy S22 Ultra.
The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra supports up to 45 watts of wired fast charging, but unfortunately, does not come with the charger in-the-box.
So we tested it using the standard 15 watt and 25 watt Samsung fast chargers that shipped with their previous smartphones, which is what we believe most users will end up doing.
S22 Ultra
S24 Ultra
S23 Ultra
S24 Ultra
Z Flip 5
Z Flip 5
Battery Capacity
5,000 mAh
5,000 mAh
5,000 mAh
5,000 mAh
3,700 mAh
3,700 mAh
Charger Output
15 watts
25 watts
15 watts
15 watts
25 watts
15 watts
Charging Time
64.5 min
68 min
88.8 min
106.5 min
105 min
129.5 min
Charging Speed
(per minute)
62.0 mAh
58.8 mAh
45.0 mAh
37.6 mAh
28.2 mAh
22.9 mAh
The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra charges really fast with a 15 watt charger, and even faster with a 25 watt charger. It basically needs just over 1.75 hours to fully recharge with a 15 watt charger, and just over one hour with a 25 watt charger.
This gives us a battery life to recharging time ratio of about 7.8:1 (15 watt), or 12.2:1 (25 watt), which is good. You basically get about an hour’s worth of battery life for every 8 minutes you recharge at 15 watts, or 5 minutes at 25 watts.
If you prefer to get faster charging, you should purchase the optional 25 watt USB-C super fast charger. It will cut your charging time by a considerable 38.5 minutes for a full recharge:
There is no doubt that the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra offers top-notch performance, thanks to its use of a slightly overclocked Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 for Galaxy, and a 90% larger vapour chamber.
It shows in the benchmarks – the Galaxy S24 Ultra topped all of the benchmarks, except for work performance. It is particularly strong in 3D graphics and ray tracing performance. With gaming performance like this, dedicated gaming smartphones seem rather pointless.
Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra Work Performance
We first tested the Galaxy S24 Ultra using PCMark, which simulates work applications like web browsing, playing video, writing text and editing photos.
Work 3.0
S23
Ultra
S24
Ultra
Z Flip
5
Z Flip
4
S23 FE
Mobile Platform
SD 8
Gen 2
SD 8 Gen 3
SD 8
Gen 2
SD 8+
Gen 1
Exynos
2200
Performance Score
16408
14931
14655
14429
13971
Web Browsing
15680
11663
11404
12097
11664
Video Editing
7879
6474
7943
7387
7369
Writing
22257
20333
19525
17593
18138
Photo Editing
35533
34350
324420
31762
27060
Data Manipulation
12171
14070
11788
12523
12616
Interestingly, the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 was much slower than the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 used in last year’s Galaxy S23 Ultra, and just barely faster than the SD 8 Gen 2 used in the Galaxy Z Flip5.
I should point out that these are peak performance results. The truth is – you won’t be able to actually tell the difference between all these flagship-class mobile processors in normal usage. They are all really fast.
Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra Storage Performance
PCMark also has an Android Storage 2.0 benchmark that measures the smartphone’s storage I/O performance.
Storage 2.0
Z Flip
5
S23
Ultra
S24
Ultra
S23 FE
Z Flip
4
Mobile Platform
SD 8
Gen 2
SD 8
Gen 2
SD 9
Gen 3
Exynos
2200
SD 8+
Gen 1
Storage Score
48435
41647
33005
31839
27271
Sequential Read (MB/s)
2676.53
2592.42
2907.37
1584.66
1350.51
Random Read (MB/s)
49.95
38.25
60.98
31.25
33.94
Sequential Write (MB/s)
2631.38
603.29
3084.95
510.16
256.81
Random Write (MB/s)
76.66
81.44
106.34
81.13
50.29
Samsung appeared to be using faster flash storage in the Galaxy S24 Ultra. However, its overall storage score was lower than the S23 Ultra and Z Flip5, due to much slower database read and write speeds.
Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra Gaming Performance
For gaming, we tested the Galaxy S24 Ultra using 3DMark, with these results :
3DMark
S24
Ultra
S23
Ultra
Z Flip
5
Z Flip
4
S23 FE
Mobile Platform
SD 8
Gen 3
SD 8
Gen 2
SD 8
Gen 2
SD 8+
Gen 1
Exynos
2200
Solar Bay Unlimited
8576
NA
5481
NA
4570
Wild Life Extreme
Unlimited
5020
3814
3705
2636
2233
Wild Life Unlimited
20534
14554
14823
11144
8671
Sling Shot Extreme
Unlimited
19653
13904
13558
6912
9484
Sling Shot Unlimited
22656
16344
16661
10690
11348
Where the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra really shines is in its gaming performance. Its Adreno 750 GPU not only supports ray tracing, it does a fantastic job of delivering top-notch 3D graphics performance.
Not only does it have a faster GPU, the Samsung S24 Ultra also has a 90% larger vapour chamber that allows it to better sustain peak performance during intense gaming sessions.
Although ray tracing games are far and few in between for now, the new Solar Bay benchmark shows that the Galaxy S24 Ultra delivers 56% better 3D with ray tracing performance than the Galaxy Z Flip5, and 88% better performance. than the Galaxy S23 FE!
Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra Overall Performance
We then tested the Galaxy S24 Ultra using AnTuTu, yielding these results :
AnTuTu
S24
Ultra
S23
Ultra
Z Flip
5
S23 FE
Z Flip
4
Device
SD 8
Gen 3
SD 8
Gen 2
SD 8
Gen 2
Exynos
2200
SD 8+
Gen 1
AnTuTu Score
1826776
1212174
1187296
1166868
856357
CPU
456400
261886
393404
329078
205939
GPU
682555
538823
282780
425455
362669
Memory
380519
236163
291048
193981
135707
UX
307302
175302
220064
218354
152042
Will you look at that? The AnTuTu benchmark shows that the Galaxy S24 Ultra is a solid 50% faster than the Galaxy S23 Ultra, and Galaxy Z Flip 5 – both powered by last year’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 2. Very nice!
But note that its temperature jumped by almost 12°C! At peak performance, the Galaxy S24 Ultra can get really toasty!
The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra boasts a super-high resolution 200 MP main camera, built around the ISOCELL HP2 sensor. This is a large 1/1.3-inch sensor with 200 million pixels, each of which is 0.6 μm in size.
This 200 MP camera can combine up to 16 pixels to form a single large pixel for much better low-light performance. It can also record 8K videos at 30 frames per second, instead of just 24 fps in the Galaxy S22 Ultra.
It also boasts better Adaptive VDIS capability, and improved optical image stabilisation (OIS), delivering silky smooth videos by doubling the angle to ±3°, from the Galaxy S22 Ultra’s camera‘s ±1.5°.
Here are some photo samples I took using the 200 MP main camera in its standard 12 MP mode, at 4000 x 3000 pixels. Its standard JPEG file size is between 4 MB and 8 MB, but to save space, I highly recommend that you enable HEIF – the High Efficiency Image Format, to halve the amount of storage space required for each photo.
By default, the 200 MP camera takes 12 MP photos, combining sixteen pixels into one super-large pixel. Coupled with the improved lens and wider aperture, the final photos are not only much brighter, but have significantly lower noise.
Of course, the 200 MP capability is not there for marketing purposes. The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra can truly take 200 MP photos, with a resolution of 16,320 pixels x 12,240 pixels, with each file at about 13-15 MB!
Instead of using the new 50 MP telephoto camera, you can use faraway shots at night using the 200 MP mode, to take advantage of its wide f/1.7 aperture. Then you zoom in, and crop out the section of the photo you want.
Take a look at this 200 MP photo that I took at the Marina Bay Sands using last year’s Galaxy S23 Ultra. From that single photo, I could zoom in to make out individuals within the dome-shaped Apple Store hundreds of metres away – all unbeknownst that they were being captured on the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra at night!
Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra Camera Performance Summary
If you want the best smartphone cameras for photo and video money can buy, you should definitely consider the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra.
Please ignore the 200 MP marketing spiel. In everyday use, it has pretty limited use cases – best used for taking night shots of distance objects IMHO. 99.9% of the time, you are not going to be using this camera in its 200 MP mode.
