Phone Comparisons: Samsung Galaxy Z Trifold Vs Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7

Samsung recently announced its very first tri-fold smartphone, the Galaxy Z TriFold. That phone added some depth to Samsung’s foldable lineup. In this article, we’ll actually compare two foldable phones from Samsung. We’ll be comparing the Samsung Galaxy Z TriFold vs Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 . In other words, we’re comparing the company’s first tri-fold vs its flagship book-style foldable.

These two phones do have some things in common, but they’re also quite different at the same time. The form factors are notably different and are aimed at different people for different use cases. We’ll first list the specs that both phones offer, and will then move to compare them across a number of other categories. Let’s get to it, shall we?

• Specs
• Samsung Galaxy Z TriFold vs Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7: Design
• Samsung Galaxy Z TriFold vs Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7: Display
• Samsung Galaxy Z TriFold vs Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7: Performance
• Samsung Galaxy Z TriFold vs Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7: Battery
• Samsung Galaxy Z TriFold vs Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7: Cameras
• Audio

Specs

Samsung Galaxy Z TriFold

Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7

Samsung Galaxy Z TriFold vs Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7: Design

From the back, the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 basically looks like three-quarters of the Galaxy Z TriFold (when unfolded). Add another backplate on the back of the Galaxy Z Fold 7, next to the display, and that’s the Galaxy Z TriFold. Even their camera islands look the same. Both phones have three vertically-aligned cameras on the back, which are included in the top-left corner. They protrude on both phones, quite a bit.

Despite the fact that the Galaxy Z TriFold is a tri-fold device, it has two displays, just like the Galaxy Z Fold 7. Its main panel is much larger, though. It also has two modes, though. You can either use a full large display or the cover display when you fold it. It’s the same thing on the Galaxy Z Fold 7, basically, but you have a smaller main display to use. Samsung opted to do things differently compared to the Huawei Mate XT and XTs.

Both devices have a display camera hole on the main display, and rather thin bezels around the display. The power/lock and power button keys sit on the right-hand side of the devices, regardless of the orientation. Both phones use various materials in their build, from aluminum and glass, to titanium and others. It all depends. For example, the Galaxy Z Fold 7 has a glass back, while the Galaxy Z TriFold comes with a ceramic-glass fiber-reinforced polymer back.

The tri-fold handset is considerably heavier at 309 grams, compared to 215 grams of the Galaxy Z Fold 7. That’s not surprising at all. It’s also notably thicker when folded, while they offer similar thickness when unfolded. Both phones are IP48 certified for water and dust resistance.

Samsung Galaxy Z TriFold vs Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7: Display

Both of these phones have to displays, a foldalbe one, and a regular one. Let’s start with the tri-fold. The Galaxy Z TriFold includes a 10-inch tri-foldable Dynamic LTPO AMOLED 2X display with a 120Hz refresh rate. It supports HDR content, and has a peak brightness of 1,600 nits. The screen-to-body ratio is at around 90%, while the display aspect ratio is 4:3. The resolution on offer here is 2160 x 1584 pixels. The cover display measures 6.5 inches, and it’s a Dynamic LTPO AMOLED 2X panel as well. It has a 120Hz display, supports HDR content, and has a peak brightness of 2,600 nits. The Gorilla Glass Ceramic 2 protects this panel. The resolution here is 2520 x 1080.

The Galaxy Z Fold 7 , on the other hand, has an 8-inch Foldable Dynamic LTPO AMOLED 2X display. That panel offers a 120Hz refresh rate too, and it supports HDR10+ content. The peak brightness here is 2,600 nits. The screen-to-body ratio is at around 90%, while the resolution it supports is 2184 x 1968 pixels. The cover display measures 6.5 inches, and it’s a Dynamic LTPO AMOLED 2X panel. It supports a 120Hz refresh rate, and it’s protected by the Gorilla Glass Ceramic 2. The resolution here is 2520 x 1080 pixels.

In all honesty, all of these displays are perfectly fine. They’re vivid, sharp, and have good viewing angles. We used the Galaxy Z TriFold only briefly at this point, but the displays were perfectly fine. Yes, the Galaxy Z Fold 8 has the advantage of having a notably brighter main display, which you’ll notice in direct sunlight, but the one on the Galaxy Z TriFold is fine. Both cover displays are great.

