It’s been five years since Samsung unveiled its first foldable smartphone at the Unpacked event in February 2019. It was a new product category for Samsung, and the company couldn’t escape the device’s shortcomings.

Eagle-eyed users were quick to spot the crease in the Galaxy Fold’s foldable display, followed by reports of broken screens on review units, eventually forcing the South Korean giant to rethink its foldable smartphone before putting it on sale later that year.

Fast forward to now, Samsung has released five generations of its foldable smartphone and continues to improve it every year. While the first model was simply called the Galaxy Fold, Samsung rebranded it as the Galaxy Z Fold in 2020.

Among various improvements, Samsung has made the device lighter over the years, a few grams at a time. Below is the weight comparison of different Galaxy Z Fold models:

• Galaxy Fold: 276 grams
• Galaxy Z Fold2: 282 grams
• Galaxy Z Fold3: 271 grams
• Galaxy Z Fold4: 263 grams
• Galaxy Z Fold5: 253 grams

A comparison between the first and the current foldable leaves us with a difference of 23g (about 8.3%) that Samsung managed to achieve. The weight graph did increase slightly with the Galaxy Z Fold2, but the smartphone that includes a new “hidden hinge” provided significant improvements over its predecessor.

The upgraded hinge trickled down to later models, allowing them to rest at different angles for selfies and video calls. as per For Samsung, significant weight reduction occurred when it changed the hinge action with the launch of the Galaxy Z Fold4 in 2022.

While the previous foldable in the series used interlocking gears to ensure uniform folding and unfolding of the screen, the Galaxy Z Fold4 changed the movement of the hinges from rotary to linear. This adaptation drastically reduced the weight, thickness and number of parts, which will streamline the production and improve the robustness of the device.

Still, the current Galaxy Fold is heavier than other popular foldables like OnePlus is open (245 grams) f vivo X Fold3 Pro (236 grams) but not you Pixel Fold (283 grams). Meanwhile, the improved hinge mechanism also solved another problem that the Galaxy Fold models initially addressed.

Early versions of Samsung’s hinge were not capable enough to fold the screen evenly, resulting in a wedge-like appearance and uneven thickness. The thickness of the original Galaxy Fold ranged from 15.7 to 17.1 mm when it was folded.

Samsung continued to reduce the overall thickness and difference until the Fold4, which had a folded thickness of 14.2 to 15.8mm. Finally, the company managed to add a new hinge design called the “Flex Hinge”, which allows the Galaxy Z Fold5 to fold its screen evenly Without wrinkles or gaps and with a maximum thickness of 13.4 mm.

It remains to be seen if Samsung manages to reduce the weight and thickness even further when the Galaxy Z Fold6 arrives on July 10. During the event, Samsung will also showcase the Galaxy Z Flip6 and is expected to unveil the Galaxy Watch 7.