Samsung Galaxy Z Fold4 5G review - Improved foldable smartphone shatters dreams of foldables

At first glance, the Z Fold4 looks hardly any different than its predecessor. However, the newly designed hinge of the foldable smartphone reduces the weight minimally to 263 grams (~9.28 oz), and it also allows Samsung to keep the IPX8-certified case slightly slimmer. But at almost 16 mm (~0.63 in), the Fold4 is still significantly thicker than a Xiaomi Mix Fold 2 at 11 mm (~0.43 in). There is also still no integrated S Pen slot as in the Galaxy S22 Ultra. 

The workmanship and haptics of the Fold4 are at a very high level. Compared to the Fold3, the slightly edgy transition between the hinge and glass elements was improved, but it is still noticeable in the current generation of the foldable. Unfolding the Fold4 is very easy and feels very high-quality. In the Flex mode, you can adjust it to any variable angle between 75 and 115 degrees. 

While users still shouldn't mistreat the inner display of the foldable with pointy objects such as keys, with the fourth generation of the Fold series, Samsung promises more robustness. While it still has the Armor aluminum frame known from the predecessor and the Gorilla Glas Victus+ in the front and back, the flexible dynamic AMOLED panel is now also covered by a newly developed ultra-thin glass layer, which according to the manufacturer is supposed to be up to 45% more robust. With its new mosaic pattern, the under-display camera (UDC) of the Fold4 looks less annoying than that of the predecessor, but it is still visible. Looking at the center of the screen, it is well integrated into the image display, but when you look at it closely, the area with the thinner subpixels is easily noticeable, particularly with a white background. While this solution is more discrete compared to a punch hole, an even thicker pixel grid above the camera would have been better for the OLED panel. 

Compared to the Fold3, the bezels around the display have become slightly slimmer. The display-to-surface ratio of the large 7.6-inch panel is a very efficient 90.9%. The Z Fold3 "only" reached 88.9% here, which was still very good.

The wide range of GNSS support of the foldable smartphone allows the satfix to succeed very quickly even indoors. The location is determined via GPS (L1, L5), GLONASS, BeiDou (B1, B2), and Galileo (E1, E5), as well as SBAS. In order to evaluate the locating capabilities in practice, we record a route for comparison with the Garmin Venu 2. 

The deviations in our recorded route are small. The detailed route of the GPS recording shows only smaller inaccuracies of the Fold4, but those shouldn't stand in the way of even exact navigation tasks.   

Thanks to its dual-SIM functionality, the Galaxy Z Fold4 supports two Nano SIM cards, as well as VoLTE and WLAN calling. Instead of the SIM cards, you can also use one or two eSIMs simultaneously.

In quiet surroundings, the voice quality is very attractive, and the speaker mode also allows clearly understandable communication with your conversation partner during video calls. Even though the voices of the conversation partners sound fairly natural using the speaker, the Fold4 is very quiet in loud surroundings. 

Friends of selfies can even have three times the fun with the Galaxy Z Fold4 – at least in theory. Underneath the main display, Samsung has hidden an under-display camera with 4 MP, which allows taking solid pictures, but the results still aren't very good. The results are better with the 10-MP punch-hole lens of the exterior display. In good light conditions, it succeeds in taking contrast-rich selfies with a decent illumination. However, those who want to get the best results will want to use the main camera in the unfolded state, looking at the front panel as the view finder. 

The new 50-MP main camera is based on the ISOCELL GN5 sensor from the Samsung Galaxy S22 (Plus). The 1/1.57-inch Samsung sensor impresses with attractive colors and a solid sharpness in daylight conditions. However, particularly the dynamic and richness in details don't range at the flagship level. We also aren't very impressed by the sensor sensitivity under bad light conditions. In this regard, there has to be a larger improvement with the next smartphone generation.    

In addition, the triple camera system includes a new 10-MP camera with OIS and lossless 3x zoom and a 12-MP lens for ultrawide angle recordings. The latter should be identical to that in the Fold3, which is unfortunate, since we would have liked a better ultrawide angle sensor here as well, considering the price level. The tele lens with its nominally low resolution takes decent pictures, but the edges appear blurry, offering only few details already at a 5x hybrid zoom. 