What you are really getting is an awesome 12 MP camera with super-large pixels for really great noise-free images, and better low-light photos. Just look at the photo samples – everything looks much better when taken with this camera!
It is getting really tough for Samsung to introduce radical improvements in its flagship smartphones. So it’s not surprising that the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra is an evolutionary upgrade of the excellent Galaxy S23 Ultra.
Samsung didn’t even bother to hide that, reusing the same design almost to the millimetre! It even reused the same S Pen from last year. Its improvements were almost entirely internal.
Its display, for example, is the “same” as the Galaxy S23 Ultra’s display on paper. But it is brighter and offers improved power efficiency. Its Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processor not only offers really excellent performance, it is also more power-efficient, which helps to significantly improve its battery life.
Even though it comes with the same battery capacity as the Galaxy S23 Ultra, the new Galaxy S24 Ultra boasts 6%-7% longer battery life! That’s an extra hour of battery life on average!
Aside from its Galaxy AI features (which will filter down to older models), the Galaxy S24 Ultra comes with a new 50 MP telephoto camera. While its optical zoom has been halved, its higher resolution sensor and deep-learning AI algorithms allow you to take better quality photos with digital zoom. It also offers better low-light performance, thanks to its wider aperture.
This builds upon Samsung’s legacy of offering the very best photographic and video recording capabilities in its flagship Galaxy S-series, especially when it comes to low-light photography. If you really love photography, and especially like taking photos at night, or in low-light conditions, the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra will surely impress you.
Finally, the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra is even tougher this year. It is protected by a Titanium frame for the first time, as well as the new Gorilla Armour glass in the front. As a bonus, Gorilla Armour really is less reflective.
For these reasons, we gladly award the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra our Editor’s Choice Award! Great work, Samsung!
Support my work through a bank transfer / PayPal / credit card!
Name : Adrian Wong Bank Transfer : CIMB 7064555917 (Swift Code : CIBBMYKL)
Credit Card / Paypal : https://paypal.me/techarp
Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
The new Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra offers two refresh rate options (Settings > Display > Motion smoothness) for its display:
Adaptive : Get smoother animation and scrolling by automatically adjusting your screen refresh rate up to 120 Hz
Standard : Get longer battery life by automatically adjusting your screen refresh rate up to 60 Hz
By default, the Galaxy S24 Ultra uses the Adaptive mode for smoother graphics, but you can choose to switch to the Standard mode for a longer battery life.
While the display may be capable of going as low as 1 Hz, it never went that low. When I tested the Galaxy S24 Ultra’s display in multiple apps, this was what both refresh rate options did:
Adaptive : The display dynamically switches between 24 Hz, and 120 Hz (occasionally 60 Hz, and 80 Hz).
Standard : The display dynamically switches between 24 Hz, and 60 Hz
In the next section, we will look at how the two refresh rate options affect the Galaxy S24 Ultra’s battery life.
To test its battery life, we turned off Automatic Brightness, to fix the brightness level and make sure the screen brightness does not change as the ambient brightness changes.
We also set its display brightness to 50%, which is slightly higher than the average indoor brightness level of 40% during the day.
We then ran the PCMark Work 3.0 battery life test until its battery capacity dropped to 20% several times, and this was the best result we obtained with the Standard and Adaptive refresh rates :
Look at that! The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra lasted almost 14 hours with the Adaptive refresh mode enabled, and lasted almost 16.5 hours with the Standard refresh mode!
This is a 6-7% improvement in battery life over last year’s Galaxy S23 Ultra – approximately an extra hour of battery life, at the same battery capacity. Very nice!
Now, let’s compare its battery life at 60 Hz and 120 Hz, against the Z Flip5, the S23 Ultra, and the S22 Ultra smartphones.
Standard Refresh Rate (60 Hz)
The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra naturally has the best battery life with the refresh rate set to 60 Hz (Standard) – lasting just under 16.5 hours.
Even though it runs on powerful Snapdragon 8 Gen 3, the Galaxy S24 Ultra is more power-efficient than Samsung’s older flagship devices like the Z Flip5, the S23 Ultra, and the S22 Ultra.
