I can’t believe it any more than you can, but it’s true: There’s finally a foldable phone that not only works, but actually makes sense.
After years of deriding the concept of a foldable as something tech companies are only doing because they can and not because they should, I didn’t expect much from the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4. Starting at the same $1,800 price as last year’s model, the Z Fold 4 is most certainly still a luxury item meant only for customers with deep pockets (or lots of older Samsung devices with trade-in value). But after using it for several days, I can clearly see a future where this kind of form factor is the norm for phones.
Samsung’s upgrades for the Z Fold 4 mostly lie in incremental changes to the phone’s size and multitasking features, but the end result is a device that could, one day very soon, spell the end for tablets as we know them.
Lightened up
The outer display makes it fully usable without unfolding the device.
Credit: Kyle Cobain / Mashable
One quick glance at the Z Fold 4 confirms that, in most of the ways that matter, it’s physically identical to its predecessors. It still has a long, somewhat narrow 6.2-inch outer display that functions as a normal smartphone screen when the device is closed. Opening it up, however, reveals a much larger 7.6-inch inner display that turns it into a miniature, folding tablet, with a backside that comes in one of three colors: phantom black, graygreen, and beige.
There are minute changes in the margins that wind up making the Z Fold 4 more pleasing to use in the long haul. The outer display is 2.7mm wider than before, while the inner display has received a 3mm width expansion, making both slightly more capable than last year’s Z Fold. That extra width on the outer display is especially nice as, otherwise, it would feel a little too narrow to compare to a regular smartphone. But as it stands, it’s only slightly narrower than my iPhone SE, making the transition between devices shockingly straightforward.
The Z Fold 4 is also eight grams lighter than the Z Fold 3, which makes it surprisingly easy to use one-handed, even when it’s unfolded. Overall, the in-hand feel of the Z Fold 4 is about as pleasing as could be, which feels like the result of Samsung spending four years gathering customer feedback and whittling the device down to what really works. As much as I’ve said foldables are pointless in previous years (I disliked the Galaxy Z Flip 3), it turns out there was value in Samsung getting in on the action early, sticking to the formula, and being persistent about it.
It’s not too thick when you fold it up.
Credit: Kyle Cobain / Mashable
As for the actual folding part of the phone, the hinge is marginally smaller than before (15.8mm vs. 16mm), but Samsung promises at least 200,000 folds worth of durability, for what that’s worth. It felt sturdy in my time with it, though my one complaint would be that it requires just a tad too much force to unfold. I found it difficult to fold and unfold the phone with one hand.
That said, the crease on the screen is barely noticeable, which eliminates one of my biggest fears about foldables. You can safely watch videos without fear of a big, weird indent carving the view in half.
Before moving on, here’s a more detailed view of the Z Fold 4’s specs:
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7.6-inch inner display; 6.2-inch outer display, both 120Hz
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4,400mAh battery with wireless charging
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Sub-6Ghz and mmWave 5G support
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12GB RAM on all models
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256, 512, or 1TB internal storage
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Qualcomm Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 processor
The e-reader I never knew I wanted
While the physical alterations to the Z Fold 4 are relatively insubstantial, Samsung did make a few key changes to the software that enhance its usability and, I would argue, justify the device’s existence.
While it seems little has changed with the outer display’s functionality (it works like a typical Android phone), the inner display has gotten a major enhancement in the form of a Windows-like taskbar along the bottom of the screen. The way it works is that any apps you have in the “home row” along the bottom of the home screen will automatically show up in the taskbar once you open an app, in the form of small, unobtrusive icons.
The new multitasking app taskbar.
Credit: Screenshot: Samsung
From here, you can simply tap one of the icons to open an app, or (this is my favorite part) drag it up to the main part of the screen and place it wherever you want to open it in a separate window alongside whatever app you already had open. For instance, if you’re reading an article in Chrome, you can drag Twitter up to the right side of the screen to have both apps open side-by-side vertically and share what you’re reading without switching windows. And from there, you can drag Spotify up to a corner of the screen so it only takes up a small chunk of the display while the other two apps remain open and usable.
