Microsoft righted an age-old “wrong” (at least for those who geek out on disk formatting) earlier this week. With its latest Windows 11 Insider Canary Preview Build (viaThe Verge), the company increased the maximum FAT32 partition size limit from 32GB to 2TB when using the command line. The boost from the previous limit, which its creator thought would be limited to the lifespan of Windows NT 4.0, comes after 28 years.
FAT32 isn’t widely used today. Even SD cards, the last holdout, have mostly moved to exFAT. (FAT32 has other limitations for the modern world, like a 4GB file size limit.) So, the move appears to be more about making amends — a Windows geek’s equivalent of pardoning a historical figure who’s been dead for a century — than a practical change that will affect people today. The fact that the Windows GUI partitioning tool still includes the 32GB partition cap further decreases the odds that many will find much tangible benefit from the move.
In a 2021 video on his “Dave’s Garage” YouTube channel, retired Microsoft system engineer Dave Plummer explained why he chose the 32GB partition cap. When he picked the limit “on a rainy Tuesday morning” in the mid-90s, he thought it would have an extremely short lifespan and would see an increase in the next revision. “I picked the number 32GB as the limit and went on with my day,” he said. “I didn’t start to regret that choice until SD cards got to the magic 32GB size many years later.”
Plummer went on to dispute the myth that Microsoft imposed the 32GB cap to push the adoption of the company’s NTFS format. He explained that NTFS was already widely adopted and that, to his knowledge, Microsoft never promoted it or made a dime from licensing it. Instead, he says FAT32’s artificial cap was more about preventing wasted space (especially with small files) than deploying any sinister corporate strategies.
If you really want to nerd out on ‘90s disk formats, Plummer’s three-year-old video goes into more detail about his arbitrary decision that — unbeknownst to him at the time — would last nearly 30 years.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/microsoft-boosts-windows-fat32s-partition-size-limit-after-nearly-three-decades-192022618.html?src=rss
The effort is expected to create over 2,000 US manufacturing jobs at Texas Instruments’ new plants and “thousands of indirect jobs” for construction, suppliers and supporting industries. TI says it expects to receive another $10 million to fund workforce development.
TI’s grant money will go towards three chip fabs already under construction in Texas and Utah. The plants will produce 300mm silicon wafer chips under the bill’s $2 billion minimum set aside for legacy chips. The CHIPS Act primarily focuses on cutting-edge silicon, like those increasingly used for AI. TI’s production will go towards less advanced processors for things like smartphones, appliances and national defense. GlobalFoundries was awarded $1.5 billion for legacy silicon production in February. With Friday’s awarding of funds for TI, the government has now met its minimum quota for legacy chips.
Bloombergnotes that China has recently boosted its investments in legacy chips. Along with creating US jobs, the CHIPS Act was designed to curtail China’s influence as silicon becomes more of an essential global resource. Other recipients include Intel ($8.5 billion), TSMC ($6.6 billion) and Samsung ($6.4 billion).
Texas Instruments said it will spend around $40 billion in Utah and Texas, including two more factories in Sherman, TX. However, those aren’t expected to be operational until after 2030. For the CHIPS Act, the Commerce Department prioritizes projects that can be completed by the decade’s end, leaving those delayed plants without federal funding.
The $280 billion CHIPS Act passed in 2022 with 64 votes in the Senate and 243 in the House. The bill included $39 billion in subsidies for domestic chip manufacturing, 25 percent tax credits for manufacturing costs and $13 billion for workforce training.
After the bill passed in 2022, Biden said it would “strengthen our national security by making us less dependent on foreign sources of semiconductors.” He noted that it included “guardrails to ensure that companies receiving tax payer dollars invest in America and that union workers are building new manufacturing plants across the country.”
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/texas-instruments-awarded-16-billion-in-chips-act-funding-for-domestic-silicon-production-180039388.html?src=rss
Google is expanding AI Overviews, the feature that summarizes answers to complex questions from the web and presents them at the top of traditional search results, to six more countries — India, Japan, Mexico, Indonesia, Brazil and the United Kingdom — from Thursday with support for local languages as well as English.
