Review of the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold4

Flip phones have advanced significantly. They're amazing folding pieces of gear today, not the bulky bricks with a keyboard and a little screen. But are they all gimmicks, or do they have grit? Now, it's time for our Samsung Galaxy Z Fold4 review to dive deep into one of the top competitors in the foldable market.

Of course, a number of factors determine whether the Galaxy Z Fold4 ranks among the best Samsung phones or the best foldable phones. Therefore, be sure to have a look at our how we test breakdown if you're interested in learning more about our methodology and the qualities that we value most.

Advantages:

• Beautiful set of OLED screens
• Feature-loaded software
• Top-notch performance
• Reliable cameras

Cons:

• Unless discounted, the price is too aspirational for the masses
• Camera performance can’t do justice to the hit on wallets
• The odd screen aspect ratio spoils games
• Lack of proper dust and water resistance

Availability and cost

When the Galaxy Z Fold4 was first released, the basic model with 256GB of inbuilt storage was priced at $1,799 (£1,649). However, because the upgraded Galaxy Z Fold5 is now available, major online and physical stores are offering the Galaxy Z Fold4 at significant price reductions as well as time-limited sales.

Details

Galaxy Z Fold4 specifications:

Design

Both the Galaxy Z Fold4 and its forerunner, the Galaxy Z Fold3, are not all that unlike from one another. The exterior shell is made of metal and Gorilla Glass Victus, and the proprietary UItra-Thin Glass (UTG) shields the inside cover display. This indicates a well-built product. It's as good as smartphone engineering gets, but it's not flawless.

The phone has a thin wedge between its two halves, which makes it simple for fluids and particles to enter. Furthermore, it only has IPX8 certification, which implies that although it hasn't been proven to withstand dust, it can withstand a few splashes and a quick submersion in water without damaging its circuit board.

A microSD card port and a headphone jack are absent from this device. The right edge of the power button has an inbuilt fingerprint sensor. It is dependable, quick, and free from the problems that under-display fingerprint sensors often have.

The built-in selfie camera is another awesome feature. It is the under-display kind, meaning the lens peeps through without a physical cutout on the display. Rather, a circular section of the display that modifies its transparency to let light through is where the camera sensor is placed. The pixel array in this dot-shaped zone resembles the rest of the screen while doing daily operations; you only notice it when you examine its mosaic-like appearance closely.

If you can get beyond the Galaxy Z Fold4's increased weight and thickness, it's a wonderfully designed piece of hardware overall. However, it's also a gadget that will undoubtedly draw more attention than just about any ordinary phone available.

Display

The Galaxy Z Fold4 is equipped with a 7.6-inch QXGA+ folding screen on the inside, while the cover display is a 6.2-inch HD+ OLED panel from Samsung. The maximum refresh rate offered by both screens is 120Hz. The cover display can only decrease to 48Hz, however the inside display's refresh rate may adaptively drop to 1Hz to save battery life, depending on the work at hand.The inner screen has a peak brightness of 1,200 nits, which is sufficient to make material visible in clear daylight with very little difficulty in reading. Using emails and reading articles on either screen came easily to me. Vibrant colors, excellent contrast, and appropriate viewing angles are all present.By adjusting the temperature and color profile of the display, you may further modify its functionality. I like viewing films and playing games on the inner folding screen, so I didn't change anything. It's also an interesting experience to transform a state-of-the-art $1,799 gadget into an enhanced Kindle for book reading.No matter how you angle your view, the crease is still very much there. I became used to its presence in a matter of days, since I was occupied with viewing material on the internal display and multitasking between open apps. However, you really have to treat this phone like the proverbial queen since the hardware is very brittle.Indeed, applying pressure causes your nails to create a small, permanent depression on the inside display. The mark is clearly visible, yet there is no harm to the pixels. However, this fragility has many facets. After speaking with service and repair specialists at authorized Samsung stores located in many locations, I learned that a seemingly little impact might cause the hinge components to become misaligned. Additionally, since the hinge assembly and foldable screen are coupled, customers often get units where a single component has to be replaced, necessitating the costly replacement of the whole display-hinge kit.

