Galaxy Z Fold7/Flip7

[zenmacx]

@ OP: Kudos on your well written experience and viewpoints.

Similarly with multiple lines and a requirement to carry two phones daily, I'm using iPhone 16 Pro Max, Galaxy Fold 7 and S25 Ultra. Prior to the Fold my favorite was the S25 Ultra.

Now 11 days into the Fold 7 experience I am impressed with its build quality, speed and overall usefulness. As far as productivity, it’s handling my heavy usage well but it’s still too early for me to take a stance. Being my first folding phone I'm still acclimating.

Downsides? Surprisingly none of consequence.

Overall I have a more favorable opinion now that I own this phone. The big question is will the Fold 7 become my primary phone of choice. Time will tell.

 

[SteveJUAE]

I’ve been running the Fold 7 alongside the S25 Ultra and iPhone 15 Pro Max (each dedicated to different use cases: work, personal, and business). After nearly two weeks of heavy use, here’s my honest take, if anyone cares lol


What It Does Well

• For entertainment and light productivity, the Fold 7 is excellent like YouTube, browsing, WhatsApp, and even drafting basic Outlook emails feel natural.
• The large inner display remains unmatched for content consumption, multitasking, and sheer “wow factor.”

Where It Struggles

• When it comes to serious productivity, the Fold 7 falls short. Editing Excel sheets with substantial data (let alone advanced functions like XLOOKUPs, Index-match et al) or Power BI, Dynatrace is frustrating enough that I usually revert to my laptop.
• Despite owning multiple generations (since the Fold 3), I still can’t fully buy into Samsung’s “do real work on a foldable” pitch. For me, it’s an entertainment-first device, not a primary productivity tool.

Limitations (and Why I Can’t Switch Yet)

• Battery life: Good, but not great for power users. Needs an upgrade.
• Stylus support: A siloed S Pen is long overdue.
• RAM: 16GB should be standard at this point. I noticed a tangible performance difference between the 12GB and 16GB variants, which is why I exchanged the 512GB model for the 1TB.

Other Considerations

Being in the U.S., we don’t have easy access to Chinese foldables ...and personally, I wouldn’t use them for sensitive apps anyway, given security concerns.


Bottom Line

The Fold 7 is a fantastic secondary device: great for media, multitasking, and casual productivity. But is it worth its premium price tag as a true laptop replacement or even a slab replacement? Not yet, at least for heavy work users like me.

Just my 2¢ as someone running a ton of work-related apps across multiple devices.

I see you note Excel as a stumbling point for you but this would equally be true of the most powerful IPad let alone an IPHONE or the Fold 7 and others

Only a Windows tablet is capable of running the full version of Excel, else you need a laptop or desktop.

So I think your expectations are a little high

Where the Folds come in to play is not viewing the world through a letterbox

Being able to have preview pages or docs side by side or even reading or commenting on tech documentation, drawings and presentations or even research closer to how they would be viewed on a laptop is invaluable.

Having a richer and more complete entertainment and gaming experience is just a bonus.