That’s less than three months after AI Overviews launched in the United States and promptly told people to eat rocks and put glue on their pizzas. Bringing them to millions more people begs the question: How do you prevent another glue pizza fiasco in a foreign country?
“It’s a challenging space,” Hema Budaraju, senior director of product management for Search at Google, told Engadget in an interview. “Understanding quality at the scale of the web across all these languages is a hard problem, and integrating LLMs (large language models) is not easy to do. Using AI to better understand languages is pretty critical.”
To prevent a glue pizza situation in, say, Hindi or Japanese, Google said it has done language-specific testing of AI Overviews as well as red-teaming, a technique used by the tech industry to stress-test how systems might behave under attack from bad actors. “We are focused on addressing potential issues and we are committed to listening and acting quickly,” Budaraju said. In May, Google put additional guardrails on AI Overviews after its outlandish responses, such as limiting the inclusion of satire and humor content and restricting the types of queries that triggered the feature to begin with.
In addition to expanding the feature to more countries, Google is also making one more big change to AI Overviews: it will now prominently display links to sources on the right-hand side of each AI-generated answer, making it easier for people to click through to the actual website where the answer came from. And for a small percentage of users, it will also add links directly within the text of AI Overviews. If this move is rolled out more broadly, it could allay concerns from publishers about losing traffic to AI that reads the internet for people and reduces the need to click through to actual web pages.
"This experiment has shown early positive results and we are able to drive more traffic with links directly in the text,” Budaraju said.
Users who opt in to Search Labs, the company’s platform for trying out upcoming features ahead of their general release also get to play with a couple of additional features — the ability to “save” a specific AI Overview for future reference, as well as an option to simplify the language of an AI-generated answer, something that Google previewed earlier this year.
Update, August 15 2024, 12:50 PM ET: This story has been updated to clarify that links within the text of AI Overviews are available for a small percentage of users, not just those signed up for Search Labs.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/google-brings-the-ai-feature-that-told-americans-to-eat-rocks-to-six-more-countries-160025221.html?src=rss
Several months after a hacking group claimed to be selling nearly 3 billion records stolen from a prominent data broker, much of the information appears to have been leaked on a forum. According to Bleeping Computer, the data dump includes 2.7 billion records of personal info for people in the US, such as names, Social Security Numbers, potential aliases and all physical addresses they are known to have lived at.
The data, which is unencrypted, is believed to have been obtained from a broker called National Public Data. It's said that the business assembles profiles for individuals by scraping information from public sources and then sells the data for the likes of background checks and looking up criminal records. (A proposed class-action suit was filed against National Public Data over the breach earlier this month.)
In April, hacking collective USDoD attempted to sell 2.9 billion records it claimed was stolen from the company and included personal data on everyone in the US, UK and Canada. The group was looking for $3.5 million for the whole 4TB database, but since then chunks of the data have been leaked by various entities.
Previous leaks included phone numbers and email addresses, but those reportedly weren't included in the latest and most comprehensive dump. As such, you won't be able to check whether your information has been included in this particular leak by punching your email address into Have I Been Pwned?
The data includes multiple records for many people, with one for each address they are known to have lived at. The dump comprises two text files that amount to a total of 277GB. It's not really possible for any independent body to confirm that the data includes records for every person in the US, but as Bleeping Computer points out, the breach is likely to include information on anyone who is living in the country.
The publication states that several people confirmed the information that the dump has on them and their family members (including some dead relatives) is accurate, but in other cases some SSNs were associated with the wrong individuals. Bleeping Computer posits that the information may have been stolen from an old backup as it doesn't include the current home address for the people whose details its reporters checked against the data.
In any case, it's worth taking some steps to protect yourself against any negative repercussions from the leak, such as fraud and identity theft. Be extra vigilant against scammers and phishing attacks that look to obtain access to your online accounts.
Keep an eye on credit reports to see if there has been any fraudulent activity on your accounts and inform credit bureaus Experian, Equifax and TransUnion if so. You can ask the bureaus to put a freeze on your credit files to stop anyone else opening a bank account, taking out a loan or obtaining a credit card under your name.
You can sign up for services that offer identity fraud protection and remove your personal information from the public web to reduce the chances that you'll be negatively impacted. However, such services often charge a fee.
