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.

Apple iPhone 14 Pro / Pro Max - Apple Makes Another Run at Smartphone Supremacy

I was asked a very interesting question the other day; "So what is the best phone right now?"

Seems like a simple thing to ask - especially of someone who spends all his time fooling around with as many of the latest handsets as he can set his hands on. But as I was about to answer I found myself pausing... there are a lot of phones out there. They all have their strengths and weaknesses and every user has different requirements.

What matters most to you? Camera performance? Durability? Battery life and charging options? Do you want lots of RAM and a super-fast processor? Or does it just need to be a cool colour?

Oh, and budget is probably the major factor, of course.

See how quickly a simple question can get complicated?

To make matters worse, Apple has four new phones in the mix...

Not that I'm complaining. I've talked about the sheer pleasure of unboxing a brand new Apple device before and that experience has not dimmed in the slightest with the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max. Sublime is the adjective that springs to mind when you first unseal these fine examples of precision engineering.

The first feature to really catch my eye was the back glass; it has a matte, fingerprint-resistant finish and on my review units is coloured Space Black on the Pro and Apple's new colour for 2022, Deep Purple on the Pro Max. Both have a luminescence to them - an effect I was first aware of when Apple brought out its green iPhone 13's. The Deep Purple is particularly fetching - in some lights it seems almost black while its matching stainless steel rail around the edge is a little lighter. This is not an in-your-face colour choice. Instead, it exudes luxury and elegance.

That being said, the iPhone 14 Pro Max is a weighty beast indeed. Bear in mind; the two Pro models are essentially the same phone apart from screen and battery size. However, that 6.7-inch display and larger battery mean not only is the Max bigger but it also weighs in at 240 grams over the Pro's 206 grams. To call it a brick would diminish how beautiful it is although it does kind of feel like a brick when you pick it up in one hand.

For many of you, that digital workout might well be worth it for the extra screen real estate. Unlike some other, long and skinny large-screen handsets, the Pro Max maintains the aspect ratio of the 6.1-inch Pro, so not only is it longer, it's wider too. And this year we see Apple ditch the notch around the selfie-cams in favour of a more subtle cutout instead. This means an even more usable display on both devices which is akin to sensory overload, given the exquisite nature of these Super Retina XDR screens, with their oh-so-responsive ProMotion abilities, offering refresh rates up to 120Hz.

A big talking point with the iPhone 14 range has been Apple's decision to reserve its new A16 Bionic chip for the two Pro models, while the standard iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus are powered by 2021's A15. I touched on this in my iPhone 14 review, quick to point out the performance of this "vanilla" model still blasts most other comers out of the water. That said, you can only imagine how thrilling it is to put these Pro versions through their paces. The A16 Bionic features a 6-core CPU, 5-core GPU and a 16-core Neural Engine. I don't really understand what that means in much the same way as I don't really know what any of the individual components of my car's engine do. What I do know is these phones simply fly - from gaming to filming, to editing to downloading, installing and launching apps, as usual for iPhone, everything just works. With these phones though, it all works instantly.

Back to that new cutout at the top of the screen. By now if you've been following any iPhone news at all, you've probably heard about or even seen the new Dynamic Island interactive widget. This transforms the otherwise blank oval surrounding the front-facing camera and face sensor into something a lot more interesting to look at and perhaps something genuinely useful too. The list of apps and functions capable of utilising the Dynamic Island is exploding as we speak but mostly it's about giving you quick access to things that are running in the background - for example, audio playing, timers running or even active phone calls.

When these sorts of activities are happening, you'll see animated icons appear on either end of the Dynamic Island. A long tap on it will likely bring up a useful temporary control widget at top of the screen, so you can play, pause or skip - or maybe take your caller off hold. A short tap will instantly open the app involved - all without any extra swiping or other navigation. It's definitely more than just a gimmick and I've already found myself using it quite a bit - almost intuitively - especially to control my music and podcasts.

Another new feature Apple has introduced to the 14 Pro's is one we've seen on other phones and devices for years; Always On Display. Personally, I can't think of anything worse than having my screen on all the time and I've never understood why people love it so much. But then, I was a very early smartwatch adopter so I'm used to getting notifications on my wrist, without having to look at my phone at all. Apparently other (normal?) people like the ability to see what's coming and going on their phone with a quick glance at the lock screen.

Although late to the party on this one, Apple being Apple has jumped on board AOD with both feet and has decided it doesn't need to be a limited, black-and-white, simplified version of the lock-screen. AOD on the iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max means full-colour, fully operational, just significantly dimmed to preserve battery life. Not only that, in combination with the latest iOS, there are some fun effects you can play around with if you set a portrait photo as your wallpaper - placing it behind the clock and widgets when the phone's asleep, bringing the picture to the foreground when you wake it up.

I've read varying reports on how much the new AOD feature affects battery life and that's how it is with battery life - how long is a piece of string? All I know is the battery life on these two phones is easily the most impressive of any iPhone I've used to date and outshines quite a few flagship phones from other manufacturers too.

I highlighted Apple's latest crash-detection technology in my recent Apple Watch Series 8 review and rest assured, you get all those features here as well.

But camera performance is likely to be the main reason most users choose to spend a few hundred dollars extra for an iPhone Pro and again, these handsets a truly another step ahead. There are significant upgrades across the board - from the Ultra Wide camera with a sensor almost twice as big as last year's - to the 3x Telephoto lens that now offers a vastly improved zoom experience, especially now Apple has released an update to remedy the widely publicised issue some early customers were experiencing with third-party photo apps allegedly causing the camera module to rumble, grind and shake. 

I never experienced this, although I encountered a different frustration at my daughter's university graduation last week. As you can imagine, this is an event where photos are pretty important, so it was rather alarming when the camera app froze completely on more than one occasion. This happened when I was attempting to zoom in across the poorly lit audience at the indoor arena hosting the event. Each time I had to restart the camera app to continue shooting. Luckily, it didn't seem to affect the more well-lit pics of the action on stage. I'm also confident the next update will sort this niggle too.

Some fairly extensive online research has suggested a few other people have run into similar issues at other indoor events. It seems odd because all other aspects of the camera performance are truly remarkable - including low-light shooting thanks to what Apple calls its Photonic Engine. As I understand it, this uses all the information it can get its hands on; multiple images and even uncompressed footage to produce brighter, more colourful shots than ever.

There's also a new Action Mode which takes the iPhone 14 Pro's digital stabilisation to another level.

The front camera has been zooped up too - now capable of autofocus and also utilises the aforementioned Photonic Engine for improved low-light selfies.

I could go on and on. Weirdly, just as with the base iPhone 14, the Pro and Pro Max have also been accused of "not being that much better" than their predecessors. Again I'll point out, most users aren't professional phone critics who update their handsets every five minutes. Besides, I've just spent about 1500 words (far, far too many) discussing the many and varied ways these phones have in fact been improved.

Are they the best phones money can buy? At around the NZ$3000.00 mark for the highest spec, 1TB models, you'd certainly hope they're right up there. They're definitely the best phones Apple has ever produced and that's saying something.

    

Click here for more information and pricing on the Apple iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max.