Photography

With a price tag less than half that of its foldable sister, the Galaxy S23, has essentially the same camera arrangement as the Galaxy Z Fold4. Still, the outcomes are striking. By default, the main 50-megapixel camera on the Galaxy Z Fold4 captures 12-megapixel pixel-binned images. The images have a decent dynamic range, excellent contrast, and a bit too exuberant approach on saturation. They are crisp.Even when shooting close-up macro images, focus lock is precise and fast. In addition, the 12-megapixel ultrawide camera offers the vibrant colors and, happily, no annoying edge distortion that characterize Samsung color processing. Nonetheless, there is a discernible color difference between images captured with the main and ultrawide sensors.The 10-megapixel telephoto camera provides well-stabilized images with plenty of colors, crisp edges, and depth, and it has a 3x optical zoom capability. The algorithms manage to provide acceptable color reproduction while making up for the lost details, even at up to 10x zoom settings.The main and telephoto cameras provide clear portraits with strong subject separation and a decent quantity of surface details. Although the Galaxy Z Fold4's edge recognition is not quite as precise as that of the iPhone 14 Pro and the blur effect is a little harsh, the enhanced saturation and contrast make the portrait photos seem more vibrant.While night mode is comparable to that of iPhones, it doesn't have the same magical effects as those of Pixel phones or even the Galaxy S23 Ultra. However, if there's enough light and your hands are stable, setting the capture window to maximum may provide some stunning low-light images.In terms of taking selfies, you have two options: you can use the 10-megapixel front camera on the cover display, or you can utilize the back camera array by turning on the cover preview function and seeing through the outer display as a viewfinder. The front camera works well on its own, but if picture quality is your first priority, the latter option is unquestionably the best one.Selfies have somewhat warmer skin tones than they really do, but they still have plenty of details and excellent texture preservation. While the images from the internal 4-megapixel under-display camera likewise have a vivid color profile, the details are crushed and the sharpness is not quite as great. Fortunately, there is still a significant visual quality difference that the other person won't notice when you use it for video conversations.You may see the variations in image quality by looking at the images above.By all standards, the Galaxy Z Fold4 isn't a bad camera when it comes to taking videos. The foldable phone produces movies that are similarly vivid and well-stabilized, with plenty of details and colors. If you like vlogging, the ultra steady mode does a great job of eliminating hand tremors and producing fluid footage with no appreciable quality loss. The primary camera can record movies at up to 8K 24 frames per second, but the ultra steady mode only allows for 4K 60 frames per second, which is still rather good.The Galaxy Z Fold4's focus hunting, exaggerated highlights, and poor stability are shortcomings as compared to the iPhone 14 Pro. Positively, however, there are many of camera gimmicks to experiment with, like hyper-lapse video, director's perspective, and super slo-mo. All things considered, the Galaxy Z Fold4 provides a satisfying photography experience, while falling short of monsters like the Galaxy S23 Ultra.Features

Selling a phone for $1,800 is no small feat, even if it has a brilliant tablet-like screen hidden within. Because Samsung is fully aware of this, it has developed a few cunning techniques that transform the Galaxy Z Fold4 into a real computational powerhouse.The first benefit is DeX, which has been available for some time but really shines when used with a Samsung tablet or foldable phone. I powered an FHD display with DeX supplying the computing infrastructure, all I needed was a USB type-C connection. DeX works well on a big screen if your whole workflow environment is restricted to Chrome (or any other web browser) and applications that are also accessible on the Android platform.In my instance, I used Slack, Asana, Trello, Discord, and image editing programs like Adobe Photoshop Express or Snapseed, mostly Chrome with a dozen tabs open at any one moment. Even with three or four app windows open at once, the experience remained seamless thanks to Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 processor.There is more to be gained from the Galaxy Z Fold4 if you like this aspect of it. The renowned "Apple ecosystem" benefits that prevent ardent supporters of macOS and iOS from leaving the walled garden of conveniences are actually surpassed by the Galaxy Z Fold4.I think the Phone Link app—which connects to a PC's "link to Windows" system—is the most noteworthy advantage. In essence, it turns your PC into an app-driven virtualized environment where you can use the whole One UI software suite on a bigger screen. This implies that you may use your Galaxy Z Fold4 to answer calls, send messages, browse Instagram, and use almost any other loaded app. However, all of the mobile activity now takes place on a laptop or monitor screen.Additionally, this partially bridges the gap left by AirDrop for Windows 11 and Android-powered computers. For instance, you may browse the whole gallery on your PC screen and copy any necessary material using the Phone Link app, eliminating the need for Bluetooth, emailing, or Quick Share. App scaling restrictions do exist, of course, and for good cause. Imagine using 27 inches of screen real estate to run Instagram in a 3:2 or 16:9 aspect ratio.The fact that the Galaxy Z Fold4 provides such ease via a wireless method is a little surprising. It also functions as a second screen for your Windows computer. Although I wouldn't want to use a full-featured Windows software on a 7.6-inch screen, it's still very amazing to see that you can use the Samsung foldable phone as a small monitor by utilizing the pre-installed Smart View technology.In my situation, I mostly utilized the phone's internal foldable display for non-essential functions like monitoring Twitter or managing Spotify music playing. Once again, it's a wireless benefit, and all you need to do to manage pairing and casting is to use the Ctrl + K key. All things considered, the Galaxy Z Fold4 is the most functional phone of its type, and its sticker price becomes much more reasonable if you can use it for both work and pleasure.

Game play and performance

Thanks to Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 SoC, the Galaxy Z Fold4 performs on par with other leading Android devices. If you're not fixated on benchmark numbers, the phone will perform flawlessly on almost every job you assign it. I played a good number of Call of Duty: Mobile matches, but at the highest graphics settings, I lost almost all of them.No matter the size of the tablet, playing games on an Android device isn't the most pleasant experience since your wrists become tired easily from the weight of the device. Due to its weight and shape design, the Galaxy Z Fold4 seems to be featherweight when compared to other prominent tablets.However, the form factor confers some disadvantages as well as a certain set of benefits. First of all, the cover display is a little too tiny to play games on, which becomes an issue for titles with a lot of on-screen controls. Furthermore, when the phone is folded, it is not very kind to your fingers, and after playing games for 15 to 20 minutes—whether with one hand or both—you start to feel the pain.With all the power under the hood to dominate gaming, the Galaxy Z Fold4 is now ready to take on the next high-end smartphones in the future years. However, depending on the game you're playing, the unusual cropping caused by the inner foldable display's 21.6:18 aspect ratio may ruins the whole experience.For instance, the gameplay view on either side is chopped off when the game grows up vertically in competitive multiplayer titles like Call of Duty: Mobile and Apex Legends. Naturally, with these kinds of games, you really need as wide of a panorama as you can to watch out for attackers that can be hiding around the corners, thus the Galaxy Z Fold4 really hurts your chances.Positively, it's simpler to identify objects and aim at opponents due to the greater vertical vision. However, this advantage is only available in a few games, while cropping is a pain in both the eyes and the hands both.Other than its physical flaws, the Galaxy Z Fold4 played all of the games I tried at their highest graphical settings by default. Furthermore, it maintains optimal performance for prolonged gaming sessions without suddenly lowering the screen's brightness, regardless of the display you choose.Frame rates are steady, and games that surpass 60 frames per second provide a very immersive visual experience on the internal foldable screen. But this Samsung product is once again plagued by the form factor. Foldable phones have a limited amount of space within their chassis, so even with a flagship chipset inside, there isn't much room left over for a robust vapor chamber cooling system.After running a synthetic workload scenario on the Galaxy S23 Ultra and the Galaxy Z Fold4, have a look at the CPU throttling graph. In order to control the heat, the foldable phone's CPU depleted to 66% of its maximum capacity. In contrast, the Galaxy S23 Ultra had a much later decrease and, after a short throttling period, began to rise in the performance rankings.The Galaxy Z Fold4 thus has a tendency to run hot. After just around 15 minutes of Genshin Impact gameplay, the CPU temperature rapidly rises to 50 degrees Celsius. Additionally, the phone becomes heated when taken on a picture excursion, particularly while recording video. It doesn't become hot enough that you'd want to immerse it in ice, but you have more heating problems with it than with a standard slab phone.Positively, there was no sudden throttling, and even under a constant load, peak performance only decreased gradually, making it almost hard to detect while doing daily duties. Although I run two or three programs at once in windowed mode, I never bother cleaning the background apps, and I have not had any stutters or instances of unresponsive apps.

Programming

Samsung's One UI Android skin has a reputation for being very controversial. Some detest it because of the advertisements and bloatware, while others are devoted to the extensive set of options it provides. This may seem controversial, but after used foldable phones from Tecno, Oppo, and Motorola, I can state with certainty that One UI is much superior to any available Android skin. Functionally speaking, it surpasses the capabilities of a vanilla Android experience by leaps and bounds, similar to what is offered by Google's Pixel phones.But first, let's talk about the glitches. The UI pieces actually are cramped by the tiny outside display. For example, the Galaxy Z Fold4 has to make modifications, so you see fewer postings while on a standard phone's screen you might see three or four tweets at a time. Additionally, the keyboard seems small, and typing on it isn't really enjoyable whether you use the built-in keyboard or an alternative like Gboard or SwiftKey.The productive potential that the Galaxy Z Fold4's internal 7.6-inch screen offers, however, is why you purchase it. I tried the phone, which runs Android 13 and One UI 5.1. My goal is to highlight the unique features that Samsung provides on its foldable phone. The Edge Panel, which holds your most frequently used applications and a ton of additional productivity features that you won't find on many Android phones, is at the top of my list of favorites.It appears as a vertical pillar when swiped inward from the left or right side, revealing a column of seven applications. Another row of selection tools (such as shape choose and GIF screen recording) may be seen by sliding over. This is followed by fast activities (such as voice recording, alarm controls, and screen recording), clipboard objects (text and multimedia), frequently used contacts, weather information, and reminders.Every piece in the set is highly customisable. It even retains the pairs of split-screen apps. For instance, the Edge Panel forms an app pair if you often use Gmail and Docs in split-screen mode. To start your app pair side by side in either half of the screen with the desired aspect ratio for each app window, just slide open the Edge Panel the next time you unlock the Galaxy Z Fold4.When it comes to app windows, One UI 5.1 provides more options than any other large-screen device available, including the powerful iPad and Android tablets. Every program window may be resized at will. If you've always fantasized about having a smartphone, you can even change the transparency of the app windows.You can make an app's window practically translucent if you're limited on screen space. I wasn't too fond of this approach, but if you really wanted a third-party program to always be visible, you could force it into pop-up mode, which causes its symbol to always show on the screen at a reduced size. Tapping on the icon launches the app in a floating window.The pop-up view allows you to have as many applications as you'd like. When many applications are minimized in this manner, a single touch displays a pill-shaped tray containing all of the apps for easy choosing. If an app doesn't support split-screen mode, you may manually activate it for any app by going to the Labs section located in the advanced features portion of the settings.Actually, it's a rather handy convenience. Consider Twitter as an example. The user interface seems distorted when you launch the program on the internal display. The aspect ratio becomes too narrow when it is divided in half. You may, however, achieve as near to a standard 9:16 or 19.5:9 aspect ratio as a typical slab-shaped smartphone if the window is freely resized.Then there's flex mode, which allows you to use the phone like a laptop while modifying the user interface. For instance, when you launch the camera app in flex mode, the camera controls are on the bottom half of the screen, parallel to the surface it is put on, and the viewfinder is moved to the vertical half of the screen.You need go no further than Samsung Good Lock if you want to delve even farther into the personalization maze. Its degree of customization is just unmatched in the ecosystem of smartphones. You may enable back-tap gestures, tweak the appearance of the quick panel, set up diagonal edge motions to manage the user interface, and even completely redesign the settings app to suit your needs.All things considered, the One UI 5.1 experience is what really sets the Galaxy Z Fold4 apart from the competition and makes it a mobile productivity powerhouse that pushes the limits of what a smartphone can do.The Galaxy Z Fold4 will get four yearly Android version upgrades and security patches over a period of five years, which is another enormous advantage. Thus, it should last you five to six years if you can maintain your phone in excellent condition.

Life of battery

You can go through a whole day with the Galaxy Z Fold4's 4,400mah dual-cell battery. I read on it, played Diablo Immortal for a few hours when flying or on my daily commute, and took a ton of pictures with it. Even at the end of the day, when I was connected to a 5G network, I never ran out of battery life. But be prepared for some quick depletion if you use the phone for video conversations and leave the internal foldable screen showing material at a refresh rate of 120 Hz all day.The phone learns your use pattern and adjusts performance, thermals, and battery absorption appropriately. During this early period, battery consumption is a little erratic. But the problems with the batteries ought to disappear in a week or two. After turning on low-power mode and lowering the refresh rate, the Galaxy Z Fold4 often lasts through a full day with an average screen duration of around five hours.A full charge takes over 80 minutes, and fast charging, with a 25W cap, may fill up half the tank in around 30 minutes. Although it's not the quickest, it makes up for it with reverse power sharing and compatibility for 15W wireless charging. I like how easy it is to charge the Galaxy Buds 2 Pro by just placing them on the back of my phone.

Judgement

As foldable phones go, the Galaxy Z Fold4 is the best. In addition, compared to the Galaxy Z Fold5, you can easily obtain it for less money given since it is a generation older. When the phone is folded shut, the wedge gap is the only significant drawback. Given the price you pay for it, it's also concerning that it lacks adequate water and dust protection.By alone, the Galaxy Z Fold4 offers two stunning displays, strong cameras, feature-rich software, and dependable battery life. This contest is won by the form factor, but features like DeX, Link to Windows, and Smart View make it a productivity monster that outperforms the competition. And the Galaxy Z Fold4 won't let you down if you can get it for a price that's far less than the list price.

Replacements

The Galaxy Z Fold5 is the most apparent replacement for the Galaxy Z Fold4. You can read more about it in our Galaxy Z Fold5 review. However, if you'd rather avoid the Samsung ecosystem, the Google Pixel Fold is your best option since it costs around the same and provides the well-known Pixel experience in a foldable design.As an alternative, the Honor Magic Vs is a little less expensive choice that has an incredibly thin design and powerful technology.Regretfully, it isn't officially accessible in the US, and even if you are able to get one there, you won't have any help if something goes wrong with your device.However, if you're only looking for the best foldable phones in terms of convenience or conceit, you can check out the Razr 40 Ultra from Motorola, the Oppo Find N2 Flip, and Samsung's Galaxy Z Flip5 without breaking the bank. Click on the links to see each of the distinct options.Galaxy Z Fold5: Google Pixel Fold: Honor Magic versus:Alternate Locate N2 Flip:Razr 40 Ultra Motorola:Galaxy Z Flip5: That concludes our evaluation of the Galaxy Z Fold4. Consider getting one of the best phone cases to preserve this beauty and any other new phones you intend to purchase from our guides to the best gaming phones, best AT&T phones, or best OnePlus phones. Additionally, why not sign up for one of the top Mint Mobile plans while you're there?