Be sure to use two-factor authentication wherever possible (preferably with you obtaining codes from an authenticator app rather than SMS). And, as always, we highly recommend having a password manager, never reusing the same login credentials for different services and regularly changing the password on your most sensitive accounts.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/cybersecurity/hackers-may-have-leaked-the-social-security-numbers-of-every-american-150834276.html?src=rss
TikTok is rolling out some direct message updates, including "highly requested" group chats. Owner ByteDance notes that group chats aren't available everywhere just yet, but those who do have access to the feature will be able to chat in groups of up to 32 people.
You can start a group chat in a couple of ways. From your inbox, you can tap the Chat button at the top of the screen or a name in the messages list and then the "More options..." button. You can then choose which friends you want to include and then tap "Start group chat."
The other method to start a group chat is by sharing a post with a bunch of people. When you have a video you'd like to chat about with more than one person, tap the Share button, then select "Create group chat." Pick the friends you want to send it to, add a message if you like, then start chatting with your buds about the video.
You can accept any group chat invites you receive via your inbox. You can only invite people you mutually follow to a group chat. As with regular DMs, group chats are not available to users aged between 13 and 15. As for 16- and 17-year-olds, they'll only be able to join a group chat if they have at least one mutual friend in there. If they create a group chat, they'll have to review and manually approve anyone new who joins.
TikTok is also bringing stickers to DMs. That gives folks another way to engage with each other visually. You can create and upload custom stickers for anyone to use.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/tiktok-is-finally-rolling-out-group-chats-for-up-to-32-people-180056720.html?src=rss
Amazon has struck new deals that will give people the option to shop without having to leave TikTok or Pinterest, according to The Information. Users will be able to purchase items from the Amazon ads the pop up within either platform. Typically, clicking on an ad would take a buyer to Amazon's interface, but this deal will let them check out from within TikTok or Pinterest using the payment method and shipping address saved on their Amazon account.
The Information says it has seen screenshots of the ads, which show more information than usual, including items' prices, their estimated shipping times and whether they're eligible for Prime shipment. Take note that users will have to link their social media accounts to their Amazon profiles first before they're able to seamlessly shop from within their apps. "In-app shopping with Amazon is available for select products advertised on TikTok and sold by Amazon or by independent sellers in Amazon's store," a company spokesperson confirmed to the publication.
Amazon's new deals reportedly expand on its previous agreements with Meta and Snap under an initiative that's internally called Project Handshake. Similar to these newer arrangements, those previous deals made it possible for Snapchat and Instagram users to purchase items from within their apps. As The Information notes, though, it's not quite clear why TikTok has entered the agreement when it's been trying to grow its own shopping platform. TikTok brought live shopping to North America in 2022, and it added more relevant features, such as a dedicated shop tab and live stream shop buttons, last year. In addition to the fact that Amazon shopping could undercut sales on its own platform, TikTok could also end up getting banned in the US unless ByteDance, its parent company based in China, agrees to sell it.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apps/tiktok-and-pinterest-team-up-with-amazon-for-in-app-shopping-140004136.html?src=rss
Microsoft is teaming up with secretive data analytics company Palantir, which has been accused of (among other wretched acts) enabling the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to operate “as a domestic surveillance agency.” Bloombergreports that Palantir will integrate its products with Microsoft’s government cloud tools, including the Azure OpenAI service, “in a bid to sell software” to US defense agencies. Oh, joy.
The pair will reportedly focus on products for US defense workers to handle logistics, contracting and action planning. But given the secretive nature of Palantir’s work, those generic and seemingly non-threatening terms don’t necessarily say much.
Palantir’s software has been used to track and suppress dissent. The company was founded by Peter Thiel, who supports and funds far-right causes and has a political philosophy his biographer described as “bordering on fascism.” In Thiel’s Stanford classes and his book Zero to One, the Silicon Valley billionaire gushed over how much better companies are run than governments because they have a single decision-maker. “A dictator, basically,” Thiel’s biographer toldTime in 2021.
Thiel also wrote the words, “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.”
In 2018, Palantir claimed in The New York Times that it doesn’t work with ICE’s deportation squad, Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO). This contradicted a report from The Intercept revealing a 2016 Homeland Security disclosure showing ERO used Palantir’s software to “gather information for both criminal and civil cases against immigrants.”
