Oh dear, the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5 will look the same yet again

Those of you who have seen reports of the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5 allegedly getting a massive new cover screen might have been looking forward to a similar far-reaching redesign for the larger Z Fold 5. Unfortunately, several new renders from OnLeaks published on Smartprix show that the upcoming foldable will continue with largely the same design for the third year running.

It’s obvious that the Z Fold 5 borrows key inspiration from the Z Fold 4, itself a derivative of the Z Fold 3. The tall, slender form factor (when closed) is unmistakable, and even though the publication claims the new phone is actually shorter at 154.9mm tall, the 0.2mm reduction will hardly make a difference to how cumbersome it will be to use one-handed—especially since the unchanged 67.1mm width will still make for quite a cramped cover screen.

Also recognisable is the pill-shaped camera bump on the back, housing the main, ultra-wide and 3x telephoto cameras. Samsung has at least moved the flash from the bottom of the camera bump, likely to make room for larger image sensors. Hopefully this means the Z Fold 5 will finally share its main camera with the S Ultra series for the first time, in this case the excellent 200MP unit from the S23 Ultra.

The biggest difference between the Z Fold 4 and the Z Fold 5 will, of course, be the hinge. Samsung looks to be taking inspiration from Oppo, Honor, Huawei and the rest of the foldable market by moving to a teardrop-folding screen, which not only makes the phone fold flat (eliminating the gap near the hinge) but also results in a significantly shallower crease. The device will also be thinner at 13.4mm, whereas the Z Fold 4 tapers from 15.8 to 14.2mm

Otherwise, the specs should be largely identical and include a 6.2-inch cover screen and a 7.6-inch inner display, both AMOLED with 120Hz adaptive refresh rates; the inner display is expected to be significantly brighter than the current model’s 1,200-nit peak. It will likely also remain one of the few foldable devices with an IPX8 water resistance rating.

You can expect the usual hardware bumps, including an upgrade to the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 for Galaxy chip (the same one found in the S23), LPDDR5X RAM and UFS 4.0 storage. While there’s no mention of battery capacity, we can probably look forward to a marginal increase over the existing 4,400mAh, while maintaining Qi wireless charging and hopefully an increase in wired fast charging over the Z Fold 4’s meagre 25W.

Samsung may also be bringing forward the launch of the Z Fold 5 (and the accompanying Z Flip 5) from the usual August schedule—we could see the foldables as early as July. In the meantime, you can watch our comparison test between the current Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4 and the Oppo Find N2 below.