Samsung Galaxy Z TriFold vs Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7: Performance

The Samsung Galaxy Z TriFold is fueled by the Snapdragon 8 Elite for Galaxy processor. Is the company’s flagship chip for last year. That chip is backed by 16GB of RAM and up to 1TB of storage. The Galaxy Z Fold 7, on the other hand, comes with the Snapdragon 8 Elite chip as well, and it includes up to 16GB of RAM and up to 1TB of storage as well. Neither phone supports storage expansion.

You should get basically identical performance here, as the performance-related internals are basically the same. Even the software builds on the two phones are fairly similar. The Galaxy Z Fold 7 did a great job performance-wise for us. We didn’t get to use the Galaxy Z TriFold for long, not yet, but it did fine during the time we tested it. We’ll have to do some in-depth testing once we get a review unit.

Day-to-day performance should be a piece of cake for both of these smartphones. The same can be said for gaming, actually. The internals here are more than powerful enough to run basically any game, and the Galaxy Z Fold 7 proved that. Let’s hope that the cooling on the Galaxy Z TriFold is up to the task. That is definitely something we’ll keep an eye one when we get our hands on a review unit.

Samsung Galaxy Z TriFold vs Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7: Battery

The Samsung Galaxy Z TriFold does have a notably larger main panel, thus it comes with a larger battery pack. It includes a 5,600mAh battery compared to a 4,400mAh battery on the Galaxy Z Fold 7. Now, while the Galaxy Z Fold 7 offered good battery life, it cannot compete with some other book-style foldables on the market. Many of them offer notably more battery capacity, and that shows.

We’re not sure where will the Galaxy Z TriFold fall in the pecking order, but it should be fine in terms of battery life. We’re not expecting miracles, but it should offer something along the lines of the Galaxy Z Fold 7 in terms of battery life. For the vast majority of people, it should be enough to last them through the day. Such predictions are very ungrateful to make, though, as each of us use our phone differently, not to mention that this is a foldable we’re talking about. A Foldable with two considerably different displays, size-wise.

The Samsung Galaxy Z TriFold supports 45W wired, 15W wireless, and 4.5W reverse wireless charging. The Galaxy Z Fold 7, on the other hand, supports 25W wired, 15W wireless, and 4.5W reverse wireless charging. So, yes, the company’s tri-fold should charge up a bit faster than the Galaxy Z Fold 7. It takes the Galaxy Z Fold 7 around an hour and a half to reach a full charge.

Samsung Galaxy Z TriFold vs Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7: Cameras

These two smartphones have three cameras on the back, one on the foldable panel, and one on the cover display. So there are five cameras in total included inside both of them. With that being said, the camera hardware is completely identical between the two. Samsung basically used the Galaxy Z Fold 7’s camera setup and shoved it in the Galaxy Z TriFold.

Both smartphones have a 200-megapixel main camera (f/1.7 aperture, 1/1.3-inch sensor size, OIS, multi-directional PDAF), along with a 12-megapixel ultrawide camera (f/2.2 aperture, 1/2.55-inch sensor size, 120-degree FoV). The third camera on the back of both phones is a 10-megapixel telephoto camera (f/2.4 aperture, 1/3.94-inch sensor size, OIS, PDAF; 3x optical zoom).

The main camera sensor is actually quite solid, while the other two are kind of behind in terms of size and quality. That is especially true for the telephoto camera. That camera is not exactly great in good lighting, let alone low-light. In fact, if you plan on shooting pictures in low light, stick to the main camera. The ultrawide one is not exactly great either for that purpose. Let’s hope Samsung will push the camera hardware forward with the upcoming 2026 foldables. The images do end up looking nice and saturated for the most part, when you use the main camera. They even go a bit on the oversaturated side at times.

Audio

Both of these phones do include stereo speakers. We didn’t test the ones on the Galaxy Z TriFold just yet, but we’re expecting a similar performance to what the Galaxy Z Fold 7 offers. The speakers inside the Galaxy Z Fold 7 are good, but they’re not as loud as the speakers on many other regular slab flagship phones.

Neither of these two phones has an audio jack. You can, however, connect your wired headphones via the Type-C port, if you want. Alternatively, Bluetooth 5.4 is available on both devices, for wireless audio.