In 2020, Amnesty International warned about Palantir, “We could close our eyes and pretend that contrary to all the evidence, Palantir is a rights-respecting company or we can call this façade what it is: another company placing profit over people, no matter the human cost.”
Bloomberg reports that Palantir’s newest AI software requires a large language model. Now, in classified government environments, Palantir will combine its powers with those of Microsoft’s Azure OpenAI, which includes GPT-4o, GPT-4 Turbo with Vision, GPT-4, GPT-3.5 and more.
What could possibly go wrong?
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/microsoft-and-palantir-partner-to-sell-ai-to-government-agencies-171748773.html?src=rss
X, whose top executives have long railed against advertisers who fled the platform amid concerns over hate speech, is now also suing them. X has filed an antitrust lawsuit against the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) and several of its members, including Mars, Unilever and CVS Health, CEO Linda Yaccarino said in an open letter shared on X.
According to Yaccarino, the group engaged in an “illegal boycott” of X. “The consequence - perhaps the intent - of this boycott was to seek to deprive X’s users, be they sports fans, gamers, journalists, activists, parents or political and corporate leaders, of the Global Town Square,” she wrote.
As Axiospoints out, GARM is part of the World Federation of Advertisers (which is also named in the lawsuit) and was created to come up with brand safety guidelines for online advertisers. The lawsuit alleges that the group “conspired, along with dozens of non-defendant co-conspirators, to collectively withhold billions of dollars in advertising revenue from Twitter.”
GARM didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
It’s not the first time X has filed a lawsuit against a group that Musk has accused of stoking an advertiser exodus from the platform. The company previously sued the Center Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), an anti-hate group that published research showing that X failed to take down hateful posts shared by premium subscribers. That lawsuit was later dismissed by a judge who said X was trying to “punish” the group for sharing unflattering research. X is also suing Media Matters, a watchdog group that published a report showing X had displayed ads alongside anti-Semitic content.
“We tried being nice for 2 years and got nothing but empty words,” Musk, who nearly a year ago publicly told advertisers to “go fuck themselves," wrote in a post on Tuesday. “Now, it is war.”
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/x-sues-advertisers-for-illegal-boycott-of-the-platform-173100888.html?src=rss
Samsung’s Galaxy Z Flip series has always tempted me more than the Z Fold. Maybe it’s the flip-phone nostalgia taking hold; maybe it's the fact that I don’t want to watch video inside a square; maybe it's simply the Z Flip’s more palatable price.
The Z Flip series has launched in tandem with the Z Fold for several years, but often with specifications that put it around the bottom of each flagship family, including the traditionally shaped Galaxy S family. That changes this year, with Samsung addressing some of the Z Flip 5’s biggest shortcomings: battery life and middling cameras.
It’s a good thing too. As we mentioned in our Z Fold 6 review, there’s more foldable competition than ever. In fact, in the face of Motorola’s most recent foldables, while Samsung is doing something, is it enough?
Design and display
Image by Mat Smith/Engadget
You’d be hard-pressed to tell the difference, visually, between the Z Flip 6 and last year’s Z Flip 5, with only some minor design changes. The upgraded camera array now has a metal edge around each lens, and the sides are flatter this year, in line with the design of other 2024 Galaxy devices. There’s alo a largely imperceptible reduction in thickness when the device is closed too, likely down to a newer hinge design. Compared to my year-old Z Flip 5, the crease seems once again even less visible this year.
While and display sizes and resolutions remain the same, the main screen on the Z Flip 6 tops out at 2,600 nits, compared to the 1,750 nits of the Z Flip 5's display. Samsung claims this is its brightest foldable display yet, and it’s more than enough to handle temperamental summer weather here in the UK. It’s another crisp, smooth, beautiful flexible AMOLED.
Image by Mat Smith/Engadget
The Z Flip 6’s cover display is the same size, brightness and resolution as its predecessor. Does it look as good as the Moto Razr 50 Ultra? In my opinion, no, but there’s enough screen space to read notifications, frame your photos and even watch videos.