Work 3.0
S24 Ultra
S23 Ultra
S22 Ultra
Z Flip 5
Battery Capacity
5,000 mAh
5,000 mAh
5,000 mAh
3,700 mAh
Battery Life
16 hrs 25 mins
15 hrs 18 mins
14 hrs 15 mins
11 hrs 4 mins
Utilisation
per min.
4.06 mAh
4.36 mAh
4.68 mAh
4.46 mAh
Adaptive Refresh Rate (120 Hz)
The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra’s Adaptive refresh rate is so efficient, it lasts almost 14 hours. Even so, the higher refresh rate uses a significant amount of power.
Even with the same battery capacity and similar Adaptive Mode enabled, the Galaxy S24 Ultra uses 6% less power than the Galaxy S23 Ultra, and 23% less power than the Galaxy S22 Ultra.
The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra supports up to 45 watts of wired fast charging, but unfortunately, does not come with the charger in-the-box.
So we tested it using the standard 15 watt and 25 watt Samsung fast chargers that shipped with their previous smartphones, which is what we believe most users will end up doing.
Charging Speed
S22 Ultra
S24 Ultra
S23 Ultra
S24 Ultra
Z Flip 5
Z Flip 5
Battery Capacity
5,000 mAh
5,000 mAh
5,000 mAh
5,000 mAh
3,700 mAh
3,700 mAh
Charger Output
15 watts
25 watts
15 watts
15 watts
25 watts
15 watts
Charging Time
64.5 min
68 min
88.8 min
106.5 min
105 min
129.5 min
Charging Speed
(per minute)
62.0 mAh
58.8 mAh
45.0 mAh
37.6 mAh
28.2 mAh
22.9 mAh
The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra charges really fast with a 15 watt charger, and even faster with a 25 watt charger. It basically needs just over 1.75 hours to fully recharge with a 15 watt charger, and just over one hour with a 25 watt charger.
This gives us a battery life to recharging time ratio of about 7.8:1 (15 watt), or 12.2:1 (25 watt), which is good. You basically get about an hour’s worth of battery life for every 8 minutes you recharge at 15 watts, or 5 minutes at 25 watts.
If you prefer to get faster charging, you should purchase the optional 25 watt USB-C super fast charger. It will cut your charging time by a considerable 38.5 minutes for a full recharge:
Support my work through a bank transfer / PayPal / credit card!
Name : Adrian Wong Bank Transfer : CIMB 7064555917 (Swift Code : CIBBMYKL)
Credit Card / Paypal : https://paypal.me/techarp
Dr. Adrian Wong has been writing about tech and science since 1997, even publishing a book with Prentice Hall called Breaking Through The BIOS Barrier (ISBN 978-0131455368) while in medical school.
He continues to devote countless hours every day writing about tech, medicine and science, in his pursuit of facts in a post-truth world.
Let’s take a look at the performance of the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra smartphone, which is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 mobile SoC!
Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra : Flagship Class Performance!
The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra is powered exclusively by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 for Galaxy, which has a slightly overclocked prime core. It has eight processor cores in a quad-cluster architecture:
1 x Arm Cortex-X4 core (3.39 GHz, instead of 3.3 GHz)
3 x Arm Cortex-A720 cores
2 x Arm Cortex-A720 cores
2 x Arm Cortex-A520 cores
This mobile SoC also comes with the Qualcomm Adreno 750 GPU which supports ray-tracing, an improved Hexagon NPU, and the Snapdragon X75 5G modem that supports Sub-6Ghz and mmWave connectivity.
We first tested the Galaxy S24 Ultra using PCMark, which simulates work applications like web browsing, playing video, writing text and editing photos.
Work 3.0
S23
Ultra
S24
Ultra
Z Flip
5
Z Flip
4
S23 FE
Mobile Platform
SD 8
Gen 2
SD 8 Gen 3
SD 8
Gen 2
SD 8+
Gen 1
Exynos
2200
Performance Score
16408
14931
14655
14429
13971
Web Browsing
15680
11663
11404
12097
11664
Video Editing
7879
6474
7943
7387
7369
Writing
22257
20333
19525
17593
18138
Photo Editing
35533
34350
324420
31762
27060
Data Manipulation
12171
14070
11788
12523
12616
Interestingly, the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 was much slower than the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 used in last year’s Galaxy S23 Ultra, and just barely faster than the SD 8 Gen 2 used in the Galaxy Z Flip5.
