Best Foldable Phones in 2026: Book Folds, Flip Phones and Budget Options Ranked

Foldables stopped being a novelty a while ago. Creases are less visible, hinges are rated for hundreds of thousands of folds, and prices — while still steep — have started coming down at the entry end of the category. This list covers both book-style folds (a phone that opens into a small tablet) and flip phones (a phone that folds in half to shrink its footprint), because they solve genuinely different problems and shouldn't be ranked against each other as if they were competing for the same buyer.

How We Rank These

Book-folds and flips are ranked separately in spirit, even though they appear on one combined list — we've ordered by overall quality within each phone's own category rather than forcing a flip phone to compete on inner-display specs it was never designed to have. As with our camera phone rankings, availability doesn't affect a phone's position here, but we tell you clearly, every time, exactly where you can and can't actually buy one.

1. Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7

The Galaxy Z Fold 7 is the foldable that finally feels fully resolved rather than a work in progress. Tom's Guide calls it directly "the first foldable phone I'd actually buy," specifically because it's thin and light enough to carry like a regular phone day to day while still opening into an 8-inch tablet-sized display — Tom's Guide measured it lighter than the iPhone 16 Pro Max and thinner than the Galaxy S25 Ultra when unfolded, despite driving two separate OLED panels. The inner crease has practically disappeared, described by PhoneArena as "pretty much flat, for all intents and purposes" thanks to a new, stronger ultra-thin glass layer, and this is the first Fold to inherit the full 200MP main sensor from the Galaxy S25 Ultra, closing a camera gap that's dogged the line for years — PhoneArena's own camera scoring puts it well ahead of prior Fold cameras across wide, video, and selfie categories. One important, real correction worth being direct about: this is not a phone for anyone who relied on the S Pen on a previous Z Fold — Digital Camera World and Droid Life both confirm Samsung dropped stylus support entirely this generation, the first Z Fold in years to do so, with no physical digitizer layer left in the display to add it back. It's expensive, and battery capacity didn't move at all — still the same 4,400mAh cell and 25W charging as its predecessor, a real, acknowledged limitation Digital Camera World says "comfortably delivers a full day now" rather than a genuine endurance result — but as an all-round package nothing beats it.

2. Google Pixel 10 Pro Fold

The Pixel 10 Pro Fold pairs a similarly minimal crease with what's simply the best camera system on any foldable — Pokde's testing calls it genuinely the best the reviewer has used on any folding phone, and Tom's Guide's own head-to-head against the Galaxy Z Fold 7 found they actually preferred several of the Pixel's shots despite its lower 48MP resolution against the Fold 7's 200MP sensor. Battery life is a genuine, measured standout too — Tom's Guide's controlled web-surfing test recorded 12 hours 16 minutes over 5G, meaningfully ahead of the Z Fold 7's 10 hours 44 minutes in the identical test — and this is the first foldable with proper IP68 dust resistance, not just splash protection, a real differentiator HomeTechHacker's hands-on found paired with a noticeably stronger, more reassuring hinge than the previous Pixel Fold generation. Gemini's AI features feel genuinely built for the bigger canvas rather than stretched to fit it — Pokde specifically credits Magic Cue and Gemini Live with real utility rather than marketing theatre. The honest trade-off: Thurrott's four-month review is candid the crease remains visible almost all the time unless you hold the phone at just the right angle, and the added durability comes with real thickness and weight costs versus the Z Fold 7 — this isn't the slimmest option on this list, and reaching the fastest charging speed requires a separate 30W PPS charger not included in the box.

3. Huawei Mate X6

The Mate X6 is thinner than either phone above it — 4.6mm unfolded, 9.85mm folded, a genuine engineering achievement Huawei has led on for several generations running, predating similar thinness pushes from Samsung and Honor — and pairs that with a genuine 4x optical periscope telephoto, hardware most book-style foldables skip entirely to save space, giving owners meaningfully more photographic versatility than a typical foldable buyer gets. The Kirin 9020 chip inside, Huawei's own in-house silicon developed under continued sanctions pressure, is a genuine and significant engineering accomplishment in its own right, even though it still trails Qualcomm's and Apple's most current silicon in raw compute terms. The catch is availability, and it runs deeper than just where you can buy one: Huawei phones aren't officially sold in the US, UK, Canada, or Australia, and the Mate X6 ships without Google Mobile Services at all — no Google Play Store, Gmail, or Maps pre-installed — a direct, structural consequence of the same US export restrictions that keep it out of American and UK retail entirely. So this is a phone for buyers in Europe, the Middle East, or Asia who are comfortable navigating that gap, or those willing to import with no local warranty and no straightforward Google-services workaround.

