Samsung’s most premium foldable was just given a new refresh, including a new version of Android, smaller bezels, a stronger and brighter screen, along with a refresh with the batteries.
The first of the changes were made to the cameras. Samsung gave the Z Fold 4 a brand new 50MP main sensor (which bins down to 12MP), along with a 10MP telephoto lens, and a 12MP ultra wide. Early reviews have stated that the new sensors on the back, coupled with Samsung’s A-grade image processing, lead to images which rival those taken on the S22 series, along with Apple’s iPhone 13 lineup. However, Samsung has also decided to keep the slightly disappointing in-display front-facing camera. It is using the same hardware from last year – a 4MP lens, and none of the image processing in the world can replace a good lens. The 10MP lens on the cover screen remains and the display can be used as a viewfinder for the main lenses, so not much is lost.
Unfolded, the Galaxy Z Fold 4 houses a massive 7.4 inch display, which is both brighter, and stronger than last year’s model. The display has a variable frame rate from 1Hz up to 120 thanks to LTPO technology. The Z Fold 4 runs on Android 12L, made for tablets, and big screen devices and Samsung showcased some of its new features such as a new taskbar on the bottom of the display, support for 3 app split-screen, along with drag-and-drop support across the UI. Unfortunately, the crease is still very much visible on the Z Fold 4. Most people won’t find it to be particularly irritating but when viewed under direct sunlight, it can become an eyesore quickly.
The Galaxy Z Fold 4 is powered by the new Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 chip (at this point just call it the 8 Pro), and comes with 12GB of RAM. The base model comes with 256GB of storage (Take notes Apple), but can be upgraded to 512GB or 1TB. As the phone is currently running on pre-production software, I would suggest taking any benchmarks you see with a grain of salt.
Finally, Samsung seems to have shifted their view of the power user from a Note user to a Z Fold user, as it now supports S-Pen, although with a case as there is no holder in the phone for it.
The Galaxy Z Fold 4 starts at USD$1799 at 256GB of storage, at goes all the way up to USD$2159 when springing for the 1TB model. There are 3 colours available, Graygreen (which I quite like), Phantom Black (which is boring, but I also like), and Beige (The most boring name for the most bold colour).
When people think of foldables, they think of Samsung’s Z Flip and Z Fold line. The competition is stark, and Samsung holds a clear stronghold on the market. Sure, there are a few devices that pop up now and then, but none of them have ever reached the kind of household name that the Galaxy Z line has. That being said, after the shaky launch of the original Fold, Samsung has really fallen into a good rhythm of introducing minor updates with each edition, and this year’s Z Fold 4 has been developed with exactly this in mind.
Keep an eye out for my Z Flip 4 impressions!