Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 May Trade Battery Life For Thinness

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Summary

Samsung will seemingly focus on making future flagships thinner and lighter.
The Galaxy Z Fold 7 is rumored to be the world’s thinnest foldable at launch.
The thinner design may come at a cost, with the foldable sticking to the same battery size as before.

Despite soaring sales, Samsung’s flagship devices fall short of their rivals in several aspects. The Galaxy S25 Ultra pales in comparison to other Ultra flagships on the market. Similarly, last year’s Galaxy Z Fold 6 is nowhere near as good as foldable phones from Oppo, Huawei, and others. It seems Samsung will focus on making its future flagships thinner and lighter, enabling it to catch up to its competition in at least one key area.

The Galaxy Z Fold 6 and Z Flip 6 unfolded leaning on a ledge.

Leaker @UniverseIce claims Samsung is steering its flagship lineup toward a slimmer, lighter form factor. As part of this, he says the Galaxy Z Fold 7 will be the world’s thinnest foldable at launch, with a thickness of 3.9mm when unfolded and 8.9mm in a folded state.

For reference, the Galaxy Z Fold 6 measures 12.2mm thick when folded and just 5.6mm when unfolded. The Oppo Find N5, currently the world’s slimmest book-style foldable, only measures 8.93mm in a folded state and 4.21mm when unfolded. The device is barely thicker than its USB-C port, so it would be remarkable if Samsung could make the Galaxy Z Fold 7 even thinner.

However, Samsung’s focus on thinness will come with a big compromise. The Galaxy Z Fold 7 will allegedly come with a 4,400mAh cell, the same as its predecessor, despite rumors suggesting it will pack bigger outer and inner displays and a more power-hungry Snapdragon 8 Elite chipset.

It appears the company will not use the latest silicon-carbon cell inside its upcoming flagship foldable, which allows for denser batteries. Despite its thin design, the Oppo Find N5 packs a beefy 5,600mAh battery with 80W wired and 50W wireless charging support.

Samsung might be chasing thinness

The world’s biggest smartphone maker took a similar approach with the Galaxy S25 Ultra earlier this year, shaving off 0.4mm from its waistline compared to its predecessor while keeping the same battery capacity. Despite the battery capacity trade-off and the upcoming super-slim Galaxy S25 Edge, Samsung will continue to focus on a slim form factor with the Galaxy S26 next year.

On the bright side, the leaker says Samsung will boost the battery capacity of the Galaxy Z Flip 7 to 4,300mAh, up from the current model’s 4,000mAh cell. This should lead to a noticeable boost in its runtime and help negate the lower efficiency of the rumored Exynos 2500 chip.