But how much of a difference is this iteration making to the usability of the Galaxy Z Fold 4? Should this be your first foldable purchase? Let’s find out in our full review.
Maturing hardware
We’re basically looking at the third-version of the same hardware for the Galaxy Z Fold 4. There have been some changes, like making the sides flat with the Galaxy Z Fold 4, making the camera bump thicker, and moving the camera under-display on the main display. Among other things. But for the most part, hardware is the same as the Galaxy Z Fold 2 from 2020. That’s not a bad thing. Samsung’s hardware is top-notch, and Samsung continues to make iterative changes to it. There were two big issues I had with the Galaxy Z Fold 2 and 3, and that was their weight and their display aspect ratios. Let’s talk about that weight. Samsung has shaved 8 grams off of the Galaxy Z Fold 4. That’s not a huge deal, considering it is still 263g. That’s almost 40g more than the S22 Ultra, which is a big and heavy phone too. But you can notice the difference here. Samsung also shaved the dimensions of the phone when it is unfolded by about 3mm. Which makes it easier to hold onto, and makes both displays a bit easier to use. The hinge is a bit smaller now, so there’s a smaller gap, but still a gap here. Which is kind of crazy to think about when there are foldables out there like the OPPO Find N that has no gap at all. Samsung also still has that crease down the middle of the screen, which, to be honest, doesn’t really both me on the Fold 4. It does on the Flip 4, but we’ll talk about that in the Flip 4 review. Do I wish it wasn’t here? Of course. But is it a dealbreaker? Not at all. Overall, the hardware here on the Galaxy Z Fold 4 is exactly what you’d expect from Samsung, and more importantly, it feels like a Samsung phone.
Wider displays
One thing that Samsung really talked about a lot in our briefing ahead of Unpacked, was the fact that the Galaxy Z Fold 4 is 3mm shorter on the long edge. That means that the Cover Display is actually a bit wider (thanks to that and smaller bezels). That also means that the Cover Display is easier to use, since it’s not so incredibly narrow. I actually found myself using the Cover Display a lot more often here than I did on the Galaxy Z Fold 3. Because it was actually easy to use for typing. Making it 3mm shorter also means that the main display is a bit less of a square aspect ratio, but it’s still mostly a square. Officially, 21.6:18 aspect ratio. And that was my number two complaint on the Galaxy Z Fold 3. That inner display is almost a square, which means using one app, it’s stretched out quite a bit so things like Reddit, Zillow and Twitter look really odd. And if you put two apps side-by-side, they are super skinny, like the Cover Display.
Luckily, with software, you can now use Pop-Up View on the Galaxy Z Fold 4, so you are able drag the corner and make the window as large or small as you want. And you can also have multiple windows open. I didn’t use Pop-Up view all that often, but it is nice to have there. It works better on Samsung’s tablets – which it is a feature on the Galaxy Tab S8 from last year.
The quality of these displays is pretty good. The main display is feeling less and less like it’s plastic, but we know that it is still plastic. That is because glass can’t fold, because it’s glass. So we’re getting closer to a foldable feeling like a regular phone, but not quite there. One other thing we need to talk about is the cameras. The Cover Display has a hole punch camera, which is pretty small, and since that display is so tall, I really don’t notice it much. On the main display, Samsung has its under-display camera, which is still 4-megapixels and not a good one. But they have said that they’ve made it blend in better with the display. Which is true. It’s not completely gone, you can still see it, but you’ll see it less often.
As you can see in the image above, the camera is still there, but you really only see it on lighter backgrounds.
Battery life is just decent
Despite the Galaxy Z Flip 4 getting a nice 12% increase in its battery size, the Galaxy Z Fold 4 is using the same 4400mAh capacity battery as the original. See what I mean by, it’s basically the same as the first and second-generation Folds? 4400mAh is pretty small in 2020 actually. To put it in perspective, the Galaxy S22+ has a larger battery (4500mAh) with only a 6.6-inch FHD+) display on-board. Let alone two displays. Of course, we can’t fault Samsung too much here, putting a battery into a foldable is very different from a smartphone. For one, you need to put a battery in either side of the phone. Which then limits the space for the battery. So there’s still some engineering that needs to be done to get great battery life out of a foldable. I had to go back and look at my Galaxy Z Fold 3 review from last year, because I thought for sure battery life was worse this year. But it’s actually largely the same. I was able to hit 6 hours of on-screen time on the Galaxy Z Fold 4, but that seems to be the exception not the rule here. Other days, it was closer to 4 or 5 hours. Which doesn’t really cut it, especially on a device that is meant to be a productivity powerhouse. For a lot of people, this might be fine. But for nearly two grand, I’d expect more than just four or five hours of on-screen time on my phone. Especially when almost every phone I’ve reviewed in the past year gets closer to eight hours or longer. The other issue here is the charging. Samsung is sticking to 25W charging on the Galaxy Z Fold 4. And we all know why, so I won’t mention it here. But coming from the OnePlus 10T which charges from 1 to 100% in just 20 minutes, the Galaxy Z Fold 4 charges painfully slow. If it were able to get through a full day without needing to baby it, then I probably wouldn’t care. But on busy days (like travel days), you probably will need to charge at some point during the day.
