Best foldable phone 2024

Foldable phones used to be a far-flung concept from science fiction, but the latest in foldable smartphones brings the ideas of the future to the here and now. Built with strong aluminum frames and cutting-edge ultra-thin glass that can literally fold in half, these phones will amaze you every single time you open and close them.

Right now, it's nigh impossible to find a more ideal foldable phone than the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6. When unfolded, it looks similar to the average smartphone, including a sleek and slim chassis with an all-day battery. But, when you're all done and just need to fit it in your jeans pocket, you can fold it in half, and it magically seems to fit just about anywhere.

The beauty of the foldables market is that you don't just have to have a "normal" shape phone that folds in half. What if you'd rather have a regular-size phone that unfolds into a tablet instead? Or maybe a book-style foldable makes more sense, giving you two screens instead of one. Either way you fold them, these tremendous foldable phones bring the best parts of the best Android phones into neat, versatile packages.

Nick Sutrich

Nick grew up in a telecom-savvy household and has been reviewing phones since 2011. Whether it's waxing poetic about Nokia's glory days or flipping open the latest foldable phones, he knows what makes a good phone and can help you understand which one to pick.

At a glance

Best overall

Samsung finally increased the size of the outer cover screen with the Galaxy Z Flip 5, and the Galaxy Z Flip 6 improves on that by making it even more useful than ever before. Samsung now lets you fit multiple widgets onto a single panel, although you still need to set up the external display using Labs or Good Lock to get more use out of it.

At 3.4 inches, this screen is big enough to use a full-sized keyboard to reply to messages, run full apps, and just use the large, inner display less often. That's convenient for everyday use — it's certainly more glanceable than having to open the phone — plus, using a smaller display more often will inherently improve daily battery life since the phone doesn't have to power a big display every time you use it.

Although the Flip 6 is nearly identical to the Flip 5 in terms of dimensions and weight, we now get dust resistance on the modern flip phone. It's not very robust, but the IP48 rating is a welcome bump over the last-gen Flip's IPX8 rating. You also get the latest mobile processor — the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 — as well as a slightly larger 4,000mAh battery.

Samsung has also upgraded the cameras on the Z Flip 6, ditching the 12MP primary lens for a significantly better 50MP wide camera. Just don't expect to zoom in very far since there's still no telephoto lens. And finally, the Galaxy Z Flip 6 has been promised a whopping seven years of major OS and security updates. I just wish Samsung hadn't driven up the price by a whole $100.

Best budget foldable

The era of the mid-range foldable is finally upon us thanks to Motorola. This year's budget winner is the spectacular Motorola Razr (2024), which basically a beefed-up version of the Razr Plus (2023) but for a stunningly low $700 price tag. That's $400 less than the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6, making it the most affordable new foldable phone you'll find today. You'll be making some concessions by saving so much money, but it's likely this will only bother enthusiasts.

The Mediatek Dimensity 7300X processor inside is plenty snappy and likely will never show its "mid-range" nature, even when playing games like Honkai: Star Rail. But there's always the chance that you won't see the same super-high framerates that a more expensive foldable can achieve. Slower internal storage means that things will definitely take longer to load, though.

That slightly lower-powered processor paired with a 4,200mAh battery means you'll actually be able to get through a full day's use on a single charge, unlike most other flip-style foldables.

The external 3.6-inch 90Hz OLED display is the star of the show, easily taking on the flagship Z Flip 6 and kicking its butt in terms of functionality. You can do so much with the cover display that it's like having two phones in one. In fact, you can use the phone in its entirety without even opening up the main screen, because Motorola doesn't put any restrictions on what you can do with the cover display.

If an average camera isn't a true negative for you, this is an excellent way to get in on the flip trend and save a ton of money.

Best cover display

The Motorola Razr Plus (2024) is two phones in one, outclassing the Galaxy Z Flip 6 in quite a few surprising ways. The biggest reason to choose the Razr Plus (2024) is the cover screen, which might initially be surprising because it looks very similar to what Samsung offers on the Flip 6.

So why is it so different if it's basically the same size? Motorola doesn't put any restrictions on what you can do with the cover display, which is why we say it's two phones in one. The smaller cover display on the front acts like a full phone so you can use the Razr Plus more often without having to open it up.

Yes, that sounds a little silly given how easy Motorola's hinge makes it to open and close on a whim, but there's just something nice about being able to use a smaller display for quick tasks. Plus, using that smaller screen more often will improve battery life. The phone's only real negative point is the lack of dust resistance.

In addition to a better cover screen, Motorola has two more hardware features that are better than Samsung's: the display crease, and the curved edges. The Razr Plus's display crease is basically non-existent compared to the Z Flip 6's. Sure, both phones fold flat and utilize a waterdrop display curve inside the hinge but Motorola does a much better job of hiding the crease. Plus, the curved edges of the phone make the Razr Plus so much easier to use and more comfortable to hold than Samsung's flat edges.

On the software side, Motorola's modern software update promise isn't nearly as good as Samsung's, promising three OS upgrades and four years of software updates. Motorola's timeless gestures are here in all their glory as well as a new Hello UX and Moto AI. Overall, it's a phenomenal phone and a great alternative to Samsung's Flip series.