4. Vivo X Fold5

The X Fold5 is, on paper, the most impressive engineering on this entire list — 4.3mm unfolded, 217g, the thinnest and lightest book-fold anywhere, verified independently by Notebookcheck as barely thicker than an iPhone 16 Pro Max or Galaxy S25 Ultra when folded despite being a foldable, and genuinely lighter than both. GSMArena's lab testing confirmed the 6,000mAh silicon-carbon cell — split across two cells for better weight distribution — as the largest in any global foldable, with BusinessToday's real-world testing finding it consistently ending most days with 25-30% remaining even under heavy screen-on use, backed by genuinely fast charging: 38% in 15 minutes and a full charge in around 46 minutes on the included 90W charger. Android Central's review is unambiguous it's the best foldable of 2025, provided you're in a country where vivo actually sells it. The honest trade-offs: Notebookcheck's testing specifically flags the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3's heat dissipation as raising "a few eyebrows" — a byproduct of a chip that's now a generation behind the Snapdragon 8 Elite found in rivals like the Z Fold 7 — and BusinessToday found Funtouch OS still has "some polish issues." It just isn't sold in the US, UK, or EU at all, officially available only in India and a handful of Asian markets. If you're in one of those regions, it's an easy recommendation; everyone else would be importing.

5. Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 7

Moving to flip phones: the Galaxy Z Flip 7 remains the benchmark. Tom's Guide's review is unambiguous Samsung is finally back on top among flip foldables, specifically crediting the redesigned FlexWindow — Engadget's testing confirms the cover display grew from 3.4 to 4.1 inches with the thinnest bezel yet on any Samsung smartphone display, at just 1.25mm, achieved by applying a waterproof coating beneath the AMOLED panel. Battery capacity grew to a genuine record for the line too, at 4,300mAh, and Samsung DeX arrives on a Flip for the first time, a real productivity addition letting the phone connect to an external display. The honest, consistently-flagged trade-off across every review: the camera system remains dated, with How-To Geek finding it hard to go back to real optical zoom after the Flip 7's 2x digital-crop mode, and charging speed hasn't moved — still capped at 25W wired and 15W wireless despite the larger battery. Worth checking before buying: Tom's Guide's own spec sheet notes the UK/global unit ships with an Exynos 2500 chipset while other markets get Snapdragon silicon, so performance can vary by region. It's the flip phone to buy if you're not sure which flip phone to buy.

6. Motorola Razr Ultra (2025)

Motorola's Razr Ultra takes a different approach to the flip formula — the first flip phone with genuine flagship silicon, a Snapdragon 8 Elite chip that PhoneArena confirms makes it the fastest clamshell foldable on the market, beating Samsung's Z Flip on pure performance. The cover-screen experience is a real, independently verified advantage too: PhoneArena's testing found it a much superior experience overall to Samsung's rival flips, and the phone can record video at up to 4K60 using the cover screen as a viewfinder — a genuine step up from the Galaxy Z Flip6's 1080p-only closed-screen recording limit. 68W wired charging delivers a full charge in around 40 minutes, and the inner display's 165Hz refresh rate paired with Dolby Vision on both panels is a genuinely rare combination in a foldable this compact — plus unique wood and Alcantara finish options most rival flip phones don't offer at all. The honest trade-offs: camera quality, while genuinely improved, still isn't phenomenal per PhoneArena's own assessment, and price is the single most repeated criticism across reviews, sitting well above both the standard Razr and Razr+ in Motorola's own lineup. Ingress protection at IP48 is a real step up from earlier Razr generations but still falls short of full IP68 sealing — and even within Motorola's own newer lineup, the Razr Fold edges it out on IP rating.

7. Tecno Phantom V Fold2

The Phantom V Fold2 won't match the polish of anything above it, but it's a genuinely credible book-fold at a fraction of Samsung or Google's asking price. GSMArena calls it "perhaps the most affordable foldable on the Indian market and maybe even outside India too," and build quality is the most consistently praised element — GadgetMatch credits an "aerospace-grade precision hinge" rated for 400,000 folds (up from 200,000 on the original V Fold) and measured it at 11.78mm closed, thinner than the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold6's 12.1mm. The camera system earned real credit too: the ultrawide jumped from 13MP to a genuine 50MP sensor this generation, and Android Central's testing specifically praised multitasking on the large inner display as "a pure joy to use." The honest, disclosed trade-offs: Android Central found the hinge "could use a bit of work" in daily feel, comparing it to the original Google Pixel Fold's stiffer motion, and GSMArena's biggest specific complaint was display brightness — both inner and cover screens share a single ambient light sensor with limited maximum brightness, which the review calls the single biggest turn-off of the whole package. Battery life was also described as genuinely "underwhelming" rather than merely average, and the MediaTek Dimensity 9000+ chip, carried over unchanged from the original V Fold, "feels a little dated." It's proof the category doesn't require flagship-tier spending to be usable, with realistic expectations about where the savings come from.

Which Should You Buy?

For a book-fold with no availability compromises, it's the Z Fold 7 or the Pixel 10 Pro Fold — pick based on whether you prioritise Samsung's camera resolution and thinner build or Google's superior battery life, dust resistance, and photo quality; note that Samsung dropped S Pen support entirely on the Z Fold 7, so that's no longer a differentiator either way. If budget is the deciding factor, the Phantom V Fold2 gets you into the category properly for under £750. For flip phones, the Z Flip 7 is the safe, excellent default, and the Razr Ultra is the pick specifically if you want to actually use the cover screen as a phone. The Mate X6 and X Fold5 are both genuinely superior hardware to everything else here on paper — but only worth chasing if you live somewhere they're actually sold, or you're comfortable importing.