You could multitask with three apps on previous Z Folds, but this new taskbar makes it so intuitive that the device practically begs you to do it. You can even press the home button to minimize all three windows at once, do something else, and then launch them all together like that again later. A very small number of apps (Chrome, Samsung Files, Samsung Internet, and My Files) will even let you open multiple instances simultaneously.
It’s all so eminently usable. I was effortlessly setting up my little three-window workspaces within an hour of first booting up the Z Fold 4. Again, you could technically do all of this before, but it wasn’t nearly as intuitive as it is now. The taskbar seems like a small change, but it totally overhauls the usefulness of the device itself.
Sometimes you have to read about both football and fictional apes at the same time.
Credit: Screenshot: Samsung
Even when you’re not multitasking, the Z Fold 4 makes a hell of a case for abolishing tablets. I found it extremely palatable as an e-reader, whether it was for books or news articles. On day one, I found myself reading NFL training camp reports (an inherently silly kind of news reporting about what football players did while wearing shorts at practice) and…actually enjoying it? There’s just something about pulling up an article on the gigantic 7.6-inch display that makes it much more pleasurable to look at than when I do the same thing on a little iPhone screen. I could almost convince random passersby that I’m engaging in intellectual pursuits instead of reading about NFL practices.
Of course, e-readers like Kindle and even comics-based ones like Marvel Unlimited are great applications of this tech, as well. And that’s not to mention the obvious: Watching videos on this screen is fantastic. Unfold the display, turn it horizontally, and you get a bigger, better view of any video than you’d find on any other smartphone. The display is bright enough that you can watch things outside in the sun, too.
And like I mentioned earlier, you can hold the phone with one hand thanks to its new lighter chassis, so I was able to watch videos in bed with the display fully opened up without any physical stress. The whole thing is just nice.
However…I would be remiss not to point out that the one thing that would make the experience better is not included in the package. And that’s the S Pen. I didn’t get to use an S Pen stylus with the Z Fold 4, but obviously, there are plenty of reasons why it would be nice to have one. Doodling, real art, or just everyday activities are all easier with a stylus, but Samsung isn’t including one in the package. It’s sold separately for $50. Blech.
Plenty of horsepower
You can lay it out like this, too.
Credit: Kyle Cobain / Mashable
The Z Fold 4’s excellent UX is enhanced by its strong performance profile. Put simply, there are no hitches to speak of in everyday use of the Z Fold 4.
Everything opens and loads quickly, and this is only enhanced by both displays having 120Hz refresh rates for that extra smooth look. What’s most impressive is that you can have three app windows open at the same time without the device giving off any impression that it’s buckling under the stress of you doing that. It’s truly impressive in this regard.
This is matched by more than adequate battery life. My Z Fold 4 went from a full charge to a “Yo, you need to plug this in!” warning after about 24 hours of heavy use that involved web browsing, streaming music and videos (both over WiFi and 5G), and a significant amount of social media consumption. One stress test that impressed me was when I went out for a walk to take photos while streaming music and videos using 5G along the way. After an hour, the phone’s battery had only dipped by 12 percent.
In other words, this is a high-performing phone that won’t give out on you as long as you plug it in once a day or so. Between that and all its great usability features, Samsung’s got a winner here.
Crackin’ cameras
The Z Fold 4 likely won’t be the professional photographer’s smartphone of choice, but its triple-camera array on the back (in a pill-shaped bump) is close enough to the Galaxy S22 Ultra to take plenty of gorgeous shots:
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50MP main lens (vs. 108MP on S22 Ultra)
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12MP ultrawide lens (same as S22 Ultra)
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10MP telephoto lens (same as S22 Ultra)
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10MP selfie cam (vs. 40MP on S22 Ultra)
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4MP under-display selfie cam (when unfolded)
I didn’t have an S22 Ultra on hand for side-by-side testing, but ultimately, the photos taken on the Z Fold 4 look great.