You can record videos in 8K resolution at 24 fps or in 4K at 60 fps. You can also switch between the lenses while recording a video. The color temperatures of the main, wide angle, and tele camera are well-adjusted to each other.

The box of the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold4 doesn't include a charger, but there is a data or charging cable (USB-C to USB-C) and a SIM tool. Optionally, Samsung also offers the S Pen Fold Edition and a standing cover together with the S Pen, as well as the S Pen Pro.

Samsung offers a warranty of 24 months for its smartphone. When you purchase the foldable, Samsung Care+ is again included for a year, so it is limited to damages occurring within this period. Some specific accidental damage such as broken displays and damage from liquids is covered. According to the warranty conditions, there is a deductible of 130 Euros (~$128) in the case of accidental damage. 

The main reason to decide for purchasing a Galaxy Z Fold4 would probably be the large, 7.6-inch dynamic AMOLED display with a dynamic refresh rate of 1 to 120 Hz. However, the main display uses a minimum refresh rate of 24 Hz during our testing period. The "DRM Info" app reports a range between 10 and 120 Hz. The resolution of 2,176 x 1,812 pixels results in a fairly square 21.6:18 format. Compared to the predecessor, the maximum brightness has again slightly increased. 

With a full white image display, we measure a maximum brightness of 950 cd/m². In the APL18 measurement with light and dark image areas, it is 1,226 cd/m² in the center of the screen. This makes the HDR10+ panel very well suited for the reproduction of contents with a large dynamic range. Although a Galaxy S22 Ultra can reach an even higher brightness of almost 1,800 cd/m², the Fold4 still performs at the flagship level of other manufacturers here.  

The seam in the folding area is still easily noticeable, but only if you look at the panel from a side angle. We do not notice any visible advantage compared to the predecessor in this regard. 

In contrast to the Galaxy S22 Ultra, buyers of the foldable also get a Qualcomm chipset in Europe. The Snapdragon 8+ Gen1 is supported by 12 GB of LPDDR5 working memory and also contains an Adreno 730. 

In our CPU benchmarks, the Galaxy foldable strikes a good figure but still remains slightly behind the Snapdragon 8+ Gen1 competitors. Particularly in the multi-core score of Geekbench, it turns out worse than the Xiaomi 12S Ultra or Asus Zenfone 9.

With the newest version of the Galaxy Z Fold series, the Korean manufacturer again succeeded in creating a powerful foldable smartphone. Compared to the Fold3, the Fold4 offers several improvements, but Samsung remains behind our expectations with its foldable series this year. The Samsung smartphone looks just like the predecessor and also feels very similar. So with the 2022 Fold model the latest, we get the impression of a stagnation for the foldables from the Korean manufacturer, since the following complaints about the predecessor weren't really addressed: 

The very visible UD camera of Fold3 is again used almost unchanged, although some other manufacturers such as Xiaomi with the Mix 4 or ZTE with the Axon 40 Ultra have already shown that it can be done better. The display seam of the Fold4 also still looks very present, even though Vivo, for example, hardly shows any seam in the folding area of its X Fold. Even though Samsung has reduced the case thickness and weight of Fold4 slightly, Xiaomi already shows impressively this year with the Mi Fold 2 where this development should go. The advertised "Super Fast Charging" technology at 25 watts also looks almost quaint in a 1,800-Euro smartphone in 2022.  

Long software support and robust hardware. Those who are looking for a foldable smartphone can safely choose a Fold4 without any concerns. 

However, aside from our complaints, the Fold4 is still a very interesting choice for those who love foldable smartphones, also because there is a lack of any real competition. The real value of the Samsung foldable depends on the value the individual user places on the unusual format ratio of the main display in everyday operation.   

The only real alternatives to the Galaxy smartphone can be found in imported foldables from China. Here, we could mention the Oppo Find N, the Xiaomi Mi Fold 2, and the Vivo X Fold. Even though you can also get a Huawei Mate Xs 2 in Germany, due to its well-known software restrictions and the high price considering the overall package it is not a good option.