Also, if you’re worried about screen toughness on your new foldable, Samsung’s new Z Assurance program is worth noting. It offers a free one-time replacement of Samsung’s factory-installed screen protector on the Z Flip 6 and even a one-time discount on screen replacement if the very worst should happen.
When it comes to utility, despite more widget support (and space for more of them), the Z Flip 6’s Flex Window doesn’t do enough. Notifications are still a swipe away, and the expansive screen (introduced last year) offers enough space to take selfies with the device without unfolding it.
Samsung’s software innovations, like AI-powered translation, take advantage of the dual-screen Z Flip 6, showing both parties what’s being said. It’s generally pretty accurate, and combining audio and text should help reduce misunderstandings and mistranslations.
Galaxy AI powers new photography features tied to the cover display, too. AutoZoom takes at least some of the guesswork out of framing when setting up the Z Flip to take a timed photo or record video without direct supervision, and it works well, cramming in friends or cropping your surroundings to focus in on your group. Editing and modifying the Flex Window is still unnecessarily complicated. Other features are buried away in the Labs section of settings, and there are not enough widgets for a device on its fifth iteration. (Samsung never launched a Z Flip 2.)
But, when other flip foldables offer a truncated version of your home screen, and can (with mixed success) run most apps, some new widgets aren’t enough. Fortunately, Samsung’s Labs settings can run a handful of apps on the cover screen, including YouTube, Netflix, WhatsApp, and Google Maps. It’s a start, but if the cover display can handle streaming video, surely I could get a Kindle reading app, or a stripped-down version of Chrome. I wish Samsung had pushed it further. (There are some tools and apps to work around this, many Galaxy Z Flip users swear by Good Lock, but I don’t want to have to work around this constraint.)
The Z Flip 6 also gets a RAM upgrade this year, up to 12 gigs from 8GB last year. Like the Galaxy Z Fold 6 and S24, it has a powerful Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processor, and I didn’t notice any performance issues during testing.
Cameras
Image by Mat Smith/Engadget
The primary camera sensor on this year’s Z Flip has finally been upgraded to 50 megapixels, putting it on par with this year’s Galaxy S24. It’s better, sure, but doesn’t quite match the capabilities of leading camera phones like the Pixel 8 Pro, S24 Ultra, or iPhone 15 Pro.
Pitting the Z Flip 6 against the Z Flip 5, I was surprised how often the images pretty much matched each other. Predictably, if I chose to shoot on the Z Flip 6 in full 50-megapixel stills, that offered more fidelity than the Z Flip 5. If I shot in 12MP on the Z Flip 6, there often was little difference between the two foldables. The newer phone was less prone to blowing out an entire image when everything was brightly lit. At the same time, it’s more reliable in low-light situations, especially when you choose the 12MP setting, letting the phone process those extra pixels for a more detailed shot. The Z Flip 6 seemed more capable of pulling out finer detail, whether that was blades of grass or the soft outline of this patient dog.
A bigger benefit of that bigger sensor is that the Z Flip 6 can zoom in by cropping the 50MP image to a 12MP one. You can capture a nice image at 2x and even 4x zoom, without a dedicated telephoto lens.
Unsurprisingly, thanks to Samsung’s processing, the higher-resolution sensors in the Z Flip 6 perform better in low light than last year’s model. Samsung’s imaging processing occasionally got a little too aggressive, with clothing and skylines often marred by crinkly lines and artifacts. It’s not really a leap beyond the Z Flip 5’s cameras, but it wasn’t a terrible imaging setup in the first place. This form factor ensures that you’re using these high-resolution cameras for any selfies or video calls, meaning nothing else comes close in quality.
Galaxy AI features come to foldables
Samsung’s Galaxy AI software lands on its foldables this year, and the company continues adding and refining. Alongside Chat Assist for writing texts and emails, the fantastic Google Circle to Search is here, making it easier to investigate practically anything you’re looking at on your phone. It’s the camera features I’ve been most impressed with – and were pretty much the only Galaxy AI tricks I used with any regularity.
Samsung’s improved AI photo editing tools are easy to use and right where you need them to be. Once you open a photo, you tap on Samsung’s AI sparkle icon, and select objects by circling them. You can then delete your selection or move it into a better position and, with another tap of the AI button, let Samsung’s AI fill in the gaps.