Look at those pretty blues and greens.
Credit: Alex Perry / Mashable
I was particularly pleased with the telephoto lens, which gives you plenty of options (i.e., 2x, 4x, 10x, and so on up to 30x zoom) to play with. Shots get blurrier the higher up in zoom intensity you go, but some of my best shots were taken with 4x zoom. They can be so clear that you’d have no idea I was 10 feet away.
This shot was taken in 4x zoom.
Credit: Alex Perry / Mashable
Of course, it’s worth playing with 30x zoom just to see what it looks like. The results are predictably blurry, but I’m still impressed by just how far it can go. Here’s me at street level with 1x zoom.
Wait til you see it…
Credit: Alex Perry / Mashable
And here’s a 30x zoom shot taken from the exact same place.
Here’s what 30x zoom can do.
Credit: Alex Perry / Mashable
Of course, Night Mode is also a nice inclusion that brightens up shots taken in dark settings. I’d still go with a Pixel phone to get the best nighttime shots from an Android device, but these will do just fine. Here’s a shot without night mode turned on.
Night mode off.
Credit: Alex Perry / Mashable
And here’s the same shot with night mode on.
Night mode on.
Credit: Alex Perry / Mashable
You can barely tell it’s nighttime in the second shot, but that’s fine. The result is brighter and more pleasing to the eye.
Ultimately, even if the camera specs on the Galaxy S22 Ultra are a little bit better, people who throw down $1,800 on a Z Fold 4 won’t be disappointed with the cameras on offer here.
No contest
It’s a little tough to place the Z Fold 4 into a competition with other phones because of its unique form factor. There just aren’t a lot of foldable phones sold in North America right now. So if you want something that can function both as a conventional smartphone and as a tablet, the Z Fold 4 is really your only bet right now.
The closest comparison would be the now-discounted Microsoft Surface Duo 2 at $1,000, which separates two screens with a hard buffer between them rather than cutting one screen in half with folding tech. It’s a different approach that nonetheless has much of the same multitasking heft as the Z Fold 4 and more total screen space, at the expense of inferior cameras and the lack of the outer display you get with Samsung’s device.
Other phones that cost north of $1,000 you might consider instead of a Z Fold 4 include Samsung’s own $1,300 Galaxy S22 Ultra, a far more conventional device that not only comes with an S Pen, but has a built-in storage slot for the stylus. Simply put, stylus lovers should probably go with the S22 Ultra instead, but just know that you won’t get any of the fun, big-screen multitasking action you get with the Z Fold 4.
And of course, there’s the iPhone 13 Pro, which starts at $1,000 and goes well above that once you start including flourishes like extra storage space. You probably won’t find a better mobile camera system on the market right now (until Apple makes another iPhone), and that’s something the Z Fold 4 just can’t hope to match at the moment. Apple’s top-of-the-line performance (thanks to its in-house chips) is also something to consider. But as I’ve covered, the Z Fold 4 is certainly no slouch when it comes to performance.
But really, the Z Fold 4 is the only phone that does what it does. Apple, Google, and Microsoft can’t yet claim that they have anything equivalent on the market. It’s as simple as that.
In the lap of luxury
I like just about everything about the Galaxy Z Fold 4. For the first time in four years, I finally understand what Samsung is trying to do with its foldable line. This is a high-quality Android smartphone that can transform into a high-quality Android tablet with hardly any effort. It brings a unique, unmatched combination of excellent performance, great multitasking features, and a rock-solid camera system to the fold (pun intended). You just won’t get all of that from any other device right now.
Unfortunately, $1,800 is a big ask, especially in these hard economic times. Unless you’ve got a boatload of Samsung trade-in credit, it’s going to be hard for most people to justify this purchase right now. It’s truly a shame because I think this is an excellent device that proves the future is now. We don’t need tablets anymore because we have this. It’s awesome.
And it’ll be even more awesome in five years when more devices like this exist and they likely don’t cost nearly as much anymore.