I should point out that these are peak performance results. The truth is – you won’t be able to actually tell the difference between all these flagship-class mobile processors in normal usage. They are all really fast.
Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra : Storage Performance
PCMark also has an Android Storage 2.0 benchmark that measures the smartphone’s storage I/O performance.
Storage 2.0
Z Flip
5
S23
Ultra
S24
Ultra
S23 FE
Z Flip
4
Mobile Platform
SD 8
Gen 2
SD 8
Gen 2
SD 9
Gen 3
Exynos
2200
SD 8+
Gen 1
Storage Score
48435
41647
33005
31839
27271
Sequential Read (MB/s)
2676.53
2592.42
2907.37
1584.66
1350.51
Random Read (MB/s)
49.95
38.25
60.98
31.25
33.94
Sequential Write (MB/s)
2631.38
603.29
3084.95
510.16
256.81
Random Write (MB/s)
76.66
81.44
106.34
81.13
50.29
Samsung appeared to be using faster flash storage in the Galaxy S24 Ultra. However, its overall storage score was lower than the S23 Ultra and Z Flip5, due to much slower database read and write speeds.
Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra : Gaming Performance
For gaming, we tested the Galaxy S24 Ultra using 3DMark, with these results :
3DMark
S24
Ultra
S23
Ultra
Z Flip
5
Z Flip
4
S23 FE
Mobile Platform
SD 8
Gen 3
SD 8
Gen 2
SD 8
Gen 2
SD 8+
Gen 1
Exynos
2200
Solar Bay Unlimited
8576
NA
5481
NA
4570
Wild Life Extreme
Unlimited
5020
3814
3705
2636
2233
Wild Life Unlimited
20534
14554
14823
11144
8671
Sling Shot Extreme
Unlimited
19653
13904
13558
6912
9484
Sling Shot Unlimited
22656
16344
16661
10690
11348
Where the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra really shines is in its gaming performance. Its Adreno 750 GPU not only supports ray tracing, it does a fantastic job of delivering top-notch 3D graphics performance.
Not only does it have a faster GPU, the Samsung S24 Ultra also has a 90% larger vapour chamber that allows it to better sustain peak performance during intense gaming sessions.
Although ray tracing games are far and few in between for now, the new Solar Bay benchmark shows that the Galaxy S24 Ultra delivers 56% better 3D with ray tracing performance than the Galaxy Z Flip5, and 88% better performance. than the Galaxy S23 FE!
Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra : Overall Performance
We then tested the Galaxy S24 Ultra using AnTuTu, yielding these results :
AnTuTu
S24
Ultra
S23
Ultra
Z Flip
5
S23 FE
Z Flip
4
Device
SD 8
Gen 3
SD 8
Gen 2
SD 8
Gen 2
Exynos
2200
SD 8+
Gen 1
AnTuTu Score
1826776
1212174
1187296
1166868
856357
CPU
456400
261886
393404
329078
205939
GPU
682555
538823
282780
425455
362669
Memory
380519
236163
291048
193981
135707
UX
307302
175302
220064
218354
152042
Will you look at that? The AnTuTu benchmark shows that the Galaxy S24 Ultra is a solid 50% faster than the Galaxy S23 Ultra, and Galaxy Z Flip 5 – both powered by last year’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 2. Very nice!
But note that its temperature jumped by almost 12°C! At peak performance, the Galaxy S24 Ultra can get really toasty!
Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra Performance Summary
There is no doubt that the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra offers top-notch performance, thanks to its use of a slightly overclocked Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 for Galaxy, and a 90% larger vapour chamber.
It shows in the benchmarks – the Galaxy S24 Ultra topped all of the benchmarks, except for work performance. It is particularly strong in 3D graphics and ray tracing performance. With gaming performance like this, dedicated gaming smartphones seem rather pointless.
Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra : Price + Colour Options
The Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra is available in four main colours:
Titanium Black
Titanium Gray
Titanium Violet, and
Titanium Yellow
Here are the official launch prices for the three available storage capacities:
