Now, the biggest problem with foldable smartphones these days is RELIABILITY. And Samsung’s Z Fold series has always one-upped every other foldable in this particular category, and heck, they are the only one who has a fourth generation out and it is also available globally, unlike… some.
So now that I finally got my hands on the new Samsung Galaxy Z Fold4, here is my unboxing and my experience using this foldable smartphone after four days to find out whether or not this could potentially be your next or your first foldable smartphone.
Unboxing
Starting from the unboxing, as usual, the box comes in black.
As soon as you open the cover of the box, you will find a smaller box sleeve at the inner part of the box, where in there, there is the USB-C to USB-C cable.
The Warranty Card and other paperwork, the SIM ejector pin, and finally, the phone itself.
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Build Quality
Now to be fair, during my previous hands-on video, I felt like I did not have enough time to really experience the phone during the media experience, and having used the phone for several days, the utmost noticeable difference compared to the previous Z Fold3 is the WEIGHT of the phone.
I almost thought it was somewhat of a demo unit because we are looking at a drastic drop of weight, which on paper seems minor but trust me, you will feel the difference, and while the dimensions are also a bit smaller, but it looked very close to the Z Fold3.
So one of the main things that a lot of other smartphone manufacturers of foldables do is that they like to rave about how their phone closes flat, well this does not. But remember that this is the only foldable smartphone that has the official rating of IPX8 (Waterproof Rating).
The folding and unfolding mechanism has been improved, and this is also something that you will have to experience yourself to really tell a difference, because I have tested other foldables and some seem to feel like it’s going to break into half, but that was not the case when it comes to this Z Fold4.
Besides that, you will find the similar camera arrays and the port placements as the previous generation.
Now, there are several cases for the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold4 as well, which I’m planning on getting the Slim Standing Case, for me to have an easier way to let the phone stand by itself.
Display
Looking at the phone’s displays, at a glance, you might think there is no difference between this and the previous Galaxy Z Fold3, but you’d be sadly mistaken as it has a higher screen-to-body ratio of 90.9% compared to 88.8% on the previous iteration.
And if you are watching videos on the device, when you stretch the screen, it will fill up the aspect ratio instead of forcing a black bar at the top and bottom. So this means that you can really enjoy the Dynamic AMOLED 2X screen to its full potential, especially on how well Samsung has managed to “hide” the camera hole punch when you are not using the camera, which was super sweet.
Then the 120Hz refresh rate and 1200 nits of peak brightness were perfect when I was using the phone outdoors, especially since it’s extremely hot these days, so yeah that was great.
Camera
Then another huge complaint that a lot of people had on the Z Fold series was the cameras, as many felt like they did not give the foldables “the best” compared to the Galaxy S Series. Now, while the Z Fold3’s cameras performed exceptionally well during my in-depth review on that phone last year, Samsung has raised the ante by giving a bigger 50-megapixel camera compared to the 12-megapixel camera for the main lens.
So not only will you be getting some high resolution and high dynamic range shots, but from a video’s perspective, you can now record up to 8K resolution if you want to and based on my quick test shots, not only the rear camera lenses looked great but the under-display camera has also been improved with Samsung tweaking it further on the software.
And of course, I am planning to do a full video review or a dedicated review on the camera features on the Flex Mode. And of course, trying out the main lenses and using the rear camera as the selfie as well, so if you haven’t done so.
Other Specs
Now, looking at what else is new, firstly it ships with the latest Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 4nm chipset and it comes with my personal favorite Android Skin, which is One UI version 4.1.1 based on Android 12L.
And I am seriously loving this new taskbar option that gives it a sort of a desktop dock-like experience for your favorite and frequently used apps and it also loads super quick as well.
Speaking of loading apps quickly, not only it comes with 12GB of RAM but it also has the virtual RAM, also known as the RAM Plus to expand the RAM virtually up to 8GB using some storage of the memory.
And the unit that I have is the 256GB variant, which was way more sufficient for me, since most of my work and files are stored in the cloud anyway.
Touching into the topic of work, the better large screen optimization for apps like Microsoft Office and Google Meet especially working hand-in-hand with all the flex modes on the Z Fold4 has really enhanced my workflow.
The multitasking options was nice and so was the typing experience with the split keyboard, which got me used to it in no time. So yes, here is where I’ll go deeper into all the software features from a work’s perspective really soon as well.
Now, like the previous generation and all foldable smartphones, the battery is divided into two parts that helps with the thermal and better charging performance. It has a total of 4400 mAh battery.
Based on my regular usage for the past several days, I got an average close to 6 hours and 45 minutes and sometimes even more! So that was pretty neat and since I usually always charge my phone overnight, so before I head to bed, I’ll just put this on my wireless charger and I’m all set.
That’s a wrap… for now
So that’s the wrap of my four-day review of the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold4, now as mentioned, I’m planning to do more content to dive deeper into the cameras, talking about the workflows, both from a work and also an entertainment’s perspective as well. And I’m also planning to purchase the S Pen or even the S Pen Pro to use it on the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold4 as well, so if you haven’t done so. I will leave all the info on the pricing and current promo that Samsung is giving out at this point of time below and I will see you in my next video for my further reviews!
Get the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold4 at the link below:-