In complete contrast to the laborious widget menus and settings for the front display, it’s so easy to use and does what you want it to. After your AI nips and tucks, there’s a ‘view original’ button to compare your images.
Then there’s Sketch to image, a delightful distraction. Making a few cursory lines, or attempt to draw something specific, and Galaxy AI will generate an object and apply it to your photo, often in a photo-realistic way. Sometimes, it even nails it.
Image by Mat Smith/Engadget
Galaxy phones will add an “AI-generated content” watermark, but the bigger signs of AI objects and editing were scale (hi, giant goose), blurry outlines or the rules of physics.
I was surprised at how capable Sasmung’s image generation was. Sketching a ghost (successfully!) behind a mesh barrier generated my spook behind the barrier. It would also apply appropriate light shading and shadows for some uncannily accurate results. That dog picture earlier? There was no ball there. Also: multiple photorealistic white hats. It was a shame I couldn’t change the color of these items, or offer some text-based guidance to recognize my scribbles. It’s a gimmick, sure, but it’s a good one. I’m still using it a lot, days later. It’s a lot of fun.
Not all the AI features are that successful: Portrait Studio will automatically detect images of people and offer multiple AI-generated drawings/ sketches and 3D renders, all of which make me look like all the other white male tech journalists who wear glasses. Which is harsh, but fair.
Battery life: Better, not great
The Z Flip 6 packs a bigger 4,000mAh battery, and the Z Flip series’ biggest weakness has been lasting an entire day, especially under heavy use. The Z Flip 6 scrapes through here. Using it as my main phone, it always lasted through a day of heavy use, with around 10 percent left at around 10PM. I would still keep a charger on me, anxious that I might not make it through an evening.
On our video rundown test, it lasted over 13 hours of playback on the main screen. Sadly, the frustratingly slow charge speed is still here. The Z Flip 6 can charge up to 25W, and after years of higher charge rates, I felt it took its time to recharge. From empty, it took two hours to top up fully. For comparison, the S24 Ultra can charge at up to 45W, and the Pixel 8 Pro can charge at up to 40W. I think this would also be less of an issue if I weren’t worried about the Z Flip 6’s battery going the distance.
Foldables have typically taken lower power input over the years, likely due to how battery cells are arranged inside a foldable device. However, if the 2024 Motorola Razr+ can handle 45W, why can’t the Z Flip 6?
Wrap-up
Image by Mat Smith/Engadget
Samsung’s Z Flip series remains the most realistic flagship option when pitted against the smartphone slab status quo. The latest model is satisfying to use and satisfying to fold away and slip into a pocket. The Z Flip 6 also has better cameras, improved battery life and comes with all the Galaxy AI features that are shaping up to be Samsung’s smartphone USP.
Perhaps this focus on AI meant that the cover display has barely evolved since last year’s Z Flip — especially frustrating when the Z Flip 6 costs $100 more than its predecessor. While you can tap into experimental features to enable YouTube playback and Google Maps access, it’s a little underwhelming, especially when rivals like Motorola have proved that more is possible on a foldable’s secondary screen.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/samsung-galaxy-flip-6-review-a-slightly-better-foldable-aimed-at-everyone-120041523.html?src=rss
Samsung’s Galaxy Z Flip series has always tempted me more than the Z Fold. Maybe it’s the flip-phone nostalgia taking hold; maybe it's the fact that I don’t want to watch video inside a square; maybe it's simply the Z Flip’s more palatable price.
The Z Flip series has launched in tandem with the Z Fold for several years, but often with specifications that put it around the bottom of each flagship family, including the traditionally shaped Galaxy S family. That changes this year, with Samsung addressing some of the Z Flip 5’s biggest shortcomings: battery life and middling cameras.
It’s a good thing too. As we mentioned in our Z Fold 6 review, there’s more foldable competition than ever. In fact, in the face of Motorola’s most recent foldables, while Samsung is doing something, is it enough?
