Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 SE: a middle finger to the rest of us?

I’ve been a Galaxy Z Fold 5 user for about a year now. It’s the one Android phone that plucked me away from the iPhone, because it’s just so exciting, practical, and fun to use (when unfolded, at least).

When the following Galaxy Z Fold 6 came out recently, I chose not to upgrade, for obvious reasons – a minor design upgrade with sharper angles doesn’t fix my gripes with the Z Fold I already have. Mainly – that it’s too narrow to be used comfortably when closed.

So I wasn’t exactly happy to see Samsung not address this even in 2024… until it did, but only for the Korean company’s home market, with the release of the Galaxy Z Fold 6 Special Edition…

Samsung finally fixes the Z Fold, but only in South Korea and China? What about the rest of us?

Indeed, news broke that Samsung decided to release a far better edition of the Z Fold 6 only for its home market, plus China. The Z Fold 6 SE has a thinner, lighter, yet bigger design, a larger outer display, and a larger folding one – pretty much everything I always wanted.

While globally Samsung doesn’t seem to be playing a much-needed catch up with the Chinese folding phones we keep covering, that are ultra thin, yet wider, it just did it in South Korea…

The question is – why can’t the rest of us finally have a Galaxy Z Fold that feels like a normal phone when closed? Why must I, and countless other global Z Fold users continue to struggle using a narrow external display keyboard?

And why, evidently, is this special edition phone not going to expand beyond the South Korean market and reach us?

The Z Fold needs this change globally, as many Chinese foldables are crushing it in terms of design

The OnePlus Open, the Honor Magic V3, the Vivo X Fold 3 Pro, they’re all superb foldables, and solve the Galaxy Z Fold’s drawbacks – they actually feel like regular phones when closed, and are perfectly usable this way. Not just because their outer display is wider, but because they’re overall thinner, close to the thinness of a standard slab phone.

Perhaps Samsung is comfortable knowing those Chinese brands don’t have the global reach it does, nor do their names carry the same trust and weight as the name Samsung.

Fair enough. However, Chinese brands aren’t all there is out there anymore. Google, a more widely available American brand, offers the Pixel 9 Pro Fold now.

And the Pixel 9 Pro Fold is pretty much flawless in terms of its design, a massive step up from its predecessor, which was also Google’s first foldable. The 9 Pro Fold is wide, thin, comfortable, and comes with (of course) the latest Android software. Tons of Gemini AI features, and seven years of promised updates too!

For the folding phone fans out there, you may want to check out our reviews for the aforementioned devices:

Why the Galaxy Z Fold 6 needed to be like the Z Fold 6 SE

As mentioned earlier, I have no reason to upgrade from my Z Fold 5 to the Z Fold 6, because it’s still not a phone that can be used comfortably, like a regular smartphone, when closed. Which is how it’s being used most of the time, so that’s a pretty massive problem.Typing on that still-narrow outer display is not a fun experience, and typing is most of what I do on my phone. I came from a middle-of-the-road iPhone, so there’s a touch keyboard width I’m used to. In fact, we’re all used to a certain, common phone screen size, and we’re all used to typing on that, and seeing our apps look a certain way on it.

So when all of the sudden I was using a narrow display, struggling to type comfortably, and seeing all my apps now looking tall and narrow, with small text and pictures, it’s quite the adjustment. A never-ending one, to be honest.

Evidently the South Korean Galaxy Z Fold 5 SE fixes all of that. But again, it’s not available to the rest of us for whatever reason, and likely won’t be in the future.

So as my only option, I am legitimately looking to upgrade from my Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5 to the Google Pixel 9 Pro Fold, and I probably will.

And I believe Samsung will lose a lot more of its global foldable phone users in a similar manner, because it just doesn’t address our concerns.

Is the Galaxy Z Fold 6 SE going to launch worldwide? Or, at the very least, does it mean future Galaxy Z Fold 7 will take notes from it?

So, fine, I won’t upgrade to the Galaxy Z Fold 6; I’ll stick with my Z Fold 5, and switch to the Pixel 9 Pro Fold, because Samsung didn’t fix my biggest gripe with its own foldable.However, I would upgrade to the Z Fold 6 SE if I could. And I assume a lot of you feel the same way, so, what are our options?

Is the Galaxy Z Fold 6 SE at the very least a promise that Samsung will go thinner, bigger and wider with the global Galaxy Z Fold 7 next year?

Well, based on what we know so far, the Galaxy Z Fold 6 Special Edition will not be released worldwide. It launched in South Korea on October 25 and evidently sold out in 10 minutes, so even there it’s likely been hard to get, ever since.

As for whether the Galaxy Z Fold 7 will take notes from the Z Fold 6 SE’s improvements – we can only hope. And I really do hope. Stay tuned for the inevitable leaks on that phone, as they’ll traditionally start dropping many months before its release.

But I digress, what are your thoughts on Samsung stubbornly sticking with a narrow folding phone design globally? Are you using a Galaxy Z Fold, or another folding phone right now, and are you comfortable and happy with it? Share your thoughts with your fellow tech enthusiasts in the comments section below!