Best premium foldable

The OnePlus Open is the best large foldable you can buy today. Its size and shape fit somewhere in between the narrow Galaxy Z Fold 6 and the wide Pixel Fold, giving it that Goldilocks appeal. Plus, the display crease on the larger folding display is nearly invisible and you still get an IPX4 water resistance rating so you don't have to worry if it gets a little wet in the rain.

The displays are top-notch, as well, offering a dynamic 120Hz refresh rate, 1440Hz PWM dimming, 10-bit color depth, and peak brightness of 2,800 nits. There's even support for HDR10 and Dolby Vision for spectacular movie watching on that large, cinematic display inside.

OnePlus offers two great colors, with the Voyager Black colorway sporting a nice textured leather-like material on the back for extra grip. Surprisingly, even the cameras are quite excellent, surpassing the quality of even the best large foldables like the Google Pixel Fold in most tests.

But good foldable hardware only works as well as the software, and this is where OnePlus really does things right. While there were some weird bugs at launch, the experience these days is nothing short of the best you'll find anywhere, particularly when it comes to multitasking.

The brilliant OnePlus Open Canvas concept lets you run several apps at once using a split screen or a unique sliding app concept, where you can dock an app "off-screen" and slide it into the main view at any time. Think of it a bit like looking at a comic book with several frames, each frame containing an app, and you can freely move the frame around as needed. It's brilliant, and it rounds out the best large foldable you can buy.

Best with a stylus

The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 is a bit of a stale update that doesn't justify the $100 price hike one bit. Sure, the crease on the internal display is barely visible anymore, but nearly every other spec mirrors the older Z Fold 5.

Just like the older-gen Flip, the Z Flip 6 has a robust hinge, closes shut completely flat, and has a non-discernible crease. The screen now has a more durable FTG layer on top, bumping up the UTG found on the Fold 5. Adding to that, Samsung has finally upgraded the ingress protection of its foldables with the Fold 6's IP48 water and dust resistance. The Armor Aluminum frame is also enhanced for improved toughness.

Under the hood, the new Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 for Galaxy processor offers better battery life and faster processing. On the software side, users now get seven years of guaranteed platform and security updates. You get Android 14 (One UI 6.1.1) out of the box that's laden with Galaxy AI features. The Z Fold 6 supports the S Pen but you need to buy one separately and it still doesn't fit into the chassis of the phone like the S24 Ultra.

The novelties end there as Samsung retained the same old cameras, battery, and charging specs on the Fold 6 as the ones we saw on the Fold 5 and the Fold 4.

This is all very frustrating, and frankly, embarrassing for Samsung, especially considering the price increase. It is perplexing given how much better the cameras on the Google Pixel Fold and OnePlus Open are. We certainly expected Samsung to push the envelope with cameras this year and were pretty disappointed when we found out they didn't.

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How to choose

What's the best foldable phone?

We rank the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6 as the best foldable phone for most people because of its powerful processor, solid camera performance, good battery life, and large cover screen. Plus, Samsung's foldable phones have proven to be more durable, and capable of withstanding hundreds of thousands of folds more than the competition.

But a flip style isn't for everyone, and all of our staff who use foldables regularly prefer the larger form factors of the OnePlus Open or Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6. These two phones give you the option of having a tablet-sized display when you need it with the pocketability of a standard phone the rest of the time.

Plus, companies like Samsung and OnePlus have created powerful multitasking software systems that make it a joy to use multiple apps at once on that big screen.

Are foldable phones worth it?

Any fledgling technology tends to cost more, which means that many people often get priced out of choosing a foldable phone as an option. Companies like OnePlus and Samsung often run great deals on their foldable phones, and trading in an older phone could get you hundreds off a new foldable.

But while large foldables tend to cost more, phones like the Motorola Razr have pushed the price of clamshell foldables to less than half the price they debuted at in 2019. That's a great track record for getting more foldables into people's hands affordably, and some even cheaper options from companies like Nubia, TECNO, and Xiaomi.

What are the disadvantages of foldable phone?

Aside from price, foldable phones are more difficult to repair than traditional slab phones. Our own Andrew Myrick had several problems getting his Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4 repaired, and he's not alone in this conundrum. While many companies like Samsung partner up with shops like uBreakiFix, a broken display on a foldable is still a more difficult, costly process to repair.

We've also seen plenty of examples where foldable displays crack without any obvious damage infliction point. When this happens, there's a possibility that it could be covered under warranty. The problem is that repair shops aren't always consistent with how they identify warranty-eligible replacements, and we've run into these issues several times when trying to get foldables repaired over the years.

It's also worth noting that, traditionally, foldable phones have worse battery life and camera quality than a similarly-priced slab phone.

While the situation is improving with every year — the OnePlus Open's camera is better than the OnePlus 12, despite being a few months older — companies like Samsung have been making snail-like progress on camera improvements over the years. That's particularly true with telephoto cameras, as the company ships the same cameras on its $1,900 Z Fold 6 as it fits on the $799 Galaxy S24.

Do foldable phones last long?

Normally, a foldable phone will last you years without issue. Most foldable phones are rated for at least 200,000 consecutive folds before the hinge will start giving out, and companies like Samsung and OnePlus tout hundreds of thousands of folds beyond that before problems start to develop.

Foldables also tend to be more durable when dropped simply because the foldable display is encased within a protective clamshell.

But ultrathin foldable glass is still just ultrathin glass, and there's always the probability that it could break when you're using it normally, however unlikely that may be.