I Bought the Galaxy Z Fold7 in Toronto — and My South London Mum Still Thinks It's Witchcraft
A Xennial from SE London, now freezing in Canada, reckons Samsung's thinnest foldable yet might actually justify the price tag. Might.
Galaxy Z Fold7 fully open, 8-inch display
Right. Let me set the scene for you. It's a Wednesday morning in Toronto. The kind of cold that would make a Brixton Market trader genuinely question their life choices. I'm standing outside a Best Buy on Front Street — because there's no Samsung Experience Store near me yet, and the TTC wasn't about to get me across town any faster than the 345 bus used to get me out of Stockwell — clutching a £1,800-equivalent receipt and feeling every bit like a man who grew up watching adults queue for the Sega Mega Drive at Woolworths on Croydon High Street. Some compulsions never die. They just get more expensive
The phone in question is the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold7. Announced at Galaxy Unpacked in New York back in July 2025 — and yes, I'm reviewing it slightly after the hype cycle, because that's peak Xennial energy: we're not early adopters, we're not late adopters, we're "let me read seven articles, sleep on it for three months, and then panic-buy" adopters.
I've been a Samsung person since roughly the Galaxy S4 era. Back home, in the days when New Cross Gate still had three chicken shops and a Blockbuster Video, I used to lord my Samsung over mates who'd gone iPhone. Here in Toronto, I'm still doing it — just with a far superior health plan and a Tim Hortons addiction I'm not ready to confront.
The Design: Thinner Than My Patience on the TTC Blue Line
Here's the thing Samsung had to fix with the Fold series: it always felt like you were carrying a small paperback novel in your pocket. A chonky, glassy paperback. The Fold7 is 4.2mm thin when unfolded. That's thinner than some of the credit card debt I accumulated in my twenties back in Peckham. Folded, it's a perfectly manageable 8.9mm — which, critically, fits in the breast pocket of my Canada Goose jacket without making me look like I've shoplifted a coaster.
It weighs 215 grams. That's 24 grams lighter than its predecessor, and lighter than a Galaxy S25 Ultra. For context: that's roughly the weight of a Jammie Dodger, which is the only unit of measurement that has ever made sense to me personally.
"It weighs less than a Jammie Dodger more than the last model. In this economy, that is genuinely innovation."
Me., reviewing tech from a country where the milk comes in bags
The Screen: A Whole Cinema in Your Pocket
Open this phone up and you're looking at an 8-inch Dynamic AMOLED 2X display — 11% larger than the Fold6 — with up to 2,600 nits of peak brightness. That last bit matters in Toronto summers, where we do actually get sunshine for a few precious weeks before the cold comes back to humble us. I've used this outside in August and read it clearly. Unprecedented. Revolutionary. The kind of thing that makes me feel like I've left the dark ages, which is ironic because I once lived in a flat above a pie-and-mash shop with one small window and a landlord called David.
Three-app multitasking on the main screen is genuinely brilliant for the way I work. I'm a web and digital professional by trade — spending my days in content management systems and spreadsheets that would make a normal person weep — and having my Outlook, my Confluence, and my Slack all open at once without squinting has been revelatory. My colleagues still think I'm more organised than I am. The phone is carrying me. We don't discuss this.
The Camera: 200 Megapixels of Pure Showing Off
I need you to sit with this for a second. 200 megapixels. On a foldable phone. Samsung have essentially transplanted the Galaxy S25 Ultra's main sensor into this thing, which means I can take a photo of the CN Tower from the Ferry Terminal and zoom into a stranger's coffee cup label with enough detail to read it. This is either the future of photography or a GDPR nightmare — I genuinely cannot decide which.
The 12MP ultra-wide has autofocus now, which means macro shots are actually usable. I've been photographing my jerk chicken attempts with a level of professionalism that the dish doesn't entirely warrant yet. The Galaxy AI photo tools — Photo Assist, Generative Edit, Side-by-Side Editing — are legitimately good. Not "Instagram filter" good. Actually, intelligently good. Though I will say: the AI's idea of "filling in the background" on one of my shots was a little too generous. It gave me a skyline that was half Toronto, half somewhere suspiciously Mancunian. I respect the creativity.
Galaxy Z Fold7 specs: display, camera, battery
Galaxy Z Fold7 folded upright, narrow edge
Ready to Fold? Grab the Galaxy Z Fold7
Best Canadian pricing updated daily. Trade-in deals can cut the cost significantly — check the Samsung Canada page before you go anywhere else
Galaxy AI: Smarter Than My Oyster Card Ever Was
The Galaxy AI suite on One UI 8 is extensive. Now, the brief on the cover screen gives you a glanceable summary of your day without opening the phone — calendar, weather, and reminders. In practice, this means I now actually know what time my meetings are without having to do the shameful "let me check my phone for the fourteenth time" dance. Transformative.
Audio Eraser is the one I use most unexpectedly. Toronto is loud in ways South London prepared me for — the construction, the road noise, the man on the Yonge-University line who thinks his speakerphone call is everyone's business — and being able to strip background noise from video recordings in one tap is something I now cannot imagine living without. My video messages to people back in Tooting have never sounded cleaner. They think I've matured. I've just got a better phone.
Galaxy Z Fold7 opening, screen partially visible
The Verdict: Worth It? Allow It.
Look, let's be real with each other. This phone costs the equivalent of roughly seventeen trips to the Mandarin buffet, or four months of Toronto rent if you live somewhere with functioning windows. It is, by any reasonable metric, an absurd amount of money for a portable rectangle that folds.
But here's what I keep coming back to: I grew up in an era of Nokia 3310s and watching mates download a single MP3 over a 56k modem for forty-five minutes. The fact that I can hold a device thinner than a pencil, unfold it into a mini-tablet, take a 200-megapixel photograph, edit it with AI tools, multitask across three apps, and video call my mum in Tooting — who will hold the phone sideways and speak directly into the back of it regardless of how many times I correct her — is, frankly, magic. She'd agree. She just calls it witchcraft and refuses to engage further.
The Galaxy Z Fold7 is the best foldable Samsung have made. It is genuinely better in every meaningful way: thinner, lighter, sharper camera, bigger screen, smarter AI, more durable hinge. If you've been on the fence about foldables, this is the one that tips the argument. And if you're a Xennial like me, raised on Ceefax and Choice FM, who now inexplicably finds themselves tax-filing in CAD — consider it a reward for surviving the journey.
Highly recommended. 9/10. Would fold again.