Design and display
Image by Mat Smith/Engadget
You’d be hard-pressed to tell the difference, visually, between the Z Flip 6 and last year’s Z Flip 5, with only some minor design changes. The upgraded camera array now has a metal edge around each lens, and the sides are flatter this year, in line with the design of other 2024 Galaxy devices. There’s alo a largely imperceptible reduction in thickness when the device is closed too, likely down to a newer hinge design. Compared to my year-old Z Flip 5, the crease seems once again even less visible this year.
While and display sizes and resolutions remain the same, the main screen on the Z Flip 6 tops out at 2,600 nits, compared to the 1,750 nits of the Z Flip 5's display. Samsung claims this is its brightest foldable display yet, and it’s more than enough to handle temperamental summer weather here in the UK. It’s another crisp, smooth, beautiful flexible AMOLED.
Image by Mat Smith/Engadget
The Z Flip 6’s cover display is the same size, brightness and resolution as its predecessor. Does it look as good as the Moto Razr 50 Ultra? In my opinion, no, but there’s enough screen space to read notifications, frame your photos and even watch videos.
Also, if you’re worried about screen toughness on your new foldable, Samsung’s new Z Assurance program is worth noting. It offers a free one-time replacement of Samsung’s factory-installed screen protector on the Z Flip 6 and even a one-time discount on screen replacement if the very worst should happen.
When it comes to utility, despite more widget support (and space for more of them), the Z Flip 6’s Flex Window doesn’t do enough. Notifications are still a swipe away, and the expansive screen (introduced last year) offers enough space to take selfies with the device without unfolding it.
Samsung’s software innovations, like AI-powered translation, take advantage of the dual-screen Z Flip 6, showing both parties what’s being said. It’s generally pretty accurate, and combining audio and text should help reduce misunderstandings and mistranslations.
Galaxy AI powers new photography features tied to the cover display, too. AutoZoom takes at least some of the guesswork out of framing when setting up the Z Flip to take a timed photo or record video without direct supervision, and it works well, cramming in friends or cropping your surroundings to focus in on your group. Editing and modifying the Flex Window is still unnecessarily complicated. Other features are buried away in the Labs section of settings, and there are not enough widgets for a device on its fifth iteration. (Samsung never launched a Z Flip 2.)
But, when other flip foldables offer a truncated version of your home screen, and can (with mixed success) run most apps, some new widgets aren’t enough. Fortunately, Samsung’s Labs settings can run a handful of apps on the cover screen, including YouTube, Netflix, WhatsApp, and Google Maps. It’s a start, but if the cover display can handle streaming video, surely I could get a Kindle reading app, or a stripped-down version of Chrome. I wish Samsung had pushed it further. (There are some tools and apps to work around this, many Galaxy Z Flip users swear by Good Lock, but I don’t want to have to work around this constraint.)
The Z Flip 6 also gets a RAM upgrade this year, up to 12 gigs from 8GB last year. Like the Galaxy Z Fold 6 and S24, it has a powerful Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 processor, and I didn’t notice any performance issues during testing.
Cameras
Image by Mat Smith/Engadget
The primary camera sensor on this year’s Z Flip has finally been upgraded to 50 megapixels, putting it on par with this year’s Galaxy S24. It’s better, sure, but doesn’t quite match the capabilities of leading camera phones like the Pixel 8 Pro, S24 Ultra, or iPhone 15 Pro.
Pitting the Z Flip 6 against the Z Flip 5, I was surprised how often the images pretty much matched each other. Predictably, if I chose to shoot on the Z Flip 6 in full 50-megapixel stills, that offered more fidelity than the Z Flip 5. If I shot in 12MP on the Z Flip 6, there often was little difference between the two foldables. The newer phone was less prone to blowing out an entire image when everything was brightly lit. At the same time, it’s more reliable in low-light situations, especially when you choose the 12MP setting, letting the phone process those extra pixels for a more detailed shot. The Z Flip 6 seemed more capable of pulling out finer detail, whether that was blades of grass or the soft outline of this patient dog.
A bigger benefit of that bigger sensor is that the Z Flip 6 can zoom in by cropping the 50MP image to a 12MP one. You can capture a nice image at 2x and even 4x zoom, without a dedicated telephoto lens.
