Why I still prefer Samsung’s bar phones over its foldables

Samsung’s foldables are cool. There’s no denying that. Every year they get thinner, lighter, and more polished, and the Galaxy Z Fold still feels like one of the most futuristic phones you can buy.

But even after spending plenty of time with Samsung’s foldables (I get to use the latest model every year thanks to my job), I still end up preferring a regular bar-style phone. And it mostly comes down to the cameras and the battery.

Weak cameras and battery ruin the experience for me

Samsung’s Fold phones have never matched the camera setup you get on the company’s Galaxy S Ultra flagships, and the biggest missing piece is a proper zoom camera.

If you care about long-range photography, there’s really only one Samsung phone that truly delivers: the Galaxy S Ultra. The Fold series still lacks a powerful zoom camera, which feels like a major compromise on such expensive devices.

What makes this more frustrating is that Samsung is pretty much alone here. Apple gives you the same camera hardware on the iPhone Pro and Pro Max. Google does the same with the Pixel Pro and even its foldables. The latter offer the same telephoto experience as the regular Pixel Pro XL. With Samsung, though, you either buy the Ultra or you miss out on serious zoom altogether.

Battery life is the other big reason I stick with bar phones, and it’s not just the Galaxy S Ultra that does better here. The Galaxy Z Fold series has been stuck with a 4,400 mAh battery for years. In fact, Samsung has left the capacity unchanged for so long that its clamshell Galaxy Z Flip lineup now comes close, with the Galaxy Z Flip 7 offering almost the same battery size (4,300 mAh).

A foldable shouldn’t feel like a compromise

Even the new Galaxy Z TriFold, which bumps capacity up to 5,600 mAh, doesn’t really change the situation. Samsung rates it for just 17 hours of video playback, which is actually lower than the 24-hour rating of the Galaxy Z Fold 7. Bigger number, same story.

Thinner phones are obviously a good thing, and Samsung deserves credit for how slim its recent foldables have become. But in chasing thinness so aggressively, Samsung may have backed itself into a corner where there’s no room left to meaningfully improve battery capacity or add more powerful cameras.

Foldables are supposed to replace multiple devices, not ask you to accept more compromises. Until Samsung’s Fold phones catch up to its Ultra models in camera capabilities—especially zoom—and deliver better battery life, I’ll keep choosing a bar phone. It may be less exciting, but it still fits my everyday use better.

Abhijeet Mishra - Editor-in-Chief

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First Samsung device: SGH-D500

Abhijeet's writing career started with guides for custom firmware for Samsung devices (including the original Galaxy S), and he moved to SamMobile in mid-2013 and worked up the ranks to Editor-in-chief. In addition to phones and mobile devices, his interests include gaming on both PC and console, PC hardware, and spending countless hours on YouTube watching videos on tech, movies, games, politics, and internet dramas.

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