Samsung Galaxy Z Fold4 - One Device for All Your Hybrid Requirements?

Since working from home and then hybrid working came into vogue, we've all been re-evaluating our tech tools and probably wondering the same thing; "There must be a better way of doing it than this..."

Hands up if you've been lugging one, some, or all of the following items between office and home...

Work phone.

Laptop.

Modem/router.

Webcam/mic.

Keyboard.

Monitor.

Surely the technology now exists to pare that list down a bit? Indeed it does. Well, technically anyway.

The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold4 is a hybrid device uniquely suited to this new hybrid world.

By now most people have seen or at least heard of the Fold and the Flip. Samsung has been heralding the foldable form-factor as the new way of doing things and four generations in, it doesn't feel quite as new to those of us who've played with every Fold to date - but that's a good thing.

When I first laid my hands on the original Fold, I nearly dropped it because I was so worried about dropping it. It seemed a precious, delicate, almost experimental thing and I am an oafish, clumsy, almost barbaric thing - not a great combination.

Times have certainly changed as far as durability goes. The Fold4 is IPX8 water-resistant which is pretty nuts, given how many moving parts are involved in making this thing work. The side rails are tougher, the glass on the external display is harder than ever and the matte finish on the rear panel keeps unsightly fingerprints to a minimum and helps this previously super-slippery device feel only really slippery instead. (My review handset is an attractive Greygreen, but there are also Phantom Black and Beige variants available)

Alas, even the 2022 version of the Fold is still not really what you'd describe as "pocketable." When closed, it's definitely narrow enough to hold in one hand but it's still basically as thick as two "normal" handsets, taller than many and pretty darn heavy. In fact, I usually just stick my phone in the pocket of my running shorts when I take the dog out for a walk. With the Fold4, I certainly have to make sure my drawstring is tied tightly otherwise the weight of the phone could easily cause my pants to fall down.

Obviously, it's 100% more pocketable than a 7.6-inch tablet would be - and that's still the main point of the exercise.

But before we unfold, let's focus on that external display for a minute. Samsung has upgraded this 6.2-inch screen again - it now stretches right to the very top, bottom and sides of the Fold4's cover. It's a Dynamic AMOLED 2X panel worthy of any flagship, with a fully adaptable refresh rate - up to 120Hz but dropping down automatically when not required to preserve battery life. This "adaptive" mode seems to work well and if you enable Developer Options in the settings menu, you can even choose to display the refresh rate so you can see exactly which apps and operations use more or less.

The problem is, this cover screen is now far too good. I don't know the exact percentages but I'd suggest I use the outer screen without unfolding the Fold about ninety percent of the time. How weird is that?

It's possible this is because I'm still training myself to take full advantage of the wonders that lie within. Samsung has been working hard to optimise its UI to take full advantage of the tablet-like screen real estate available on the internal display. The experience is now much more akin to a PC or laptop desktop - when you open an app, a taskbar of recently used and favourite apps appears at the bottom, meaning you can quickly jump from one to the other. Of course, split screen for multiple apps works a treat and you can pair apps to open that way from home-screen shortcuts. 

Many apps have now been modified to display in two halves - not just the camera app which can display controls below the fold and your live preview side-by-side with your recent shots and videos above. Things like the settings menu now displays in two columns. Many Microsoft Office 360 apps work in this side-by-side mode as well. This is productivity personified. Or something.

Weirdly, Instagram is still a bit of a fail, stubbornly refusing to reformat itself to the much wider, unphone-like display. Instead, your feed simply presents itself in the middle of the screen with huge blank spaces on either side. Meanwhile, apps like Netflix totally nail it, instantly reformatting to the big display or swapping to a wider, shorter aspect ratio if you half-fold the device for standalone viewing. I guess the app developers will all get on board eventually.

There are so many great mobile video editing apps around these days and the internal display on the Fold4 certainly provides an excellent palette for that kind of creativity. Like this year's Galaxy S22 Ultra, the Fold4 is also compatible with a specially-designed S-Pen stylus. Unlike the S22 Ultra though, the S-Pen does not yet slot inside the Fold4 itself - you'll need Samsung's purpose-built case for that. Maybe next year.

Before you get too excited, I have to report there's not much improvement on the crease front - you can still see it and feel it but as I've commented in my previous Fold reviews, you really do forget it's there after a while.

The other area of major improvement is photo performance. Until this year I'd always been confused by Samsung's reluctance to include a genuinely premium camera module in such an expensive device - doesn't the highest-end of all high-end phones deserve a high-end camera too? Well this year they've got it pretty right; a 50MP + 12MP + 10MP tri-lens configuration on the back, including 3x optical zoom. A 10MP selfie-cam at the top of the cover display and a 4MP under-display camera on the internal screen.

The external cameras are great - offering most of the same features as the other Samsung flagships; great app, good video stabilisation and vastly improved low-light or "nightography" performance. That under-display camera is still kind of quirky though. It's a major improvement on last year's effort; the 2021 pics and vids weren't really of useable quality. The 2022 effort certainly provides good enough video for your average online staff meeting. I just don't fully understand why Samsung is so married to this concept - if you haven't seen it yet, the camera works by peering out of the display through an area on the screen where the pixels have been spread out - this is more visible with some colours than others but my real question is; why is it where it is? If you're holding the Fold4 so the crease is running vertically, the under-display camera is a the top-centre of the right-hand half - so three-quarters of the way across the screen.

I get that they can't have it under the fold but this display rotates for almost every app - why wouldn't you put the camera in the middle of the long side, similar to a laptop? - especially if you have the phone half-folded to make use of the split-screen controls. This way you'd be more likely to be looking the camera right in the eye, rather than staring off to the side.

Of course, for quality selfies you can still do the classic Samsung foldable trick; use the primary shooter with your preview on the external display.

Some of my colleagues have complained about mediocre battery life with the Fold4 but my experience has been the complete opposite. I suspect they've been using the Fold for gaming a lot more than I have - something that's more appealing than ever now you can stream Xbox games via Microsoft's GamePass and cloud-gaming service. That means more screen time, pairing a Bluetooth controller and probably wireless earbuds too - all that will drain any battery. As for me, the Fold4 still shows about 70% charge most nights when I go to bed.

As you can tell, I'm generally extremely impressed with this device. The displays are a modern miracle, the cameras have been upgraded dramatically and the UI is receiving more optimisations with every update. There's only one thing stopping me from writing this review with it; even with a 7.6-inch display, I can't force myself to use an on-screen keyboard. Sure, I could pair a physical, Bluetooth set of keys but that wasn't really the point of the exercise, was it?

That said, I'm constantly amazed at many other people's ability to tap out long missives on-screen and if you're one of those talented mini-typers, it's possible the Fold4 truly will fulfil all your mobile computing needs.

    

Click here for more information and pricing on the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold4.