Unsurprisingly, thanks to Samsung’s processing, the higher-resolution sensors in the Z Flip 6 perform better in low light than last year’s model. Samsung’s imaging processing occasionally got a little too aggressive, with clothing and skylines often marred by crinkly lines and artifacts. It’s not really a leap beyond the Z Flip 5’s cameras, but it wasn’t a terrible imaging setup in the first place. This form factor ensures that you’re using these high-resolution cameras for any selfies or video calls, meaning nothing else comes close in quality.
Galaxy AI features come to foldables
Samsung’s Galaxy AI software lands on its foldables this year, and the company continues adding and refining. Alongside Chat Assist for writing texts and emails, the fantastic Google Circle to Search is here, making it easier to investigate practically anything you’re looking at on your phone. It’s the camera features I’ve been most impressed with – and were pretty much the only Galaxy AI tricks I used with any regularity.
Samsung’s improved AI photo editing tools are easy to use and right where you need them to be. Once you open a photo, you tap on Samsung’s AI sparkle icon, and select objects by circling them. You can then delete your selection or move it into a better position and, with another tap of the AI button, let Samsung’s AI fill in the gaps.
In complete contrast to the laborious widget menus and settings for the front display, it’s so easy to use and does what you want it to. After your AI nips and tucks, there’s a ‘view original’ button to compare your images.
Then there’s Sketch to image, a delightful distraction. Making a few cursory lines, or attempt to draw something specific, and Galaxy AI will generate an object and apply it to your photo, often in a photo-realistic way. Sometimes, it even nails it.
Image by Mat Smith/Engadget
Galaxy phones will add an “AI-generated content” watermark, but the bigger signs of AI objects and editing were scale (hi, giant goose), blurry outlines or the rules of physics.
I was surprised at how capable Sasmung’s image generation was. Sketching a ghost (successfully!) behind a mesh barrier generated my spook behind the barrier. It would also apply appropriate light shading and shadows for some uncannily accurate results. That dog picture earlier? There was no ball there. Also: multiple photorealistic white hats. It was a shame I couldn’t change the color of these items, or offer some text-based guidance to recognize my scribbles. It’s a gimmick, sure, but it’s a good one. I’m still using it a lot, days later. It’s a lot of fun.
Not all the AI features are that successful: Portrait Studio will automatically detect images of people and offer multiple AI-generated drawings/ sketches and 3D renders, all of which make me look like all the other white male tech journalists who wear glasses. Which is harsh, but fair.
Battery life: Better, not great
The Z Flip 6 packs a bigger 4,000mAh battery, and the Z Flip series’ biggest weakness has been lasting an entire day, especially under heavy use. The Z Flip 6 scrapes through here. Using it as my main phone, it always lasted through a day of heavy use, with around 10 percent left at around 10PM. I would still keep a charger on me, anxious that I might not make it through an evening.
On our video rundown test, it lasted over 13 hours of playback on the main screen. Sadly, the frustratingly slow charge speed is still here. The Z Flip 6 can charge up to 25W, and after years of higher charge rates, I felt it took its time to recharge. From empty, it took two hours to top up fully. For comparison, the S24 Ultra can charge at up to 45W, and the Pixel 8 Pro can charge at up to 40W. I think this would also be less of an issue if I weren’t worried about the Z Flip 6’s battery going the distance.
Foldables have typically taken lower power input over the years, likely due to how battery cells are arranged inside a foldable device. However, if the 2024 Motorola Razr+ can handle 45W, why can’t the Z Flip 6?
Wrap-up
Image by Mat Smith/Engadget
Samsung’s Z Flip series remains the most realistic flagship option when pitted against the smartphone slab status quo. The latest model is satisfying to use and satisfying to fold away and slip into a pocket. The Z Flip 6 also has better cameras, improved battery life and comes with all the Galaxy AI features that are shaping up to be Samsung’s smartphone USP.
Perhaps this focus on AI meant that the cover display has barely evolved since last year’s Z Flip — especially frustrating when the Z Flip 6 costs $100 more than its predecessor. While you can tap into experimental features to enable YouTube playback and Google Maps access, it’s a little underwhelming, especially when rivals like Motorola have proved that more is possible on a foldable’s secondary screen.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/samsung-galaxy-flip-6-review-a-slightly-better-foldable-aimed-at-everyone-120041523.html?src=rss