Upgraded cameras are actually surprisingly good
The cameras on the Galaxy Z Fold 4 have been upgraded, in some senses. The main sensor is now a 50-megapixel sensor, the telephoto is now 10-megapixel (it was 12-megapixels), and the ultrawide is the same 12-megapixel as last year. At first, before I started using the Galaxy Z Fold 4, I expected that the main sensor would steal the show. Knowing how good the Galaxy S22 cameras were earlier this year, I expected that camera to work really well. But it was actually the telephoto that stole the show for me.
You see, the telephoto can do macro shots, and it does them well since its 3x zoom and you don’t need to be super close to the object. I feel that this is a better approach then using ultrawide for macro like the iPhone 13 Pro series, or the OnePlus 10 Pro does. Using telephoto means you’re further away, to let in more light, and that’s definitely true here. Below, you can see some macro shots that I took with the Galaxy Z Fold 4, and I must say, I was impressed with almost every single shot. Now for the main sensor. It is a 50-megapixel sensor, but by default, it bins that down to 12-megapixels. Which means you’re getting about four images overlayed. This allows for better detail and batter pictures overall. That’s exactly what I got with the Fold 4. Pictures from this lens are still a bit oversaturated for my liking, I still prefer the color science from the Pixel. But these photos are not bad, at all. Then there’s the ultrawide. There’s really not a lot to talk about here with the ultrawide sensor. It takes some pretty good ultrawide shots and that’s about it. Unlike the telephoto, it’s not pulling double duty here. The colors are pretty good, though I do wish it had a wider field-of-view like the old LG smartphones would do. But other than that, it’s pretty good. The cameras on the Galaxy Z Fold 4 are pretty good (with the exception of the under-display camera). They aren’t the best, and I wouldn’t expect them to be on a foldable that already costs $1,799. But they are usable for basically any shot you can think of. I still can’t believe how good the macro shots are on this thing, though.
Software optimized for a folding display
Surprisingly, software got a huge upgrade here, compared to when the Galaxy Z Fold 3 came out last year. That is actually thanks to Google and its Android 12L release from earlier this year. Android 12L was an update to Android 12 that was aimed to make foldables like the Fold 4, work better on that larger display. The biggest difference you’ll see here is the taskbar. It gives you a desktop like experience on your Fold 4. It makes it easier to switch between apps, without going home, and honestly I really like it. The taskbar is really useful, because you can drag apps from the taskbar onto the screen and open them with ease. So you don’t need to do app pairs anymore. But that’s still available. There’s also Pop-Up View, allowing you to swipe down from the corner of the screen to resize the size of the window for the app. And you can have multiple windows open at the same time. Samsung also lets you save it as a shortcut, so you can reopen this group of apps whenever you want. This is really nice to have if you are watching a baseball game while scrolling on Twitter at the same time.
Flex Mode was another feature that got better with Android 12L. Now, in apps that don’t directly support it, you get a multi-finger, gesture-based trackpad on the part of the phone sitting on the table, or whatever surface you are using. This is great for watching YouTube, as you have a larger surface for scrubbing through the timeline to jump to a spot that you want to watch. And the improved hinge here, means that Flex Mode stays up a lot better.
A lot of apps don’t really support Flex Mode, but you can force them to work. Which basically pushes the app to the top part of the screen and uses the bottom to give you a few buttons for pulling down the notification shade, taking a screenshot, adjusting brightness and volume, and to turn it into a trackpad. So not perfect, but better than nothing. In some Samsung apps, Flex Mode works a lot better. For example in the camera app, you will have a scrolling carousel of your recently taken pictures on one side and the camera viewfinder on the other. Flex Mode is mostly a gimmick for me, it’s not something I’ve ever used outside of for a review. But on the Galaxy Z Flip 4, it’s a lot more useful, due to that form-factor. On the Fold 4, not so much.
It’s good to see these optimizations, making the Galaxy Z Fold 4 a bit better to use. Though it’s still a tough one to sell me on with that square main display. It’s great for things like Google Maps, but Reddit, not so much. And then there’s Instagram. Instagram has always been a royal pain on the Galaxy Z Fold devices. And with the Fold 4, it’s still a pain to use. By default, it will open in a 18:9 aspect ratio (like a regular phone), and you can move it from the middle to the left or right. Now, in Samsung’s settings, you can force it to go fullscreen (like I’ve done). Which isn’t a great experience either, as the pictures now take up the entire display, and you have to scroll through each one. Meaning, each picture does not fit completely on the display. Finally, Instagram does not work in multi-window mode at all, you can’t even force it into that. So yeah, Instagram is still terrible on foldables, and that will likely never change. Good thing Instagram is alienating its users in other ways and forcing them over to competitors.
Should I buy the Galaxy Z Fold 4?
I really like the Galaxy Z Fold 4, but it’s still hard to recommend it to a lot of people. Firstly, because of the $1,799 price tag here. That’s still tough to swallow for most people. Even though you’re getting a phone and tablet in one, and this does come in cheaper than getting a Galaxy Tab S8 and a Galaxy S22 Ultra. Even though Samsung thinks foldables are mainstream, I don’t think they are. Foldables only represent a 0.5% of the market right now, which is pretty small. And there’s still a number of caveats here like the weight, the size, the fact that most cases aren’t great on this one, among other things. So should you buy it? I’d say only for those that are tech nerds. Should your mom or dad buy it? Definitely not. It’s cool, but they will get annoyed with it really quick.
